Sales for New Homes Slowed

According to HUD and the U.S Census Bureau, the sales figures for newly built, single-family homes has slowed down 8.4%. It is now sitting at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 350,000 units for the month of June. This comes off of a steady increase that the previous months have had. Despite slowing, the sales numbers are indeed up on a quarterly and yearly basis. Builders are gaining more serious buyers too, so the news is positive overall. However, builders are still facing issues with tight inventory of new homes for sale. Having a larger selection of new homes for sale would make things easier for them, but they also face issues with obtaining credit to build new homes. The figures for Pending Home Sales has declined in June as well. The steady decline of housing inventory proves...

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Mid-Year 2012 Foreclosure Market Report

According to RealtyTrac's Mid-Year 2012 Foreclosure Market Report, the number of foreclosures in the US has risen by 2% from January to June as compared to the previous six months. Compared to the first half of 2011, foreclosures were down 11%. This report indicates that a total of 1,045,801 properties that have foreclosure filings, which means that one in every 126 units have had at least one filing in the first six months of 2012. The federal government has been very focused on fixing the foreclosure problem by introducing aggressive foreclosure prevention programs. Lenders and servicers have also been pressed to be more strict about their policies and procedures...

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Prudential Real Estate Outlook Survey

According to the newly released Prudential Real Estate Outlook Survey for the past quarter, Americans have shown an increase in confidence in homeownership. Residential real estate is recovering which leads to people being more optimistic about buying a home. Many are taking advantage of the record low mortgage rates and the record high housing affordability. The survey shows that 69% of respondents believe that real estate is still a good investment despite what the last new years have brought. 64% have a favorable perception of the U.S. housing market, and 72% believe that the market will continue to recover. Since 78% of people said that owning a home is very important to them, normalcy is starting to return to the market. These people are indeed buying homes, usually for more traditional...

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Take Advantage of a Foreclosure Review

The Federal Reserve has offered homeowners a chance to have a foreclosure review. This basically investigates whether or not you were treated fairly if you had a foreclosure. It is a deal from the Fed and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency that has been extended until September 30th. Many homeowners, though, are not taking advantage of this review: only 196,000 have. The participating mortgage servicers are expected to choose more cases to review on their own for a total of 338,400 reviews. However, that only accounts for 7.5% of the 4.5 million borrowers who are covered by this enforcement action. In order to qualify for a review, a borrower must have a loan that was serviced by a participating lender, and the house's loan must have been active in the foreclosure process between...

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Jobs Report Chart

According to the Labor Department, 80,000 U.S. jobs were created in June as employment data continues to falter. The jobs data for May was revised up from 69,000 to 77,000, though the report for April was revised down to 68,000. As shown in this chart, jobs growth was strong in early 2012 but has been soft over the last several months.The Labor Department also reported that the unemployment rate remained unchanged from last month at 8.2%. ...

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