Flash: August Housing Starts Come In Weak
August Housing Starts hit 750,000 for a gain of +2.3% but the prior month was revised to -2.8% from -1.1% originally set. Consensus estimates: Dow Jones had a target of +2.5% on housing starts;…
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Newest first · Page 169Ten Troubled Housing Markets
NEW YORK (24/7 Wall St./MarketWatch) — Since the peak in early 2006, the median price of a U.S. home is down by a third. And though the market has begun to show signs of…
New Mortgage Applications Flat
The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) released its weekly report on mortgage applications this morning, noting a decrease of 0.2% in the group’s composite index compared with last week’s total. Applications for refinancing rose 1%…
Mortgage Rates Get Back To Record Lows
Zillow, Inc. (NASDAQ: Z) reported today that mortgage rates have fallen back to record lows this week. The report showed that 30-year fixed rate mortgages fell to 3.34% from 3.38% at the same time…
Confidence Among U.S. Homebuilders at a Six-Year High
The National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo housing market index increased to a seasonally adjusted reading of 40 in September. That was up from 37 in the previous month, as well as the highest…
Lowe’s Drops Bid for Canadian Retailer Rona (LOW, HD, USHS)
Home improvement chain Lowe’s Companies Inc. (NYSE: LOW) this morning announced that it had dropped its hostile attempt to acquire Canadian home improvement retailer Rona Inc. Lowe’s had offered CDN$14.50 per share for Rona…
Mortgages Still Cheap — Freddie Mac
The interest rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage fell to an average of 3.55% last week according to Freddie Mac. That is identical to last week’s average, and well below the year-ago rate of…
Foreclosure Rates Creep Up Again
The rate of foreclosures in the U.S. has crept up again, after a number of months of improvement in some states. The way the courts in several states treat the foreclosure process is part…
Underwater Mortgages Continue to Decline
Research firm CoreLogic (NYSE: CLGX) reported today that both the number and total value of residential properties with negative equity declined in the second quarter of the 2012. As a percentage of all properties…
Mortgage Applications Rise Sharply
The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) released its weekly report on mortgage applications this morning, noting an increase of 1.1% in the group’s composite index compared with last week’s total. Applications for refinancing rose 12%…
Ten Towns That Cannot Turn Around
Since home prices peaked in the beginning of 2006, the U.S. median home price is down by a third. And though the market has begun to show signs of bottoming out, prices are still…
The High Cost of Wildfires
According to the federal government, so far this year more than 2 million acres have been burned by nearly 10,000 wildfires in the United States. The most damaging so far has been the Waldo…
Value Surprises among Homebuilders Shares? (NVR, TOL, PHM, HOV, DHI, BZH, KBH, LEN, HD, LOW)
Share prices for homebuilders’ stocks began rising at the beginning of the year and all but two of the homebuilders we looked at in our value search have doubled share prices in the past…
Mortgage Applications, Interest Rates Drop Again
The Mortgage Bankers Association released its weekly report on mortgage applications this morning, noting a 2.5% decline in the group’s composite index compared with last week’s total. Applications for refinancing fell 3% (seasonally adjusted),…
The 10 States with the Strongest Housing Markets
The housing market is showing signs of a recovery, albeit a halting one. In 10 states, median home prices increased by more than 5.5% from July 2011 to July of this year. While there is no…