For the third consecutive week, fixed-rate mortgages edged down, lowering borrowing costs for buyers and refinancers.Freddie Mac reports the following national averages with mortgage rates for the week ending Jan. 19: 30-year fixed-rate mortgages: averaged 4.09 percent, with an average 0.5 point, dropping from last week’s 4.12 percent. Last year at this time, 30-year rates averaged 3.81 percent. 15-year fixed-rate mortgages: averaged 3.34 perce
A recent survey from realtor.com® reveals the following:1. Low inventories: There aren’t enough homes for sale and inventory woes are expected to worsen this year. Active inventory in December 2016 on realtor.com® dropped 11 percent compared to a year ago. “As a result, the year has started with the lowest inventory of homes for sale at least since the recession, and possibly in decades,” realtor.com® notes. “Inventory was a challenge
An average of 10 percent of brokerages’ online profiles are inaccurate or outdated, according to an audit by the WAV Group, a real estate consulting firm. And the slower winter months are the perfect time to do a digital clean up.Start by identifying all your business's online profiles, whether they are on your own website, Realtor.com, Facebook, Homes.com, Zillow, etc. Then collect the necessary information to update those profiles. This could
Housing production nationwide edged up 11.3 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis in December due to a surge in multifamily construction, the Commerce Department reported this week. Multifamily production – often viewed as volatile month-to-month – surged 57 percent to 431,000 units in December.Single-family starts, on the other hand, fell 4 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 795,000 units. But builder sentiment remains high for
About a quarter of first-time home buyers surveyed by realtor.com® in December said the top delay in buying was a lack of funds for a down payment. However, many first-time buyers don’t necessarily need a 20 percent down payment to move forward on a home purchase.In fact, the average down payment is 11 percent, according to realtor.com®’s research of loan record data from Optimal Blue. On an average purchased house in 2016 at $290,000, that
JPMorgan Chase will pay $55 million in a settlement over claims the bank giant charged thousands of African American and Hispanic borrowers higher interest rates on mortgages than white counterparts.Federal officials say the bank charged Black and Hispanic borrowers, on average, $1,000 more than similar mortgages issued to whites. The mortgages were reportedly issued by third-party independent brokers, but then funded by JPMorgan. Such a practice
A judge has granted a postponement to next week’s scheduled execution of a man who was convicted of killing a real estate agent in a McKinney, Texas, model home more than a decade ago.Kosoul Chanthakoummane, 36, was set to die by lethal injection on Jan. 25. A court found him guilty of stabbing a real estate agent to death in 2006. State District Judge Ben Smith granted Collin County prosecutors requested to move the date to allow more time to
The obvious password you use for your devices may be making you vulnerable to a data breach. Keeper Security, a password management software firm, analyzed more than 10 million login details leaked online through data breaches that occurred in 2016.The most popular password that continues to be used: “123456,” which the firm’s analysis showed was used 17 percent of the time by hacked accounts. The next most common password was the similar
Airplanes buzzing overhead, trains roaring by, or that bustling 24-hour supermarket can all take a toll on your property value. But, by how much?Realtor.com®’s data team analyzed nine major noise factors and then calculated the price difference between homes within a certain radius of the source. It then factored in the median price of homes in that ZIP code to gauge which noises are making buyers the most jittery. (Note: Noisy neighbors could
Banks continue to clean out the pipeline of loans that were originated during the housing boom days that have since turned sour.Most of the homes that are still being foreclosed on are from loans originated between 2004 and 2008, known as “legacy foreclosures,” according to ATTOM Data Solutions’ 2016 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report.The following markets are seeing the biggest cases of backlogs with legacy foreclosures: District of Columbia:
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