Archives for 2013

An estimated 37,764 new and resale houses and condos sold statewide last month. That was up 31.5 percent from 28,719 in February, and up 0.8 percent from 37,481 sales in March 2012, according to San Diego-based DataQuick. It’s normal for sales to shoot up between February … [Read more...]

As is so often the case in our economy, the Federal Reserve considers the Jobs Report one of our most important economic indicators Keep in mind that the Fed is investing huge sums in longer-term mortgage-backed securities in an effort to keep longer-term interest rates … [Read more...]

Housing Starts rose slightly in February, coming in above expectations and up 28 percent since this time last year. Both Single-Family Housing Starts and Building Permits (a sign of future construction) also increased, reaching their highest levels since June 2008. In … [Read more...]

Sales of existing homes and their prices continued to rise in February affirming, according to the National Association of Realtors® (NAR) which released the data, a healthy recovery is underway in the housing sector. Existing home sales increased 0.8 percent to a seasonally … [Read more...]

How will the rent-versus-buy math change over the next year? Two factors matter most: (1) whether prices or rents are rising faster, and (2) what’s happening to mortgage rates. Looking forward, the gap should narrow more sharply because both factors should work together to … [Read more...]

The housing market has shown signs of “bottoming out nationally and clearly turning a corner,” according to the Obama Administration’s December Housing Scorecard. Home values are inching up while home sales remain strong. Some home price indexes are showing values up 5.6 … [Read more...]

With his famous line, Paul Harvey pointed out for years that there's more to every story--and often those hidden details influence what happened. Read on to learn the big stories from last week, and the important details to note. There was good news last week as retail … [Read more...]

You found the perfect house, it's everything you've been looking for and you're ready to make an offer. But without a pre-approval, how do you know if you can afford the house? Even if you do qualify to purchase the house, a seller will want a pre-approval letter to go along … [Read more...]

Ease and convenience matter as much as cost to some people shopping for mortgages in the wake of the foreclosure crisis. About a third of consumers are willing to pay more for a mortgage that comes with superior customer service and less stress, according to a recent … [Read more...]