The Kallhoff Team

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Rising Housing Market Likely to Lift Job Mobility

DAILY REAL ESTATE NEWS | TUESDAY, MAY 14, 2013

Home owners are starting to feel freer to move where the jobs are, Reuters reports, as worries about homes that won't sell or will sell at a loss begin to fade.

Since early 2012, home prices in the major metro areas have been rising. Homes are also selling faster: It took 62 days, on average, to sell a home, compared with 91 days one year prior, according to March data from the National Association of REALTORS®.

The increase in mobility from the recovering housing market is expected to have a hand in lowering the jobless rate.

"Until the real estate market picked up, people wouldn't even consider a move without the certainty that they could sell their homes," Jerry Funaro, vice president of global marketing for TRC Global Solutions, a Milwaukee-based relocation service, told Reuters. "Companies are now more inclined to make offers since we're seeing real estate markets across the country coming back.”

The number of people who moved last year increased to 35.6 million, with the mover rate climbing to 12 percent, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That marked an increase over the 11.6 percent low set in 2011.

"It's not a huge gain, but when you consider that for two years, we've had the lowest migration rates since World War II, any move up is good news," William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution in Washington, told Reuters.

Meanwhile, in April, the jobless rate dropped to its lowest point in more than four years, reaching 7.5 percent, due to an increase in hiring among employers.

Source: “Insight: Housing improvement may herald return of U.S. workforce mobility,” Reuters (May 13, 2013)

Read More

7 Top Markets for Job Seekers

http://realtormag.realtor.org/daily-news/2013/05/14/rising-housing-market-likely-lift-job-mobility

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Monday, May 13, 2013

Mortgage Fraud Activity Posts First Drop in 16 Years

DAILY REAL ESTATE NEWS | MONDAY, MAY 13, 2013

Reports filed by banks flagging suspicious activity in mortgage loans dropped for the first time in 16 years, falling nearly 30 percent last year, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network reports.

Beginning in 1996, mortgage loan fraud had been the only suspicious activity report that saw rises each year. According to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, nearly 46 percent of all cases of potential mortgage fraud in the past decade have occurred in just the last three years alone.

The numbers are finally falling, due to greater detection. But banks also suffer from fraud perpetuated from within their institutions.

“The Federal Bureau of Investigation said while a majority of bank failures in recent years resulted from declining market conditions, insider abuse caused by bank officers and directors remains a factor in many loan fraud activities recorded in the past decade,” HousingWire reports. “Some of the activities that raised red flags include engaging in mortgage loan fraud by submitting misrepresentations of borrowers’ income, employment, credit, occupancy, and other requirements.”

Source: “Suspicious loan activity reports shrink first time in a decade,” HousingWire (May 8, 2013)

Read more

5 States With the Most Mortgage Fraud

http://realtormag.realtor.org/daily-news/2013/05/13/mortgage-fraud-activity-posts-first-drop-in-16-years

www.rebeccasellsaz.com

Friday, May 10, 2013

Fannie Pays Back Taxpayers From Housing Gains

DAILY REAL ESTATE NEWS | FRIDAY, MAY 10, 2013

Fannie Mae announced on Thursday that it will pay $59.4 billion in dividends to the U.S. Treasury, helping to reduce the net cost of its taxpayer bailout to $21.1 billion, Reuters report.

A strengthening housing market has helped the mortgage giant to record a record profit in the first quarter this year. This also marks the fifth-consecutive quarter for profits for the government-sponsored enterprise (GSE).

In the first quarter of this year, Fannie said it had a pretax income of $8.1 billion, as well as an additional gain of $50.6 billion by reversing a write-down on certain tax assets, Reuters reports. A year earlier, Fannie had reported a $2.7 billion profit.

Since government regulators took over Fannie in September 2008, the GSE has received $116.1 billion in taxpayer funds.

Freddie Mac, which was also placed into FHFA conservatorship in 2008, has received about $71 billion in taxpayer aid since that time. By the end of June, it will have paid $36.6 billion of that back to the Treasury.

Source: “Fannie Mae to Send $59.4 Billion to U.S. Treasury,” Reuters (May 9, 2013)

Read More

Mortgage Giant Surges to Higher Profit

http://realtormag.realtor.org/daily-news/2013/05/10/fannie-pays-back-taxpayers-housing-gains

Thursday, May 9, 2013

5 States With the Highest Foreclosure Inventories... Is Your State One of These???

DAILY REAL ESTATE NEWS | THURSDAY, MAY 09, 2013

Foreclosures rates are falling, but some states are still battling high levels. According to nationwide averages, the foreclosure inventory as of March represented 2.8 percent of all homes with a mortgage — that’s down from 3.5 percent in February.

In CoreLogic’s latest report reflecting March data, the following five states posted the highest foreclosure inventories (as a percentage of all mortgaged homes):

Florida: 9.7 percent
New Jersey: 7.3 percent
New York: 5 percent
Maine: 4.4 percent
Illinois: 4.4 percent

Meanwhile, the five states with the lowest foreclosure inventories were:

Wyoming: 0.5 percent
Alaska: 0.7 percent
North Dakota: 0.7 percent
Nebraska: 0.9 percent
Montana: 0.9 percent

Source: CoreLogic

http://realtormag.realtor.org/daily-news/2013/05/09/5-states-highest-foreclosure-inventories

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

More Americans Optimistic About Housing Recovery

DAILY REAL ESTATE NEWS | WEDNESDAY, MAY 08, 2013

More than half of Americans — 51 percent — now say they expect home prices to increase within the next year, according to a survey by mortgage giant Fannie Mae of about 1,000 Americans’ attitudes toward housing.

“For the first time in the survey’s three-year history, the majority of Americans surveyed now expect home prices to increase,” says Doug Duncan, senior vice president and chief economist at Fannie Mae. “Crossing the 50 percent threshold marks a significant milestone as most Americans believe a housing recovery is truly occurring throughout the country.”

Last year at this time, only 32 percent said they expected home prices to increase.

More Americans in April also said now is a good time to sell, climbing four percentage points to 30 percent last month compared to 15 percent one year ago.

The number of respondents who expect mortgage rates to rise dropped 3 percentage points to 43 percent in April, while 7 percent said they expect rates to drop fell slightly to 7 percent, according to the survey.

Source: “Survey: Over 50% of Americans Expect Home Prices to Rise,” The Wall Street Journal (May 7, 2013)

http://realtormag.realtor.org/daily-news/2013/05/08/more-americans-optimistic-about-housing-recovery

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Will 'Missing Households' Reappear After Investors Leave?

DAILY REAL ESTATE NEWS | TUESDAY, MAY 07, 2013

Investors and all-cash home buyers accounted for about 19 percent and 30 percent, respectively, of all sales in March, according to the National Association of REALTORS®. That represents a significant share of the market, and some analysts are concerned that as home prices rise, investor and all-cash demand will start to shrink.

Who will step up in their place?

Robert Dietz, an economist with the National Association of Home Builders, notes in a recent article for U.S. News & World Report that “missing households” in today’s market who have delayed home ownership will eventually play catch up.

Notably, recent college grads who delayed home ownership by moving in with their parents or renting are expected to increase their homebuying activity. Also, surveys show a growth in the number of Americans living together as roommates who are not relatives. Americans have doubled or even tripled up in rental residences to help cut costs. But as more people get married and start families and jobs stabilize, household formation will likely grow, Dietz notes.

The nation’s population has grown, but the number of independent households of renters and owners has not kept pace. The Census Bureau’s American Community Survey shows that the population from 2006 to 2011 grew by more than 4 percent, but there was only about a 3 percent growth in the number of households.

Dietz expects that homebuying demand will come strongly from rental households that were created over the last seven years. In that time, the number of rental households in single-family homes grew by 2.5 million, or 22 percent. Traditional renting households in multifamily units increased by nearly 7 percent, Dietz notes.

Dietz says the “real demand for housing is on the sidelines, particularly among younger Americans. ... For these younger prospective homebuyers, policy debates concerning the future of the housing finance system and home ownership programs like the mortgage interest deduction will have real impacts on their housing and wealth status in the years to come.”

Source: “What Happens to the Housing Market When the Investors Leave?” U.S. News & World Report (May 3, 2013)

http://realtormag.realtor.org/daily-news/2013/05/07/will-missing-households-reappear-after-investors-leave

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