Housing Wire

NOVEMBER 25, 2020

The average U.S. mortgage rate for a 30-year fixed loan remained unchanged at 2.72% this week, Freddie Mac said in a report on Thursday – the second week in a row rates have sat at the lowest recorded level in the survey’s near 50-year history. The average fixed rate for a 15-year mortgage also remained unchanged from last week at 2.28%. After another week at the record low, there have now been 18 consecutive weeks when average mortgage rates have been below 3%.

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Miller Samuel

NOVEMBER 21, 2020

This weekend's New York Times Real Estate Calculator column provides a visualization of the recent rental market results in The Elliman Report: October 2020 Manhattan, Brooklyn & Queens Rentals. The Manhattan changes were the most interesting to me - record highs set for the vacancy rate, concession market share, concession amount, yoy% change in median net effective rent overall, studio, 1-bed, & 2-beds.

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DW Slater Company

NOVEMBER 27, 2020

Photo by Sasha Prasastika from Pexels. We hope that you had a wonderful Thanksgiving. In a year with so many challenges and uncertainties, it was good to spend time with family, although it be distanced or virtual, and reflect on all that we are thankful for on Thanksgiving Day. “Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more.

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McKissock

NOVEMBER 23, 2020

Successful investors tend to buy and sell multiple properties in a short period of time—and work with the same agent to do so—meaning this could be a steady stream of income for you. Want to become their go-to agent? Consider these seven tips. 1) Learn the language of real estate investors. Investors discuss things like ROI, cap rates, 1031 exchanges, cash-on-cash returns, and net present value.

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Housing Wire

NOVEMBER 25, 2020

The pandemic has shifted the pecking order of the real estate industry’s location-location-location axiom for many homebuyers — high-cost and high-density urban is out, while suburban is back in vogue and rural is experiencing a bit of a revival. Many real estate investors were serendipitously ahead of this shift even before the pandemic started, driven by both affordability and an affinity for overlooked markets.

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Real Quantum

NOVEMBER 24, 2020

WEBINAR |What Lenders Want in a Commercial Appraisal Report. December 3, 2020 12:00-1:00 CST. CATCH THE REPLAY. DURATION: 1 HOUR. FORMAT: LIVE & INTERACTIVE. Agenda. Lenders receive commercial appraisal reports daily, but are your reports falling short? With business picking back up, it’s never been more important to put your best foot forward in order to keep your business thriving.

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McKissock

NOVEMBER 24, 2020

The pandemic has brought on a surge of migrations. Some people have moved on to larger properties or more sprawling, suburban neighborhoods in hopes of better social distancing. Others have taken advantage of record-low mortgage rates and bought their first homes. Still, others have made the leap to be closer to friends and family. In fact, according to recent surveys from the Pew Research Center , a whopping 22% of Americans said they’d either moved or know someone who did during the pandemic.

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Housing Wire

NOVEMBER 24, 2020

The Federal Housing Finance Agency announced new conforming loan limits for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for 2021: $548,250. This is a 7.5% increase from 2020’s limit of $510,400 and marks the fifth consecutive year of increases from the FHFA. In 2016, the FHFA increased the Fannie and Freddie conforming loan limit for the first time in 10 years, and since then, the loan limit has gone up by $131,250.

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Real Quantum

NOVEMBER 24, 2020

4 Ways to Motivate Your Commercial Appraisal Team. I t is no easy task to motivate your commercial appraisal team and keep their morale high during a pandemic, the holidays and Q4. However, it should be a priority. Finishing the year strong will set your team up for a much-deserved break before hitting the ground running in the new year. Here’s how: 1.

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REX Real Estate

NOVEMBER 24, 2020

With mortgage interest rates at an all-time low, now is the time to invest…

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McKissock

NOVEMBER 24, 2020

On Wednesday, December 9, 2020, McKissock Learning is hosting a FREE one-hour, non-credit Pro-Series webinar titled “Fannie Mae Q4 2020 Appraisal Update.” In this special interactive webinar, knowledgeable presenters from Fannie Mae’s Collateral Policy Team will share the latest policy updates impacting appraisers, share insight about appraisal quality and how it is measured by Collateral Underwriter ® (CU), and dispel some common myths pertaining to Fannie Mae’s appraisal policies.

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Housing Wire

NOVEMBER 23, 2020

Auction.com ‘s Distressed Market Outlook report for the fourth quarter shows a pick-up in demand for distressed housing, with a 24% increase in completed foreclosure auction volume in September. In addition, the foreclosure sales rate is at a seven-year high, and REO bids-per-asset are at an all-time high. . The report notes that widespread foreclosure moratoria in place do not apply to legally vacant or abandoned homes.

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Housing Wire

NOVEMBER 23, 2020

As mortgage rates sta y below 3% for the 17th consecutive week, a Black Knight report released Friday found that the number of “high quality” refinance candidates continues to climb. According to the report, a whopping 19.4 million homeowners are now in a position to save through refis – the most in history. Black Knight’s report views prime candidates as 30-year mortgage-holders who have at least 20% equity in their homes, credit scores of 720 or higher, are current on their payments and who st

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Housing Wire

NOVEMBER 25, 2020

This article originally appeared in FinLedger , HousingWire’s sister-publication focused on Fintech. Residential due diligence is an area of the mortgage ecosystem that’s overdue for disruption, according to two industry veterans who want to offer something completely different in the due diligence space through their newly launched company, Canopy.

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Housing Wire

NOVEMBER 25, 2020

After two weeks of decreasing numbers, mortgage applications increased 3.9% last week, according to a report from the Mortgage Bankers Association. Refinance applications climbed even higher. The refinance index jumped up 5% from the previous week and is now up 79% over last year’s totals from the same week. The seasonally adjusted purchase index increased 4% from one week earlier, while the unadjusted purchase index decreased 2% compared with the previous week.

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Housing Wire

NOVEMBER 24, 2020

Title fraud continues to grow, seeing sharp increases in the third quarter of 2020, according to the latest report from FundingShield. FundingShield’s Q3 2020 Wire and Title Fraud Analytics report shows a 31.5% increase in wire verification and ownership issues. “The risk of wire and title fraud in the closing and settlement space persisted and grew in certain risk concentrations during Q3 2020,” FundingShield stated in its report.

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Housing Wire

NOVEMBER 24, 2020

Over the weekend, CoStar Group announced that it has agreed to acquire real estate tech company Homesnap. The acquisition was made for $250 million in cash and is expected to close by the end of this year, pending closing conditions and review, according to a release. The addition of Homesnap will increase the number of brokers and active agent users on CoStar’s platforms from approximately 100,000 to over 400,000, the company said.

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Housing Wire

NOVEMBER 24, 2020

The battle for CoreLogic ’s board continued on Tuesday after Senator Investment Group and Cannae Holdings , who attempted an unsolicited takeover bid of the company this summer, initiated a written consent process to remove and replace additional directors. CoreLogic shareholders voted on Nov. 17 to replace three of the 12 current directors with the investment groups’ nominees, but the two investor group have said they need a “safeguard” to make sure the process moves forward.

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Housing Wire

NOVEMBER 25, 2020

Venture-backed residential brokerage Compass has hired bookrunners ahead of an independent public offering in 2021, according to a new report. Compass, most recently valued at $6.4 billion, is working with Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to underwrite the IPO, according to Bloomberg , which cited anonymous sources. Like other real estate companies of late, SoftBank-backed Compass has benefited from low interest rates and changing consumer behavior that’s driven new home purchases across t

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Housing Wire

NOVEMBER 21, 2020

Taken from the October/November issue of HousingWire Magazine, Sundae aims to aggregate demand from “fix and flippers,” who use the marketplace to bid against each other for distressed properties. Earlier this year, the company raised $16.55 million in Series A funding. QED Investors led the round, which also included participation from PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund , Susa Ventures , as well as a group of unnamed real estate and fintech investors and entrepreneurs.

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Housing Wire

NOVEMBER 24, 2020

This year’s 2020 list of Housingwire Tech Trendsetters certainly earned their status as the housing industry was met with incredible challenges and new opportunities. This diverse group of tech professionals helped to bring about the long-awaited modernization of the housing industry. Some would even say that it’s tech trendsetters like these who have helped to not only stabilize, but propel the housing economy even in the worst of circumstances.

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Housing Wire

NOVEMBER 23, 2020

Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson said he’s “out of the woods” after experiencing severe symptoms related to a positive COVID-19 diagnosis earlier this month, according to a MarketWatch report. Carson, 69, credited a botanical treatment derived from the oleander plant for his “dramatic” improvement after he began feeling ill, he said in a post on Facebook.

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Housing Wire

NOVEMBER 24, 2020

The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller index covering home prices of all nine U.S. census divisions rose 7% in September from a year ago, the greatest year-over-year gain since 2014, and nearly 23% higher than its last peak in 2006. The September increase was also greater than the 4.8% uptick reported in August, and represented the largest annual gain since May 2014 as record-low mortgage rates and a lack of inventory continued to put upward pressure on home prices.

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Housing Wire

NOVEMBER 25, 2020

Sales of new homes rose to an annualized rate of 999,000 in October – 0.3% below September’s 1,002,000 revised rate but still a massive 41.5% higher than the same time last year, according to the Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. With October’s data in, new home sales have had the strongest three-month stretch since mid-2006, with each month falling just short of 1 million.

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Housing Wire

NOVEMBER 23, 2020

As we prepare to enter 2021, our country has lost more than 250,000 people and over 22 million jobs during the 2020 pandemic. Millions of others have suffered from COVID-19 complications, both health and economic related. At the same time, the housing market has shown surprising resilience , with price growth and home sales rising to new heights. How is this possible?

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REX Real Estate

NOVEMBER 25, 2020

Hold up, how are we already halfway through November!?

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Housing Wire

NOVEMBER 23, 2020

The U.S. forbearance rate measuring the share of mortgages with suspended payments increased for the first time in nearly five months from 5.47% to 5.48%, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. The U.S forbearance rate has either fallen or remained flat since forbearances decreased for the first time in the series history on June 22. According to the MBA, last week’s increase was largely driven by an imbalance of more people entering than exiting forbearance plans.

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Housing Wire

NOVEMBER 25, 2020

Sometimes keeping things simple makes the message more clear. I have been consistent in my stance that during the years 2008 to 2019, we had the weakest housing recovery ever. I said that housing starts would never start a year at 1.5 million until we reached the years 2020-2024. Only then would we see enough demand from the new home sales market to warrant that much construction.

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Housing Wire

NOVEMBER 24, 2020

In November, the state of Washington was placed in a second lockdown until Dec. 14, a move that suspended open houses , although private showings are allowed with no more than five people. What is this second lockdown going to do to the red-hot Seattle housing market? A November study from Lombardo Homes found that it was the most competitive market in the country, with 71% of homes selling in under two weeks and the average time on the market at about 10 days.

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McKissock

NOVEMBER 27, 2020

Here at McKissock, our Unlimited Learning Members enjoy 24/7 access to a wide array of online resources for real estate appraisers. These include appraisal job aids, checklists, classes, videos, whitepapers, recorded webinars, and more. Below are seven excellent job aids available right now in our membership toolkit. If you already have an Unlimited Learning Membership, you can access all of these appraisal job aids for free under the “Resources” tab in your membership dashboard.

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Housing Wire

NOVEMBER 23, 2020

President-elect Joe Biden plans to nominate former Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen to be the next Treasury Secretary, according to a new report. The Wall Street Journal on Monday afternoon reported that Biden tapped Yellen, an economist who was the first woman to lead the Federal Reserve , to lead the economic recovery stemming from the coronavirus pandemic.

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Housing Wire

NOVEMBER 25, 2020

As early as 2005, a prescient Janet Yellen foretold that systemic risk in the housing market could send the U.S. economy plunging into a historic recession. Fifteen years later, as Treasury Secretary, Yellen looks likely to get the chance to tackle another recession, one in which the housing market is arguably stronger than ever. President-elect Joe Biden on Monday nominated Yellen to lead the Treasury Department as Treasury Secretary, where, if confirmed, she will be tasked with spearheading th

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