ThinkstockThe U.S. Census Bureau reported this morning that construction spending in July increased by 0.6%, to an estimated seasonally adjusted annual rate of $900.8 billion from an upwardly revised estimate of $895.7 billion in…
ThinkstockSince hitting a five-year peak in mid-May of this year, shares of homebuilders’ stocks have dropped between 15% to 33%. That is about the time that mortgage interest rates began climbing and home prices…
ThinkstockIn its weekly Primary Mortgage Market Survey, home lending giant Freddie Mac reported that mortgage rates for fixed-rate loans have pulled back a little following five weeks of increases. The interest rate on a…
ThinkstockIn the month of July, 49,000 U.S. home foreclosures were completed, down from a revised total of 53,000 in June and down from 65,000 in July 2012, according to research firm CoreLogic Inc. (NYSE:…
ThinkstockFor the month of July, U.S. home sales reached an annualized rate of 5.5 million, up 4% from June and 11% higher than the rate in July 2012. But as with most things related…
ThinkstockExperts call it negative equity. To the general public, the term is underwater mortgages. Regardless of what it is called, 12.2 million Americans have mortgage balances that are greater than the value of their…
ThinkstockThe National Association of Realtors (NAR) this morning released its data on pending sales of existing homes in July. The pending home sales index slipped 1.3% from an index reading of 110.9 in June,…
ThinkstockThe Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) released its weekly report on mortgage applications this morning, noting a drop of 2.5% in the group’s seasonally adjusted composite index following a decline of 4.6% for the previous…
ThinkstockThe S&P/Case-Shiller home price index for June posted another month of solid gains, but not on the same pace as the record-setting rise in May. The 20-city composite rose 12.1% year-over-year, just a tick…
ThinkstockThe sharp rise in mortgage interest rates over the past six months are going to do some serious damage to the nation’s largest mortgage lenders. Just last week, Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC)…
ThinkstockThe U.S. Census Bureau this morning released data on new single-family home sales for July. Sales dropped 13.4% month-over-month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 394,000, from a downwardly revised June sales figure…
The National Association of Realtors (NAR) reports that the seasonally adjusted annual rate of existing home sales in July rose 6.5% to 5.39 million from a downwardly revised total of 5.06 million in June.…
ThinkstockBefore markets opened on Wednesday, Lowe’s Companies Inc. (NYSE: LOW), the country’s second largest home improvement store chain, reported second-quarter diluted earnings per share of $0.88, up from $0.64 in the second quarter a…
ThinkstockThe Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) released its weekly report on mortgage applications this morning, noting a drop of 4.6% in the group’s seasonally adjusted composite index, following a decline of 4.7% for the previous…
ThinkstockRe/Max Holdings Inc. has filed a Form S-1 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for an initial public offering (IPO) to raise up to $100 million. The operator of franchised real estate…