Tag Archives: Home Sales

Investor participation dropped drastically in July, reversing a trend of long-term growth in investor purchases of residential properties. According to the report, investor activity in the housing market fell to 21.9 percent of all transactions in July, down from 23.5 percent in June. July's decrease also established a two-month trend of declines from May's two-year peak of 25.3 percent.

The California Association of Realtors (C.A.R.) is not the only state-specific realtor group to be suspicious of FHFA's REO-to-rental initiative involving the bulk sale of REO inventory to institutional investors. The Florida Realtors stated that it has ""expressed concerns to The National Association of Realtors (NAR) about the issue and is requesting member feedback on how the FHFA bulk sales issue affects the Florida market.""

After seeing some of the worst of the housing crash, Florida is continuing its steady bounce back, Florida Realtors reported Wednesday. According to the group, the Sunshine State saw increases in pending sales, closed sales, and median prices in July, while inventory of homes and condos for sale dropped.

Lack of inventory continues to stunt pending home sales in California, according to the California Assocation of Realtors' (C.A.R.) most recent home sales report. The shortage has specifically impacted REO sales, which dropped both yearly and monthly.

This year's second quarter saw the largest quarterly growth in home prices in nearly seven years, according to FHFA's purchase-only home price index (HPI). The agency reported house prices rose 1.8 percent from the year's first quarter to the second quarter-the largest growth since the fourth quarter of 2005. In addition, distressed sales in the market fell to 29.1 percent, a sharp drop from the first quarter's 38.3 percent share.

According to Freddie Mac's weekly Primary Mortgage Market Survey (PMMS), the 30-year fixed rate mortgage (FRM) averaged 3.66 percent (0.7 point) for the week ending August 23, up from 3.62 percent the previous week. The 15-year FRM also slid up, averaging 2.89 percent (0.6 point). A week ago, the 15-year fixed averaged 2.88 percent.

New home sales regained all the ground they lost in June, jumping by 13,000 to an annualized rate of 372,000 in July, the Census Bureau and HUD reported Thursday. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg expected the report to show a sales pace of 362,000.

A recent analysis from John Burns Real Estate Consulting suggests that investors may be the biggest driving force in the housing recovery. Across the 167 metro areas analyzed by the company, investor activity as a share of all transactions rose to 29.6 percent in the first quarter of 2012, up from a low of 23.6 percent in the last quarter of 2009.

Existing homes sale rose to an annual rate 4.47 million in July, the National Association of Realtors reported Wednesday. Economists had expected the sale pace to be 4.51 million. The increase 100,000 was less than half of the 250,000 drop in the sales pace registered for June.

Fannie Mae's Economic & Strategic Research Group issued its latest economic outlook, maintaining its expectations for modest growth in 2012. This news comes in spite of reports of strengthening retail sales and job growth in July. The group pointed to dismal news throughout the first half of the year as reasoning for its unchanging outlook. However, even with slowing job growth, global and domestic economic uncertainty, and a decline in consumer spending, things are not anticipated to get worse.