Tag: CoreLogic

NAR – pending home sales inch up 0.2% in November

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Post date December 29, 2017
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NAR – pending home sales inch up 0.2% in November

Pending home sales were mostly unmoved in November, but
did squeak out a minor gain both on a monthly and
annualized basis, according to the National Association
of Realtors (NAR). Heading into 2018, existing-home
sales and price growth are forecast to slow, primarily
because of the altered tax benefits of homeownership
affecting some high-cost areas. The Pending Home Sales
Index, a forward-looking indicator based on contract
signings, rose 0.2% to 109.5 in November from 109.3 in
October. With last month’s modest increase, the index
remains at its highest reading since June (110.0), and
is now 0.8% above a year ago. Lawrence Yun, NAR chief
economist, says contract signings mustered a small gain
in November and were up annually for the first time
since June. “The housing market is closing the year on
a stronger note than earlier this summer, backed by
solid job creation and an economy that has kicked into
a higher gear,” he said. “However, new buyers coming
into the market are finding out quickly that their
options are limited and competition is robust.
Realtors® say many would-be buyers from earlier this
year, stifled by tight supply and higher prices, are
still trying to buy a home.”

One of the biggest questions heading into 2018,
according to Yun, is if the depressed levels of
available supply can improve enough to slow price
growth and make buying a home more affordable. While
last month’s significant boost in existing sales was
noteworthy, it did come with some concerns. Sales
prices were up 5.8% – more than double wage growth –
and the 3.4-month supply of homes on the market was the
lowest since NAR began tracking in 1999. “The
strengthening economy, and expectation that more
millennials will want to buy, serve as promising signs
for solid homebuying demand next year, while also
putting additional pressure on inventory levels and
affordability,” said Yun. “Sales do have room for
growth in most areas, but nationally, overall activity
could be slightly negative. Markets with high home
prices and property taxes will likely feel some impa ct
from the reduced tax benefits of owning a home.” Yun
forecasts for existing-home sales to finish 2017 at
around 5.54 million, which is an increase of 1.7% from
2016 (5.45 million). The national median existing-home
price this year is expected to increase around 6%. In
2018, Yun anticipates essentially no change (a decline
of 0.4%) in existing sales (5.52 million), and price
growth to moderate to around 2%. The PHSI in the
Northeast jumped 4.1% to 98.9 in November, and is now
1.1% above a year ago. In the Midwest the index rose
0.4% to 105.8 in November, and is now 0.8% higher than
November 2016. Pending home sales in the South
decreased 0.4% to an index of 123.1 in November but are
still 2.5% higher than last November. The index in the
West declined 1.8% in November to 100.4, and is now
2.3% below a year ago.

Trump targets Amazon in call for postal service to hike
prices

US President Donald Trump targeted online retailer
Amazon on Friday in a call for the country’s postal
service to raise prices of shipments in order to recoup
costs. “Why is the United States Post Office, which is
losing many billions of dollars a year, while charging
Amazon and others so little to deliver their packages,
making Amazon richer and the Post Office dumber and
poorer? Should be charging MUCH MORE!” Trump wrote on
Twitter. The US Postal Service is an independent agency
within the federal government and does not receive tax
dollars for operating expenses, according to its
website. The organization makes up a significant
portion of the $1.4 trillion US delivery industry.
Other players include Fedex Corp and United Parcel
Service Inc. Amazon was founded by Jeff Bezos, who
remains the chief executive officer of the reta il
giant. Bezos also owns the Washington Post, a newspaper
that Trump has repeatedly railed against in his
criticisms of the news media. Representatives for the
White House and Amazon were not immediately available
for comment. Shares of Amazon were last down 0.2% to
$1,183.50 in premarket trading.

CoreLogic – what caught the attention our readers in
2017

The numbers are in and our readers have spoken. We
tallied up the readership on our top 10 most-read
CoreLogic Insights blogs and found that top industry
executives were very focused on the health of the real
estate market, both nationally and in specific markets
across the country this year. The most-read blog, by a
wide margin, was a text mining analysis of public
listing information using word cloud which paired
certain listing terms to higher sales prices. Word
pairs like “quiet street,” “large backyard,” and
“hardwood floors” were among terms which could be tied
to higher sales prices. In addition, our audience also
engaged with our economic outlooks, credit
availability, and mortgage risk as prices continued
their upward spiral. And the envelope, please… Here
are the top ten most-read blog s (and video blogs) of
the year:
– Public Listing Comments Can Have an Impact on
Closing Price
– Is the Credit Cycle Turning?
– California Million-Dollar Home Sales Climb to a Q1
Peak as Stocks Soar
– Highest and Lowest Risk US Housing Marketing as of
Q1 2017
– US Economic Outlook: February 2017
– Hurricane Matthew Clocks Top Wind Speed for 2016 at
101 MPH
– Health of the Housing Market as of Q2 2017
– US Economic Outlook: October 2017
– Purchase Mortgages, High LTVs May Up Fraud Risk in
2017
– The Accuracy of Comparable-Property Data in an
Appraisal Report
2017 was a very busy blog year for our economists, data
research analysts and modelers, product experts and
industry SMEs. As we wrap up 2017 we’re proud to have
shared over 150 online, audio and video blog postings
representing more than 25 CoreLogic contributors. The
aim of CoreLogic Insights is to in form, educate and
provide perspective on many characteristics of the
housing economy and property markets. Our blogs address
housing policy and trends, mortgage performance,
property valuation, natural hazard risk, insurance and
international topics.

Trump’s agenda in 2018: What’s next?

After Republicans scored their first major legislative
victory with a tax reform bill passed just before the
end of 2017, the has started
looking ahead to next year’s legislative docket. While
President Donald Trump’s aggressive plans to reform
health care, infrastructure and the tax system during
the first year of his tenure fell short on some
accounts, his plans for next year appear equally
ambitious, with welfare and infrastructure reform
topping the list, according to National Economic
Director Gary Cohn. Here’s a look at what the
administration and Congress are set to take on as we
head into the New Year.

Health care

While the GOP failed to pass multiple efforts to repeal
and replace the Affordable Care Act in 2017, the
president has not given up on designs to overhaul the
former administration’s signature legislative
achievement. In a tweet fired off in November,
President Trump reiterated that ObamaCare is a
“disaster,” adding that Republicans would begin to
repeal and replace “right after Tax Cuts.” While
different variations of repeal and replace narrowly
failed to pass the Senate this year, the president took
steps toward dismantling the Affordable Care Act
through an executive order issued in October. That
order directed the administration to look into allowing
employers to form associations and obtain coverage
across state lines, expanding the use of short-term
limited duration insurance (STLDI) plans and expanding
the use of Health Reimbursement Arrange ments, or
tax-free accounts that allow employers to reimburse
employees for medical expenses. The overall goal of
these directives, according to the White House, was to
provide near-term relief for Americans and to lower
costs by increasing competition and choice.

Welfare reform

One of the other items the president has brought up as
a priority after Republicans overhaul the tax system is
reforming welfare, which includes government programs
like Medicaid, Food Stamps and Housing Assistance.
“We’re looking very strongly at welfare reform, and
that’ll all take place right after taxes, very soon,
very shortly after taxes,” Trump said at the White
House last month. During an interview with Axios in
late-December, Cohn said he expected that welfare
reform would receive bipartisan support, with at least
60 votes in the Senate. There are bills currently
floating around Congress that aim to strengthen work
requirements for welfare programs, something that
coincides with the administration’s stated goals of
using welfare as an interim strategy to help lift
Americans out of unemployment and poverty. Office of
Management and Budge t (OMB) director and Consumer
Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) interim director
Mick Mulvaney, a known deficit hawk, said back in March
that the administration was looking to create jobs and
put those who want to work, back to work. At the same
time, he said the White House would weed out welfare
freeloaders and take steps toward making sure Americans
aren’t exploiting programs, while assuring that the
administration would not deny deserving people
services.

Infrastructure

Senior White House officials have said President Trump
will release the full details of his infrastructure
plan early next year. It is expected to require at
least $200 billion in direct government funds over the
course of a decade, in addition to funding from the
private sector. While an infrastructure revamp was
widely viewed as a bipartisan proposal at the outset of
the president’s tenure, experts believe the outlook may
be murkier after the passage of a tax reform bill that
could pile on to the deficit. Trump promised a $1
trillion infrastructure overhaul, which was supposed to
be detailed within his first 100 days in office. US
Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao said in September
that states and localities will compete for government
funds, with the most innovative projects winning more
federal dollars. The infrastructure revamp is expected
to address everything from bridges, roads and airports
to energy, broadband and even Veterans Affairs
hospitals. Cohn told Axios that having broadband in
rural areas is a priority. He also said that the
government needs to reimagine infrastructure based on
the future, adding that the US can’t keep building
cities in 2050.

Housing reform
US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has been a key
player in the tax reform discussions, but has his
sights set on housing reform for the coming year. “I am
determined that we have housing reform and that we come
up with a permanent solution for Fannie [Mae] and
Freddie [Mac] so that they’re not in the current form,
which is essentially owned by the government,” he said
during a November speech at the Economic Club of New
York. “That’ll be a big focus of mine for next year.”
Mnuchin also said this is something he expected housing
reform to be completed on a “bipartisan basis.”

ATTOM – the off-market housing market

There’s a strange omission from the long list of
industries vanquished, disrupted, and dismantled by the
Internet. Retail chains are closing, cabs are not being
hailed, and hotel rooms are going empty. But amid the
rumble and ruin of traditional commerce, multiple
listing services (MLS) remain remarkably impervious to
disruption. That isn’t stopping would-be MLS disrupters
like REX from trying. “The MLS is an antiquated tool
created by real estate brokers to keep buyers dependent
on them,” according to REX. “But the Internet changed
all that.” The MLS has survived previous declarations
of its demise. If such predictions were true we should
now see a marketplace filled with broker-less
transactions, those selling for-sale-by-owner,
so-called FSBOs. In fact, precisely the opposite has
happened. Self-sellers are a vanishing species.
According to the 2016 edition of the National
Association of Realtors (NAR) Profile of Home Buyers
and Sellers, “only eight% of recent home sales were
FSBO sales again this year. For the second year, this
is the lowest share recorded since this report started
in 1981.” But the picture is markedly different at the
local level in markets where MLS disrupters like REX
are operating. Single family home sales listed on the
MLS represented 89% of single family home sales deeds
recorded in Los Angeles and Orange counties combined,
according to an ATTOM Data analysis of public record
deed data and MLS data provided by First Team Real
Estate, the largest independent brokerage in
California. Most off-MLS sales are the result of these
so-called pocket listings, according to Michael Mahon,
president at First Team Real Estate, which covers the
Southern California market. “We ha ve agents who have 50
to 75 buyers sitting there as pent-up demand waiting
for listings,” he said. “A lot of these home sellers
are willing to entertain an offer that they feel is
fair for the asking price they are wanting to get for
the property … a ready, willing and able buyer in queue
is very appealing.”

The share of off-MLS sales were also much higher than
the national average across the country in Dallas and
Phoenix. An ATTOM Data Solutions analysis of MLS closed
sales counts provided by the Texas A&M Real Estate
Center and public record closed sales counts in Dallas
County, Texas, shows MLS-closed sales of single family
homes in 2016 represented 86% of single family home
sales recorded with the county for the year. In
Maricopa County, Arizona, home to the city of Phoenix,
MLS-closed sales of single family homes represented
just 75% of the single family home sales recorded with
the county for 2016, up slightly from 74% in 2015,
according to an ATTOM analysis. What do Dallas and
Phoenix have in common? They are both testing grounds
for a quickly growing alternative to listing for sale
on the MLS: iBuyers such as Opendoor and Offerpad.
Opendoor has been able to assemble $320 million in
equity and more than $500 million in debt financing.
Such numbers instantly make Opendoor a notable player
in the local real estate markets where it is active.
Moreover, if it finds success, it will be able to go
back to the equity and credit markets for additional
funding. “The Opendoor difference is simplicity,
convenience and certainty,” said Evan Moore, Opendoor’s
head of agent experience. “For sellers, Opendoor makes
it easy for homeowners to receive a fair market value
offer in a few clicks, eliminating the hassle of home
showings and months of uncertainty and giving them the
power to close on their timeline. For buyers, Opendoor
also provides the ultimate in convenience by providing
on-demand access to Opendoor homes all day everyday.”

It’s not just disruptive startups like Opendoor and
Offerpad that are expanding off-market purchasing,
however. HomeVestors, a 21-year-old company known for
the “We Buy Ugly” houses signs has exponentially
expanded the markets it operates in since the housing
bust, according to CEO David Hicks. “We buy direct from
the home owner, without hitting MLS,” Hicks said. “And
the people we’re buying them from, they don’t want a
Realtor or anyone else traipsing through their house. …
They got cats or they got smell. Those are the houses
we are buying.” NetWorth Realty is another direct buyer
that has been around for several years and is
continuing to grow, with 1,726 deals totaling $234
million in 2016, up from 941 deals totaling $88 million
in 2013, according to its website. “We’ll find
properties. Our properties are off-market, they a re not
on the MLS,” said Networth Realty president Mark Bloom,
adding that the properties are also kept off-market
when re-sold to investor clients in an effort to
provide those clients with fixed pricing outside of a
competitive bidding environment. “We fix our pricing.
We keep all of our inventory off market.” The growing
number of acquisitions by iBuyers like Opendoor and
Offerpad are catching the attention of the Arizona
Regional MLS, which in its August STAT report devoted
three pages of commentary to an analysis of off-MLS
sales in the market, including those by iBuyers. “As an
analyst, the number one question I get asked is, ‘What
percentage of homes sold are listed on the MLS?’”,
writes Tom Ruff, housing analyst with The Information
Market, a subsidiary of the ARMLS.

Traditional MLS relationships are being challenged by a
growing number of member brokers who believe the
fastest and easiest way increase profits is to stop
dividing commissions, forget about MLS cooperation, and
cut out other brokers. “Off-MLS listings may contribute
to the unraveling of the MLS as we know it,” said
consultant Stefan Swanepoel in a 2016 report published
by NAR called the Definitive Analysis of the Negative
Game Changers Emerging In Real Estate – the DANGER
Report. Is there a way that “coming soon” transactions
could be made more palatable? “Coming soon can be an
issue from many fronts,” said Matthew L. Watercutter,
principal broker and senior regional vice president
with Ohio-based HER Realtors. “The only way for ‘coming
soon’ to be truly a benefit, is you still do not show
the home to anyone until it is actively marketed, so
all potential buyers have a fair and equal
opportunity.”

Tags Amazon, CoreLogic, Homeownership, off-market housing mark, pending home sales, Trump, Trump administration, Trump's agenda in 2018

Real Estate News

NAHB – builders confident as market primed to expand in 2018

Post author By admin
Post date December 18, 2017
No Comments on NAHB – builders confident as market primed to expand in 2018

NAHB – builders confident as market primed to expand in
2018

Builder confidence in the market for newly-built
single-family homes increased five points to a level of
74 in December on the National Association of Home
Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI) after a
downwardly revised November reading. This was the
highest report since July 1999, over 18 years ago.
“Housing market conditions are improving partially
because of new policies aimed at providing regulatory
relief to the business community,” said NAHB Chairman
Granger MacDonald, a home builder and developer from
Kerrville, Texas. “The HMI measure of home buyer
traffic rose eight points, showing that demand for
housing is on the rise,” said NAHB Chief Economist
Robert Dietz. “With low unemployment rates, favorable
demographics and a tight supply of existing home
inventory, we can expect continu ed upward movement of
the single-family construction sector next year.”
Derived from a monthly survey that NAHB has been
conducting for 30 years, the NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing
Market Index gauges builder perceptions of current
single-family home sales and sales expectations for the
next six months as “good,” “fair” or “poor.” The survey
also asks builders to rate traffic of prospective
buyers as “high to very high,” “average” or “low to
very low.” Scores for each component are then used to
calculate a seasonally adjusted index where any number
over 50 indicates that more builders view conditions as
good than poor. All three HMI components registered
gains in December. The component measuring buyer
traffic jumped eight points to 58, the index gauging
current sales conditions rose four points to 81 and the
index charting s ales expectations in the next six
months increased three points to 79. Looking at the
three-month moving averages for regional HMI scores,
the Midwest climbed six points to 69, the South rose
three points to 72, the West increased two points to 79
and Northeast inched up a single point to 54.

Wall Street poised for record on tax bill hopes
Wall Street’s main indexes hit new highs on Monday as
the long-awaited tax overhaul plan looked set for
legislation and buoyed by a flurry of year-end
corporate dealmaking that has topped $11 billion so
far. More US Republicans Senators on Sunday threw their
weight behind the tax bill they expect Congress to pass
this week. A Senate vote is set for Tuesday and
President Donald Trump is expected to sign the bill
into law by the end of the week.US stocks have enjoyed
a near year-long rally, of late powered by increasing
expectations of the promised tax overhaul, which aims
to lower corporate taxes to 21% from 35%, coming to
fruition. The benchmark S&P 500 has gained 19.5% so far
in 2017, set for its best year since 2013, as investors
bet that lower taxes could boost corporate profits and
trigger share buybacks and higher dividend payouts.

“The market is going to continue its rally based on the
belief that we’re going to see the Congress pass tax
reform,” said Robert Pavlik, Chief Investment
Strategist at SlateStone Wealth in New York. “People
are a bit weary about how long the rally will last, but
earnings continue to grow, (the) tax package should
help and the economy is doing well,” Pavlik said. “I‘m
very positive about the overall market. Lower corporate
taxes could also trigger cash repatriation, which
market analysts say could be used for merger and
acquisitions. On Monday, investors were treated to a
flood of deals.

CoreLogic – home price winners and losers

Since the US began recovering from the home-price bust
in 2006, economists have used the peak-to-current
change in prices as a measure of recovery in markets.
However, the peak-to-current change hyper-focuses on
economic losses for those who bought at the peak. What
about consumers who bought homes while prices were at
the bottom of the cycle? If someone was lucky enough to
buy as a market hit bottom and began to recover, they
have seen large home-price gains. Our view of home
price changes shows the peak-to-trough and
peak-to-current changes in the CoreLogic Home Price
Index (HPI) for the US, the four states with the
largest peak-to-current declines, and the four states
with the largest peak-to-current gains. In the states
where the HPI has passed the pre-crisis peak, the peak
used to calculate the numbers in Figure 1 is the
pre-crisis peak. The U S HPI peaked in 2006, and
returned to the 2006 peak in September 2017. Nevada
has the largest peak-to-current decline of any state,
and had the largest peak-to-trough decrease at 60%. On
the other end, North Dakota had a shallow
peak-to-trough decline, and has risen 47% above the
prior peak seen in 2008. A different view of the HPI
illustrates the depths of the most notable state-level
price declines and the subsequent upward trajectory in
those states, including the peak-to-trough and
trough-to-current HPI changes for the US and the seven
states that had larger peak-to-trough declines than the
US For the nation, from the 2006 peak to the 2011
trough, the loss was 33%, but from the 2011 trough to
September 2017 the gain was 50%. The most extreme drop
in the HPI was in Nevada, but prices in that state have
gained 89% since hitting bottom in 2012. For reference,
we can compare the gains in the HPI to gains in the
stock market. The S&P 500 fell 51% from peak to trough,
but has gained 229% from the trough through September
2017. The large price gains since the home-price bottom
translate into large amounts of home equity gained by
homeowners, improving their balance sheets. As shown in
the CoreLogic Homeowner Equity Report, in the 12 months
ending in September 2017, the average homeowner gained
nearly $15,000 in equity. Only seven states had equity
gains over the past year, but California and Nevada
stand out with the largest gains at $37,000 and
$23,000, respectively.

Average US gas price drops 3 cents to $2.51 for regular
The average price of a gallon of regular-grade gasoline
dropped 3 cents nationally over the past two weeks to
$2.51. Industry analyst Trilby Lundberg of the Lundberg
Survey said Sunday that further declines are likely
because US gas supplies are flush. The current gas
price is 25 cents above where it was a year ago. Gas in
San Francisco was the highest in the contiguous United
States at an average of $3.22 a gallon. The lowest was
in Jackson, Mississippi, at $2.14 a gallon. The US
average diesel price is $2.88, holding steady from two
weeks ago.

Tags CoreLogic, home price, NAHB, Real Estate, Real Estate News

Real Estate News

CoreLogic – cash sales share in 2015 lowest in seven years

Post author By admin
Post date March 25, 2016
No Comments on CoreLogic – cash sales share in 2015 lowest in seven years

Published on: Mar 25, 2016 @ 10:37 am

CoreLogic – cash sales share in 2015 lowest in seven
years

Cash sales accounted for 33.4% of total home sales in
December 2015 and 33.9% of total home sales for the
full year 2015. The full year 2015 cash sales share was
the lowest since 2008. The December cash sales share
was down 3.3 percentage points year over year from
36.7% in December 2014. On a month-over-month basis,
the cash sales share fell by 2.8 percentage points in
December 2015 compared with November 2015. The month
over month decrease in cash sales share was larger than
normal for the month of December, indicating that the
elevated share reported for November, and attributed to
the new federal mortgage rules (TRID), was temporary.
The cash sales share peaked in January 2011 when cash
transactions accounted for 46.6% of total home sales
nationally. Prior to the housing crisis, the cash sales
share of total home sales averaged approximately 25%.
If the cash sales share continues to fall at the same
rate it did in December 2015, the share should hit 25%
by mid-2017.

Real estate-owned (REO) sales had the largest cash
sales share in December 2015 at 59.2%. Resales had the
next highest cash sales share at 33.4%, followed by
short sales at 30.9% and newly constructed homes at
15.4%. While the percentage of REO sales that were
all-cash transactions remained high, REO transactions
accounted for only 6.9% of all sales in December 2015.
In January 2011 when the cash sales share was at its
peak, REO sales represented 23.9% of total home sales.
Resales typically make up the majority of home sales
(about 79% in December 2015), and therefore have the
biggest impact on the total cash sales share. Delaware
had the largest cash sales share of any state at 57%,
followed by Alabama (50.1%), New York (46.5%), Florida
(46.3%) and Mississippi (45%). Of the nation’s largest
100 Core Based Statistical Areas (CBSAs) measured by
population, Detroit, Mich. had the highest cash sales
share at 62.7%, followed by West Palm Beach-Boca
Raton-Delray Beach, Fla. (53.4%), Miami-Miami
Beach-Kendall, Fla. (53.2%), Fort Lauderdale-Pompano
Beach-Deerfield Beach, Fla. (51.2%) and North
Port-Sarasota-Bradenton, Fla. (51%). Syracuse, N.Y. had
the lowest cash sales share at 12.5%.

Fourth-quarter GDP revised up; corporate profits fall
US economic growth slowed in the fourth quarter, but
not as sharply as previously estimated, with fairly
strong consumer spending offsetting the drag from
efforts by businesses to reduce an inventory overhang.
Gross domestic product increased at a 1.4% annual rate
instead of the previously reported 1.0% pace, the
Commerce Department said on Friday in its third GDP
estimate. GDP growth was initially estimated to have
risen at only a 0.7% rate. The economy grew at a rate
of 2.0% in the third quarter and expanded 2.4% for all
of 2015. Economists polled by Reuters had expected
that fourth-quarter GDP growth would be unrevised at a
1.0% rate. The upward revisions reflected a stronger
pace of consumer spending than previously estimated.

Consumer spending, which accounts for more than two
thirds of US economic activity, rose at a 2.4% pace
rather than the 2.0% rate reported last month. That
reflected more consumption of services than previously
estimated. The fairly solid pace of consumer spending
underscores the economy’s underlying strength and
should further allay fears of a recession, which
triggered a massive stock market sell-off early this
year. Spending is being supported by a tightening
labor market, which is steadily lifting wages, and
rising house prices. Gasoline prices around $2 per
gallon are also helping to underpin household
discretionary spending. Inventory investment was
revised lower. Still, inventories remain high relative
to domestic demand. Businesses accumulated $78.3
billion worth of inventory rather than the $81.7
billion reported last month. As a result, inventories
subtracted 0.22 percentage point from GDP growth
instead of the previously reported 0.14 percentage
point.

Zillow – February market report: peeking at home value
peaks

Median home values in more than a quarter of the
nation’s metro housing markets are currently, or were
recently, as high as they’ve ever been.

In February, home values rose 4.3% year-over-year to a
Zillow Home Value Index of $184,600. Median home
values in more than a quarter of the nation’s metro
housing markets are currently, or were recently (within
the last year), at peak and as high as they’ve ever
been, according to the February Zillow Real Estate
Market Report. But what do home value peaks really
mean? As with most things in real estate, the answer
depends on where you are. The national Zillow Home
Value Index was $184,600 in February, 5.9% below the
record median home value set in mid-2007. But over the
past year, many housing markets in the South,
especially Texas and Tennessee, have joined many
Western housing markets in blowing past their previous
median home value highs. Dallas home values set a new
record at $180,700 in February, up 13.7% from last
February. Nashville home values rose 9.5% to a median
of $189,100.

In a general sense, the idea of home values being at
their “peak” is easy to take out of context. In a
normal market – in which nominal home values grow
fairly consistently year after year at a roughly 2% to
3% annual pace – home values are always reaching new
peaks. In this example, home values in Anywhere, USA,
can be reliably counted upon to be modestly higher this
year than they were last year, and to be a bit higher
next year than they are this year. Aside from periodic
slowdowns or small dips in home values caused by local
economic factors, nominal home values should always
just keep chugging slowly upward in normal times. But
the past decade-plus has been anything but normal for
US housing, which has distorted this definition of
“peak” home values. By now we’re all familiar with
housing’s rough arc in the 21st century: a rapid
acceleration in home value growth between roughly 2000
and 2007, followed by an almost equally rapid decline
from May 2007 through early 2012 and then a steadier
climb back again in more recent years. The very broad
nature of last decade’s housing boom and bust means
that the majority of local markets have followed a
similar path as the US as a whole, though the severity
of their local booms and busts and exact peak and
trough dates will vary somewhat.

But not all local markets experienced the housing boom,
bust and recovery the same way. Some markets just kept
chugging away slowly, never really falling much in the
first place. It has taken others years to slowly claw
their way back to pre-recession levels after a
difficult bust. And still others had only a mild bust
period, recovered quickly and have been setting new
peaks for years. Pittsburgh is a good example of a
market that has just kept chugging along, with no clear
boom and bust period, only steady growth over the past
two decades. Rather than experience a sharp dip during
the bust, home values in the Pittsburgh area more or
less flattened out without falling too much between
2008 and 2013, before resuming their somewhat more
rapid rise during the recovery. Far from being a cause
for concern, the fact that home values in Pittsburgh
are currently hovering very near their “peak” is really
just a sign of remarkable stability in the market.
Boston is an example of a market that had a clear
run-up in home values, a distinct decline during the
bust, and a long recovery over the past few years.
During the boom years, home values in Boston peaked
early relative to the nation, at $384,900 in September
2005. What followed was a long six-year period of
falling home values, reaching bottom in November 2011
at $311,800, a drop of almost 19%. It took until
January 2016 for home values in Greater Boston to
surpass their prior peak. Home values in Greater Boston
are, after years of bust and recovery, finally starting
to break new ground again, and look to be on a
sustainable growth path going forward.

Finally, a market like Denver is indicative of a market
that quickly shook off the bust and has taken off like
a rocket in recent years. Prior to the recession, home
values in the Denver area peaked at $237,600 in May
2006. During the bust, home values fell to a low of
$207,300 by August 2011. By July of 2013, Denver-area
home values had already surpassed their earlier peak,
and haven’t slowed down since. Currently, home values
in Denver stand at $326,300 – 37.3% higher than May
2006 values, and up a whopping 57.4% from their August
2011bottom. This rapid growth in home values is
largely driven by Denver’s own massive population
growth over the past decade-plus, combined with a
limited supply of new homes for sale. This kind of
rapid and unflagging growth could be worrisome, and may
indicate a local bubble starting to form in Denver and
similar markets like the Bay Area. But even so, rapid
growth on its own isn’t enough to indicate a bubble as
long as this growth is driven by solid underlying
economic fundamentals like strong job and wage growth,
true housing demand and limited supply and not rampant
speculation – which is the case in Denver. So while
taking a peek at peak home values naturally piques our
interest and is useful in determining how far some
markets have come and how far others still have to go,
interpreting what it really means is all a matter of
perspective.

In February, the median US home value rose 0.2% from
January and 4.3% from February 2015, according to the
Zillow Home Value Index. US home values have grown on a
year-over-year basis for 44 straight months. Home
values in 26 of the nation’s 35 largest metro markets
grew faster year-over-year than the nation’s 4.3%
annual pace in February. Home values grew by more than
10% per year in six of those large metro markets:
Denver (up 14.5% year-over-year), Dallas (13.7%),
Portland (13.4%), San Jose (11.4%), San Francisco
(10.9%) and Miami (10.5%). None of the nation’s largest
metros experienced annual home value declines in
February. The US median rent in January was $1,383 per
month, up 0.1% from January and 2.6% from February
2015, according to the Zillow Rent Index. US rents have
grown year-over-year for 42 consecutive months. Median
rents in all but one of the nation’s 35 largest metro
markets grew year-over-year to some extent, with only
Cleveland experiencing an annual decline (-1.2% from
February 2015). Rents grew fastest year-over-year in
the San Francisco (up 10.5% from January 2015),
Portland (up 8.7%) and San Jose (up 8%) metros.

Outlook

Looking ahead, Zillow expects national home values to
continue growing, rising another 2.3% through February
2017. Rents are also expected to keep growing over the
next year, at a 1.7% pace through February 2017. The
new home value records being set in a number of markets
mean we’re no longer making up ground lost during the
housing recession –we’re laying a new path forward,
based on demand for housing and economic growth
throughout the economy. In some markets, these new
highs are a return to normalcy, and in others are a
reminder that not all markets react the same to broader
economic trends. Finally, the fact that many other
markets are still off pre-recession peaks by double
digits – places like Las Vegas (down 33.8% from Q2 2006
peaks) and Orlando (off by 29.5% from prior peaks) –
may not even mean those markets are far from full
recovery. Instead, their long path back just highlights
how extraordinarily inflated home values were in those
areas during the housing bubble.

US weekly jobless claims up

The number of Americans filing for unemployment
benefits rose last week while revisions for prior weeks
showed the labor market was much stronger than
previously thought. Initial claims for state
unemployment benefits increased 6,000 to a seasonally
adjusted 265,000 for the week ended March 19, the Labor
Department said on Thursday. The prior week’s claims
were revised to show 6,000 fewer applications received
than previously reported. Economists polled by Reuters
had forecast claims rising to 268,000 in the latest
week. The government also revised data going back to
2011, which showed claims trending lower than
previously reported. Claims for the week ended March 5
were the lowest since November 1973.

WSJ – more Americans are again moving to suburbs than
cities

Economists to real-estate agents have debated whether
the housing boom and bust of the last decade has
dramatically remade the way Americans live or merely
created a temporary disruption. US Census data
released Thursday provides strong support for the
latter thesis—that shifts in where Americans move were
merely temporary, according to analysis by Jed Kolko, a
senior fellow at the Terner Center for Housing
Innovation at the University of California, Berkeley.
For one thing, the rate at which Americans are moving
to the suburbs is once again outpacing the rate at
which they are moving to cities. That picks up on a
decades long trend that only very temporarily reversed
during the recession. Urban counties grew by 0.8% in
2015 to roughly 77 million people, compared with
suburban counties, which grew by nearly 1% to 159
million people. Mr. Kolko defines counties as urban
based on how dense they were as of the 2010 census.
Overall, the US population grew by 0.8% from 2014 to
2015, or a difference of about 2.5 million people.
Suburbs have been outpacing cities in population growth
for decades. In 2001, suburbs grew about 1.2% while
cities grew by about 0.7%. The trend was exacerbated
by the housing boom, when easy mortgages helped buyers
afford homes being built at a rapid pace in far-out
suburbs. In 2006, suburbs grew by 1.5% while cities
instead actually lost nearly 0.4% of their population.

Cities grew faster than suburbs for one year during the
last decade, in 2011. While much has been written about
the revival of cities, the overall population trends
underscore that people flocking to cities remain a
select class, mostly of the young, educated and
affluent who can afford rising prices. In the meantime,
America overall continues to suburbanize. “Rich, young
people are outbidding others for urban housing and so
the faster growth in the suburbs certainly reflects
tight housing supply in dense neighborhoods,” Mr. Kolko
said. Another decades long trend that has re-emerged is
the growth of the South and the West at the expense of
the Northeast and the Midwest. The South and West both
had population growth of 1.2% in 2015, far ahead of
0.2% growth in the Northeast and Midwest. During the
aftermath of the housing bust, the South and West saw
sharp declines in the rate of population growth, while
the Northeast and Midwest held relatively steady,
although they continued to grow more slowly. Some
familiar metro areas also emerged as big population
losers and winners. Austin was the biggest population
gainer for four years running from 2011 to 2014. But
this year it was surpassed by Cape Coral-Fort Myers,
Fla.—also the leader in population growth during the
bubble from 2004 to 2006. Youngstown, Ohio, has been
the biggest population loser since 2010 and continued
to hold that title. It also lost the most population
for most of the boom from 2003 to 2005, but it was
surpassed for a few years by New Orleans and Detroit.

Tags cash sales, consumer spending, CoreLogic, GDP, Median home values, Real estate-owned, REO, WSJ, Zillow

Real Estate News

CoreLogic – distressed sales accounted for 12% of homes sold nationally in November 2015

Post author By admin
Post date January 27, 2016
No Comments on CoreLogic – distressed sales accounted for 12% of homes sold nationally in November 2015

Published on: Jan 27, 2016 @ 8:18 am

CoreLogic – distressed sales accounted for 12% of homes
sold nationally in November 2015

– Of total sales in November 2015, distressed sales
made up 11.9% and real estate-owned (REO) sales made up
8.7%

– Maryland remains the state with the largest share of
distressed sales among all states at 20.3%

– Denver-Aurora-Lakewood, Colo. had the lowest
distressed sales share among the largest Core Based
Statistical Areas (CBSAs) at 3.1%

Distressed sales, which include REOs and short sales,
accounted for 11.9% of total home sales nationally in
November 2015, down 1.9 percentage points from November
2014 and up 1.4 percentage points from October 2015.
This month-over-month increase was expected due to
seasonality, and the magnitude of the change was in
line with previous Novembers. Within the distressed
category, REO sales accounted for 8.7% and short sales
accounted for 3.2% of total home sales in November
2015. The REO sales share was 1.5 percentage points
below the November 2014 share and is the lowest for the
month of November since 2007. The short sales share
fell below 4% in mid-2014 and has remained in the 3-4%
range since then. At its peak in January 2009,
distressed sales totaled 32.4% of all sales, with REO
sales representing 27.9% of that share. While
distressed sales play an important role in clearing the
housing market of foreclosed properties, they sell at a
discount to non-distressed sales, and when the share of
distressed sales is high, it can pull down the prices
of non-distressed sales. There will always be some
level of distress in the housing market, and by
comparison, the pre-crisis share of distressed sales
was traditionally about 2%. If the current
year-over-year decrease in the distressed sales share
continues, it will reach that “normal” 2-percent mark
in mid-2019.

All but nine states recorded lower distressed sales
shares in November 2015 compared with a year earlier.
Maryland had the largest share of distressed sales of
any state at 20.2%[1] in November 2015, followed by
Connecticut (19.1%), Florida (19%), Michigan (18.9%)
and Illinois (17.8%). North Dakota had the smallest
distressed sales share at 2.7%. Nevada had a 5.4
percentage point drop in its distressed sales share
from a year earlier, the largest decline of any state.
California had the largest improvement of any state
from its peak distressed sales share, falling 59.2
percentage points from its January 2009 peak of 67.4%.
While some states stand out as having high distressed
sales shares, only North Dakota and the District of
Columbia are close to their pre-crisis levels (within
one percentage point). Of the 25 largest CBSAs based
on mortgage loan count, Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford, Fla.
had the largest share of distressed sales at 21.2%,
followed by Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, Fla.
(20.7%), Baltimore-Columbia-Towson, Md. (20.4%),
Chicago-Naperville-Arlington Heights, Ill. (20.4%) and
Miami-Miami Beach-Kendall, Fla. (20.3%).
Denver-Aurora-Lakewood, Colo. had the smallest
distressed sales share among the largest CBSAs at 3.1%.
Las Vegas-Henderson-Paradise, Nev. had the largest
year-over-year drop in its distressed sales share,
falling by 5.5 percentage points from 20.3% in November
2014 to 14.8% in November 2015. Riverside-San
Bernardino-Ontario, Calif. had the largest overall
improvement in its distressed sales share from its peak
value, dropping from 76.3% in February 2009 to 10.9% in
November 2015.

Oil prices attempt to trim losses

Oil futures pared losses on Wednesday, echoing a modest
stock market recovery, but analysts said a surprise
ballooning in US inventories and little chance of the
world’s major producers agreeing to cut output would
likely temper any rallies. Fresh evidence of slowing
growth in top commodities consumer China, along with
caution before the outcome of the US Federal Reserve’s
first policy meeting of the year, earlier knocked
around $1 off the price of oil. Senior OPEC and
Russian officials on Tuesday stepped up vague talk of
possible joint action to eliminate one of the largest
oil surpluses in modern times, although few market
watchers believed this would result in any cuts to
output. Brent crude was last down 26 cents at $31.54 a
barrel by 1347 GMT (8:47 a.m. ET), having hit a session
low of $30.83, in lockstep with European equities
edging off the day’s lows. US futures fell 65 cents to
$30.80 a barrel. Oil has risen from last week’s 2003
lows after speculators unwound some of the record-high
bearish positions they had racked up over the last six
months. “There is dove-tailing of moves in oil with
moves in equities that is happening and of course the
equity markets, we’ve seen, are so prone to risk
aversion,” BNP Paribas global head of commodity
strategy Harry Tchilinguirian said. “Right now oil is
buffeted between short-covering, cross-asset
correlations and its own weak fundamentals.” Oil
prices have fallen nearly 16% in January, bringing
total losses since the start of the decline in mid-2014
to 77%. US crude stocks rose by 11.4 million barrels
last week to 496.6 million, the American Petroleum
Institute said, topping analyst expectations for an
increase of 3.3 million barrels.

Mortgage applications down

Mortgage applications increased 8.8% from one week
earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers
Association’s (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey
for the week ending January 22, 2016. This week’s
results include an adjustment to account for the Martin
Luther King holiday. The Market Composite Index, a
measure of mortgage loan application volume, increased
8.8% on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week
earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index increased
0.3% compared with the previous week. The Refinance
Index increased 11% from the previous week. The
seasonally adjusted Purchase Index increased 5% from
one week earlier. The unadjusted Purchase Index
increased 0.4% compared with the previous week and was
22% higher than the same week one year ago. The
refinance share of mortgage activity decreased to 59.0%
of total applications from 59.1% the previous week. The
adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) share of activity
increased to 6.9% of total applications. The FHA share
of total applications decreased to 12.7% from 13.7% the
week prior. The VA share of total applications
increased to 11.1% from 10.8% the week prior. The USDA
share of total applications remained unchanged from
0.7% the week prior.

Franchisees fight back against $15 wages
The International Franchise Association, the industry’s
largest trade group, wants the Supreme Court to take up
its challenge to portions of Seattle’s $15 minimum wage
law. Seattle’s City Council in June 2014 voted to
raise the minimum wage in increments, hitting $15 an
hour by 2017 for businesses with at least 500 staffers.
The $15 level is more than double the federal hourly
minimum of $7.25.

The International Franchise Association and five
Seattle franchisees quickly sued Seattle, which like
New York City has moved to treat smaller franchised
businesses like larger companies. They argued that the
mandated $15 pay unfairly lumps franchised businesses
with large employers. The association and franchisees
want to be recognized as smaller businesses to get more
time to raise pay incrementally to $15 by 2021. “Our
appeal has never sought to prevent the City of
Seattle’s wage law from going into effect,” franchise
association President Robert Cresanti said in a
statement this week. “Our appeal to the Supreme Court
will be focused solely on the discriminatory treatment
of franchisees under Seattle’s wage law and the
motivation to discriminate against interstate
commerce.” The association said a response is due from
the city of Seattle within 30 days, and the Supreme
Court is expected to announce this spring whether it
will hear the case.

In March 2015, a federal judge threw out the franchise
groups’ lawsuit, and the decision was upheld in
September by the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals. For
now, Seattle wages are tiered. The wages range from
$10.50 to $13 an hour, depending on the size of the
employer and whether the company pays toward medical
benefits. A representative from Seattle Mayor Ed
Murray’s office could not be immediately reached for
comment. The impact of higher mandated pay on
franchisees is contentious. A recent survey from the
conservative Employment Policies Institute, a
conservative nonprofit research organization, found
franchisees are more harmed than nonfranchised
businesses when implementing wage hikes. The survey of
more than 600 businesses found franchisees are more
likely to take “offsetting steps including reducing
staff, reducing hours and using automation to manage
the increased labor costs caused by minimum wage
increases” than are nonfranchised businesses. This
trend was more pronounced in the fast food and hotel
sectors — more than 80% of franchised fast food owners
said they would be more likely to reduce hiring, versus
58% of non-fast-food restaurant owners. And nearly 90%
of franchised hotels said they would raise room rates,
compared with 70% of nonfranchised hotels.
Policymakers will compound the damage of a $15 minimum
wage by arbitrarily targeting businesses with a
recognizable brand for uniquely-harsh wage mandates,”
Michael Saltsman, the Washington, D.C.-based
institute’s research director, said in a statement.

Zillow – rapid reaction: December new home sales

– Sales of newly built homes rose more than 10% in
December from November, to 544,000 units sold (SAAR),
the best month for new home sales since February 2015
and second best since 2008.

– Similar to existing home sales, some sales that may
have otherwise closed in November may have been pushed
into December because of new settlement and disclosure
rules.

– The seasonally adjusted median price of a new home
fell 4.3% from December 2014, to $285,200, the biggest
annual decline since early 2012.

New home sales had a strong December, recording their
best month since February 2015 and second-best since
2008, according to the US Census Bureau. Additionally,
for the first time since July 2015, both new and
existing home sales for the month moved in the same
direction, reversing a months-long trend in which one
would rise, and the other would fall. But even with the
strong finish, sales of newly built homes are still
running slightly below their February level and were
roughly flat over the course of 2015. Additionally,
like existing home sales, new home sales in December
were likely boosted by recently adopted changes in
settlement and disclosure rules that pushed closings
that may have occurred in November into December. The
price of new homes, which have been fetching a large
premium over existing homes as builders focus on a
higher-end clientele, fell 4.3% year-over-year in
December (seasonally adjusted) to $285,200, the biggest
annual decline since early 2012. This is some — modest
— good news for buyers struggling to find a home to buy
and get a hold in the market.

WSJ – what’s ahead for jumbo-loan borrowers in 2016

The jumbo-mortgage market reached new highs in 2015 and
recent turmoil in global stocks is unlikely to slow it
down much in 2016, industry experts say. Lenders
provided an estimated $320 billion in jumbo mortgage
financing in 2015, which translates to 19% of all
mortgage lending, says Guy Cecala, CEO and publisher of
Inside Mortgage Finance. That’s up slightly from 18% of
the market in 2014 and the highest market share since
2002, he says. While a down stock market might mean
less available cash for some home buyers to purchase an
expensive home, historically people also have shifted
assets to real estate as a safer investment, Mr. Cecala
says. “Whether that plays out depends on how long the
stock market stays down,” he adds. The market dip is
likely to keep interest rates below 4% for a while
longer, which also could make borrowing large sums more
attractive, says Keith Gumbinger, vice president of
mortgage-rate website HSH.com. The Federal Reserve also
is less likely to raise short-term rates this spring,
he adds. Mr. Gumbinger expects the Fed to raise
short-term rates no more than two to three times in
2016, with the average 30-year, fixed-rate jumbo not
topping 4 5/8%. Five-year, adjustable-rate mortgages
could go up to 4%, he adds.

Fear of rising rates and home prices could spur a
homebuying frenzy in the spring, says Ray Rodriguez,
regional mortgage sales manager for Cherry Hill,
N.J.-based TD Bank. Existing borrowers with
adjustable-rate mortgages nearing the end of their
fixed-rate may also rush to refinance, he adds. Still,
overall refinance rates are expected to be lower than
in 2015 since so many borrowers have already
refinanced, says David Adamo, CEO of Stamford,
Conn.-based Luxury Mortgage. An unexpected rate dip in
winter-spring 2015 triggered a refinance frenzy.
Loosened credit-qualifications rules will continue in
2016, but nothing like what occurred in the 2000s that
led to the mortgage crisis, Mr. Adamo says. Last year,
minimum FICO scores for jumbos dropped to 660 for some
lenders, for example, and down payments could be as low
as 15% or even 10%. Still, borrowers with a credit
score of 740 or above who put 20% down can expect to
get the best interest rates. Jumbo borrowers have
loans that exceed conforming limits of government-back
loans, $417,000 in most places and $625,500 in some
high-cost areas. The Federal Housing Finance Agency
didn’t raise baseline limits last year because home
prices haven’t returned to prerecession levels
nationwide. But 39 counties in the US—covering Denver,
Nashville and Napa, Calif., among others—were bumped
into the high-cost category, so borrowers there now
qualify for more financing.

Also last year, the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau
introduced new documents that aim to make it easier to
compare different mortgage offerings. Many lenders were
concerned that a new rule requiring a three-day waiting
period for borrowers to receive and review the
documents would delay closings or kill deals, but
lenders, real-estate agents and borrowers largely
adapted to the change, says John Schleck, Bank of
America’s online and centralized sales executive. “We
spent a lot of time getting ready and it paid off,” he
adds. Finally, more borrowers will be able to conduct
business virtually this year, a trend expected to rise
rapidly in future years, says Victor Ciardelli, CEO of
Chicago, Ill.-based Guaranteed Rate. That trend isn’t
limited to online lenders either. For example, Wells
Fargo Home Mortgage rolled out a new feature for its
YourLoanTracker service in which borrowers can receive
and upload documentation via a mobile or other digital
device, as well as track loan progress, says Brad
Blackwell, executive vice president and portfolio
business manager for the company. Unless the bottom
falls out of the economy, jumbo lenders predict
continued demand, Mr. Cecala says. Regional banks and
nonbank lenders were able to expand their jumbo
mortgage volume largely because of continued enthusiasm
on the part of big banks to buy and hold them in
portfolio. Wells Fargo remains the nation’s largest
jumbo lender, both for originations and purchasing
loans from other lenders to hold in portfolio. “We have
a strong appetite for jumbo lending,” Mr. Blackwell
says.

Tags CoreLogic, distressed sales, homebuyin, Mortgage applications, Mortgage Bankers Association, mortgage-rate, New York City, REOs, Short sales, The International Franchise Association, WSJ, Zillow

Real Estate News

Remodeling market looking up

Post author By admin
Post date February 2, 2015
No Comments on Remodeling market looking up

Published on: Feb 2, 2015 @ 10:21 am

According to a report released by the Harvard
University Joint Center for Housing Studies,

spending
in the US remodeling market will grow by 4% to 5% this
year to at least $330 billion, spanning work on both
owned homes and rentals. That’s a slower growth rate
than in previous years of the recovery, but it would be
enough to make 2015 the richest year for remodeling
spending of the past 15, surpassing the previous high
point of $324 billion in 2007. The main reason: A
similar easing of home-price appreciation. The median
resale price of existing homes last month of $209,500
marked a 6% increase from a year earlier. In
comparison, the increase in 2013 was nearly 10%.
Homeowners are less likely to push ahead with an
ambitious, pricey renovation if their home equity
isn’t growing as rapidly anymore. Another factor
sapping a bit of momentum from the robust remodeling
market is that homeowners don’t have as much
motivation now as they did in previous years to install
energy-efficient windows, doors and other features in
their house. Part of that is because federal tax
credits for such improvements have waned. An additional
influence is that energy costs, particularly for gas
for heating homes, have declined markedly in recent
months. Meanwhile, the remodeling market has listed in
recent years toward bigger-ticket, discretionary jobs,
including kitchen and bathroom upgrades. The share of
overall remodeling spending attributable to such
discretionary projects accounted for 30% of remodeling
spending on owned homes in 2013, up by roughly a
percentage point from 2011, Mr. Baker said. He
anticipates that share will continue to grow this year,
though he hasn’t forecast a specific percentage.

WSJ – US consumer spending down 0.3% in December

US consumer spending fell in December, a sign of
caution among American households despite lower
gasoline prices and steady hiring. Personal spending,
which measures outlays for everything from hardware to
healthcare, decreased a seasonally adjusted 0.3% from
the prior month, the Commerce Department said Monday,
the first such fall since last January. November
spending was revised down to a 0.5% gain from the
initially estimated 0.6% advance. Personal income,
reflecting money collected from wages, investments and
government aid, increased 0.3%. Real disposable income,
which accounts for taxes and inflation, rose 0.5% in
December. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street
Journal had forecast a 0.3% decline in household
outlays and a 0.2% rise in personal income. Consumer
spending accounts for about 70% of economic activity in
the US and is a key driver of growth. Separate figures
out Friday indicated US households boosted spending by
the most in nearly nine years during the final three
months of 2014, a bright spot in an otherwise mixed
report showing gross domestic product advanced at a
2.6% pace in the fourth quarter.

CoreLogic – ability-to-leverage drives foreclosure
risk

Leverage is known to play an important role in loan
default, but while theoretical research on leverage
exists; to our knowledge there has been virtually no
long-term data driven empirical analysis on the impact
of leverage on residential foreclosure. We assembled
data from various sources to fill that void and examine
the role leverage plays in mortgage foreclosures over
the last five decades. This is an especially timely
topic given that policy makers have recently attempted
to thaw the tight lending environment by reducing the
price and expanding the quantity of low down payment
real estate credit. CoreLogic research highlights four
key findings. First, while homeownership rates today
are the same level as five decades ago, foreclosure
risk is two to three times higher. Second, the primary
driver of default risk over this period has been
leverage. Leverage has played such a strong role that
has rendered changes in income and savings as
insignificant drivers of default from a long-term macro
perspective. Third, the stabilization in foreclosure
rates in the 1970s and 1980s was driven by high
inflation rates, which propelled nominal home prices
and reduced aggregate LTV, thus lowering default risk
– a reminder of real estate’s role as a hedge
against inflation. Fourth, the centerpiece of
government regulations to help make the mortgage market
safer for consumers was an income based ability-to-pay
rule manages delinquency risk, but is less aimed at the
market’s foreclosure risk. Therefore, leverage as the
most important driver of foreclosure performance over
the last five decades remains unaddressed for the
market. In the future, policy makers may need to
consider exploring their ability to manage the leverage
cycle to promote residential financial stability.

The Longview of Homeownership, Leverage and
Foreclosures

In the 1930s, the creation of Federal Housing
Administration (FHA) and Fannie Mae dramatically
expanded access to mortgage credit. As a result, the US
homeownership rates significantly increased from 44% in
1940 to 62% by 1960. Between the early 1960s and early
1990s homeownership rates stabilized in a narrow range
between 62% and 65%. In the mid-1990s pro-homeownership
policies led to an expansion in mortgage credit and the
homeownership rate peaked in 2004 at 69%. Since then
homeownership rates declined through the recession and
stood at 64% as of Q4 2014. While the homeownership
rate today is similar to the early 1960s, foreclosure
rates have significantly increased. Between 1960 and
1965 the conventional foreclosure rate averaged 0.6%
and the FHA foreclosure rate averaged 1.4%. In 2014,
the conventional foreclosure rate was 1.5% and the FHA
foreclosure rate was 2.6%. Despite the fact that
homeownership was the same last year as for the early
1960s, conventional foreclosure rates were about 2.5
times higher and FHA foreclosure rates were nearly two
times higher. These much higher foreclosure rates are
not a function of the fact that the market is still
healing from the Great Recession because even as of
2004, well before foreclosure rates spiked, the level
of risk for both conventional and FHA mortgage was
three times higher than during the 1960s.

The Role of Leverage in Default Risk

Given that homeownership rates today are at similar
levels as the early 1960s, what has driven the higher
foreclosure rates? To better understand the drivers of
the higher foreclosure rates, we modeled foreclosure
rates as a function of savings, unemployment,
inflation, aggregate current LTV for all mortgage loans
outstanding and real median household income. The model
revealed only two primary factors and one very
secondary factor that noticeably influenced foreclosure
rates. The LTV ratio and unemployment rate stood out as
the most important variables, with the LTV ratio by far
being the most important variable. The model’s
findings are consistent with the dual trigger theory of
foreclosures that lack of equity and economic shocks
(typically unemployment) that tip a household into
foreclosure. When homeowners have insufficient equity
and their LTV is above 100%, they become vulnerable to
adverse economic shocks. For example, if a borrower
loses their job and have insufficient income to pay the
mortgage, they will typically try to sell their home.
However, if the value of the property is below the
current unpaid principal balance, they will be unable
to sell the home and pay back their mortgage, which may
tip them into foreclosure. The model’s finding is
also consistent with emerging theoretical literature
over the last decade that indicates leverage cycles are
an underappreciated driver of default. Mortgage
leverage increased in the early 1950s as down payment
requirements fell, which helped drive homeownership
higher, but also drove foreclosure rates higher.
Between the early-to-mid 1960s and mid-1980s, leverage
stabilized, which led to stable foreclosure rates. The
stabilization in leverage occurred because high
inflation rates led to rapid increases in nominal home
values, otherwise leverage would have continued to
increase. Moreover, the rise in inflation caused an
increase in nominal incomes which made the pre-existing
fixed monthly mortgage payment easier to meet.

Leverage Drives Foreclosure Rates

During the early to mid-1990s, leverage began to
increase again due to the emphasis to support
homeownership via lower down payment lending. During
the early 2000s, leverage rose even faster due to cash
out refinances and home equity lending which rapidly
increased. When home prices crashed, leverage spiked
and along with the increase in unemployment rates
caused foreclosures to soar. Over the past four years
that process reversed and leverage has declined. Since
the trough in home prices in March 2011, prices have
increased 29% through November 2014, which reduced
aggregate LTV from 61% in 2011 to 46% in 2014. To
illustrate the impact of the home price recovery on
foreclosure rates, the model was used to break down how
much of the recent decline was due to price increases
versus all other variables combined. Between 2011 and
2014, foreclosure rates fell by 1.5 percentage points
and the rise in prices has accounted for 1.4 percentage
points of the decline. In other words, 91% of the drop
in the foreclosure rate is due to the drop in leverage
via higher home prices. Unemployment and the remaining
variables accounted for the small remaining portion of
the decline.

Conclusion and Policy Implication

CoreLogic findings illustrate how important leverage
has been both historically and in today’s recovery.
While leverage is the dominant driver of foreclosure
trends, the unemployment rate captures the impact of
short-term economic cyclical fluctuations. A less
important but still influential factor has been periods
of accelerating inflation, which ease the burden of the
monthly mortgage payment and masked the rise in
leverage via higher nominal home prices. Interestingly,
the savings rate and household income were not at all
important, which was a surprise given that traditional
underwriting focuses on affordability. Over the next
year the continuing improvement in prices should help
further reduce leverage, but the renewed emphasis on
low down payment lending may in the future beyond 2015
lead to an increase in leverage. While the Federal
Reserve utilized traditional monetary policy and
unconventional tools to guide the economy through the
recession and the recovery, one lever that is not
utilized in federal regulatory policy is a leverage
target, which has been used by over 20 countries with
success. The Qualified Mortgage (QM) rule focused on
the borrower’s ability to repay and it will lead to
better performing mortgages; however the QM lacked a
leverage standard. While the QM rule will help improve
mortgage performance, it is aimed squarely at
delinquency risk and less at foreclosure risk. That
means that the most important driver of mortgage
performance over the last five decades has remained
unaddressed for the market and will likely need to be
addressed in the future.

US factory activity falls to lowest level in 12 months

US factory activity continued to decelerate in January,
registering its slowest growth in a year, according to
a survey released Monday by the Institute for Supply
Management. The ISM’s manufacturing purchasing
managers index fell to a seasonally adjusted 53.5 in
January from 55.1 in December. Fourteen of the 18
industries in the survey reported growth, but
January’s reading was the index’s lowest reading
since January 2014. Economists surveyed by The Wall
Street Journal had expected the PMI would slow to 54.3.
A reading over 50 indicates expansion, while a reading
below 50 signals contraction. “The tone of this
report was disappointing, as it points to some further
leakage in growth momentum after the surge late last
year and it is an indication that the economy may be
off to a slow start this quarter,” TD Securities
economist Millan Mulraine said in a note to clients.
The ISM’s gauge slowed in the final months of 2014,
from 57.9 in October to 57.6 in November and 55.1 in
December. Still, the index has remained at or above 50
continuously since December 2012. In January, the
index’s decline was broad based. The new-orders index
was 52.9 compared with 57.8 in December. The production
index was 56.5 versus 57.7 in December. The employment
index was 54.1 in January compared with 56.0 in
December. The prices index was 35 last month, compared
with 38.5 in December. The exports index was 49.5 in
January compared with 52.0 in December.

Pinto: we’re building toward another mortgage
meltdown

Ed Pinto, one of the smartest minds looking at housing,
and the resident fellow and co-director of the American
Enterprise Institute’s International Center on Housing
Risk, writes in the Wall Street Journal that the White
House is steering housing back into the dangerous
waters it’s just coming out of. The Obama
administration’s troubling flirtation with another
mortgage meltdown took an unsettling turn on Tuesday
with Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Mel
Watt’s testimony before the House Financial Services
Committee. Mr. Watt told the committee that, having
received “feedback from stakeholders,” he expects
to release by the end of March new guidance on the
“guarantee fee” charged by Fannie Mae and Freddie
Mac to cover the credit risk on loans the federal
mortgage agencies guarantee. Here we go again. In the
Obama administration, new guidance on housing policy
invariably means lowering standards to get mortgages
into the hands of people who may not be able to afford
them. Earlier this month, President Obama announced
that the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) will
begin lowering annual mortgage-insurance premiums “to
make mortgages more affordable and accessible.” While
that sounds good in the abstract, the decision is a bad
one with serious consequences for the housing market.

Real Estate News

Industrial production in December

Post author By admin
Post date January 23, 2015
No Comments on Industrial production in December

Published on: Jan 23, 2015 @ 9:42 am

US manufacturing output rose modestly in

December, slowing
from the torrid gains registered a month earlier but still
signaling that American industry is weathering the impact of
a strong dollar and weaker overseas markets. Factory output
rose 0.3% last month, the Federal Reserve said on Friday.
That marks the fourth straight month of growth although the
pace was slower than the revised 1.3% expansion in November.
The output reading is consistent with a survey of factory
manager sentiment released on Jan. 2 that pointed to a
weaker pace of growth in activity last month. Economists
polled by Reuters had forecast manufacturing output rising
0.2% in December. Mining output jumped by 2.2%, reflecting
an increase in oil and gas extraction, although a drop in
drilling and well-servicing activity tempered the gains.
The gains in manufacturing and mining were not enough to
compensate for a sharp 7.3% drop in utilities output, and
overall industrial production edged down 0.1%, its first
decline in four months. The decline in utilities was driven
be steep falls in sales of electricity and natural gas.

Zillow – owners’ equivalent rent and the housing bubble:
feature or bug?

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released its December
2014 Consumer Price Index (CPI) data, one of the two main
data series used to measure how prices change in the United
States. CPI data are produced from the results of the BLS
Consumer Expenditure Survey (CES). The CPI data include a
number of sub-indices for particular goods, including
estimates of housing prices. For homeowners, the CPI series
on Owners’ Equivalent Rent (OER) is designed to gauge how
much homeowners’ shelter costs contribute to changing
prices. This is particularly difficult since, unlike other
goods such as groceries or cars, most homeowners’ monthly
housing costs do not change much on a month to month basis
due to the prevalence of fixed-rate mortgages. To get a
better sense of how much homeowners’ shelter costs are
changing, the CES asks homeowners the following question:
“If someone were to rent your home today, how much do you
think it would rent for monthly, unfurnished and without
utilities.” One unique feature of the OER series is that,
unlike most housing price or housing value indexes including
the Zillow Home Value Index (ZHVI), during the 2000s the OER
series did not suggest a rapid run-up in shelter costs in
advance of the Great Recession, or a steep drop in shelter
costs during the housing bust. Instead, the OER series grew
steadily from 2000 through 2009 – roughly in line with the
growth of all prices – before flattening out in 2009 and
2010. Since 2010, the OER series has resumed its pre-crisis
trend. Part of the difference between OER and most other
housing indices is the formulation of the question. The CES
question mixes purchase prices and rent prices. Since rents
grew slowly during the housing bubble but grew quickly
during the housing bust, owners may have been focusing more
on trends in their local rental market rather than trends in
their local purchase market when responding to the survey.
Regardless, the absence of an obvious housing bubble or bust
in the OER series, and its differences to most other home
price/value indices, raises questions about what exactly is
being measured.

DataQuick – Southern California home sales and median sale
price rise

CoreLogic today released its December Southern California
housing market report. The number of homes sold increased
sharply from the month of November and rose modestly from
the same time a year earlier, marking one of just two months
in 2014 to post a year-over-year gain in sales. The region’s
median sale price also increased from November and rose year
over year for the 33rd consecutive month, although that
annual gain was the lowest since the string of price
increases began in spring 2012. A total of 19,205 new and
resale houses and condos sold in Los Angeles, Riverside, San
Diego, Ventura, San Bernardino and Orange counties in
December 2014. That was up month over month 22.8% from
15,643 sales in November 2014, and up year over year 4.3%
from 18,415 sales in December 2013, according to CoreLogic
DataQuick data. Sales usually increase from November to
December. On average, Southern California sales have risen
13.1% between those two months since 1988, when CoreLogic
DataQuick data began. On a year-over-year basis, sales in
2014 fell each month except in September (+1.2%) and
December. The total number of homes sold in Southern
California in all of 2014 fell 8.7% compared with 2013.
December home sales have ranged from a low of 13,240 in 2007
to a high of 36,865 in 2003. December 2014 sales were 20.2%
below the December average of 24,067 sales since 1988. “One
month doesn’t make a trend, but December’s uptick in home
sales might indicate renewed interest in housing thanks to
lower mortgage rates and job growth in recent months,” said
Andrew LePage, data analyst for CoreLogic DataQuick. “The
gain came despite a continued decline in the share of homes
sold to investors and cash buyers. If demand continues to
build we’ll need more supply to keep up with it. One of the
big questions hanging over the housing market is whether
higher demand and home values will lead to a lot more people
listing their homes for sale, as well as more new-home
construction, which remains well below average.”

The median price paid for all new and resale houses and
condos sold in the six-county region in December 2014 was
$415,000, up 0.7% month over month from $412,000 in November
and up 5.1% year over year from $395,000 in December 2013.
The median hasn’t moved much since September 2014, when it
was $413,000. The median’s peak for 2014 was $420,000 in
August. The region’s median sale price has increased on a
year-over-year basis for the past 33 consecutive months, but
the 5.1% annual gain in December 2014 was the smallest since
April 2012, when the $290,000 median rose 3.6% from a year
earlier. Southern California’s December median sale price
was 17.8% below the peak median price of $505,000 reached in
March, April, May and July of 2007. Among the region’s six
counties, the December 2014 median in Orange County
($591,000) was the closest – within about 8% – to its peak
of $645,000 in June 2007. Home prices in Southern
California have been rising at different rates depending on
price segment. In December, the lowest-cost third of the
region’s housing stock experienced a 12.9% year-over-year
increase in the median price paid per square foot for resale
single-family detached houses. The annual gain was 6.3% for
the middle third of the market and 2.3% for the top,
most-expensive third. The number of homes that sold for
$500,000 or more in December 2014 rose 10.1% compared with
December 2013. Sales below $500,000 rose 3.4% year over
year, and sales below $200,000 dropped by 20.6%.

Among the other Southern California housing market
highlights from December 2014:

– Foreclosure resales represented 5.0% of the resale market
in December. That was down from a revised 5.5% in November
2014 and down from 5.8% in December 2013. In recent months
the foreclosure resale rate has been the lowest since early
2007. In the current cycle, foreclosure resales hit a high
of 56.7% in February 2009. Foreclosure resales are purchased
homes that have been previously foreclosed upon in the prior
12 months.
– Short sales made up an estimated 6.2% of resales in
December, down from a revised 6.4 in November 2014 and down
from 10.2% in December 2013. Short sales are transactions in
which the sale price fell short of what was owed on the
property.
– Absentee buyers – mostly investors – bought 23.4% of the
homes sold in December. That was down from a revised 23.8%
in November 2014 and down from 26.9% in December 2013. The
December 2014 absentee level ties the October 2014 level as
the lowest for any month since October 2010, when 22.1% of
homes were sold to absentee buyers. The peak absentee share
was 32.4% in January 2013, and the monthly average since
2000, when CoreLogic DataQuick absentee data began, is about
19%. Absentee buyers include those who purchase vacation
homes or other properties that public property records
suggest are not used as primary residences.
– Cash buyers accounted for 23.8% of December home sales,
down from a revised 24.3% in November 2014 and down from
28.8% in December 2013. The December 2014 cash level was the
lowest for any month since January 2009, when 22.0% of homes
were bought with cash. The peak was 36.9% in February 2013,
and the monthly average since 1988 is 16.7%.
– Southern California home buyers committed a total of
$4.43 billion of their own money in the form of down
payments or all-cash purchases in December. That was up from
a revised $3.47 billion in November 2014. The out-of-pocket
total peaked in May 2013 at $5.41 billion.
Jumbo loans, or mortgages above the old conforming limit of
$417,000, accounted for 31.3% of purchase lending in
December, up from a revised 30.5% in November 2014 and up
from 28.5% in December 2013. The July/August 2014 level of
32.3% was the highest since the credit crunch struck in
August 2007. Prior to August 2007, jumbo loans accounted for
around 40% of the home-loan market. The jumbo level dropped
to as low as 9.3% in January 2009.
– Adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) represented 12.1% of
home purchase loans in December, up from 12.0% in November
2014 and down from 13.0% in December 2013. The ARM share
dropped to as low as 1.9% of home purchase loans in May
2009. Since 2000, a monthly average of about 30% of purchase
loans have been ARMs.
– All lenders combined provided a total of $6.19 billion in
mortgage money to Southern California home buyers in
December, up from a revised $4.88 billion in November 2014
and up from $5.40 billion in December 2013.
– The typical monthly mortgage payment for Southern
California home buyers in December was $1,558, down slightly
from $1,560 in November 2014 and down from $1,594 in
December 2013. Adjusted for inflation, the December 2014
typical payment was 35.6% below the typical payment in the
spring of 1989, the peak of the prior real estate cycle. It
was also 47.3% below the current cycle’s peak in July 2007.

Oil prices slip

Brent crude oil prices fell below $50 a barrel on Monday
after the global economic outlook darkened and Iraq
announced record oil production. The world’s biggest energy
consumer, China, faces significant downward pressure on its
economy, its premier Li Keqiang was quoted by state radio as
saying on Monday. China is expected this week to report
growth slowing to 7.2% from a year ago, the weakest since
the depths of the last global economic crisis. Data from
China’s National Bureau of Statistics showed on Sunday house
prices fell for a fourth straight month. Brent crude traded
at $49.42 a barrel by 1445 GMT, down 75 cents. US crude was
down 84 cents at $47.85 a barrel. Oil prices have dropped
by more than half since last June as output around the world
soared while demand growth slowed. Although the
International Energy Agency (IEA) said last week a reversal
in the trend was possible this year, it added that prices
may fall further before rising. “There’s still more supply
than demand and that’s a situation that will not change in
just a few weeks,” said Hans van Cleef, energy economist at
ABN Amro.

DataQuick – Bay Area home sales and prices rise in December
2014

CoreLogic today released its December San Francisco Bay Area
housing market report. Home buying picked up steam late in
2014, with December posting strong month-over-month and
year-over-year sales gains. Price appreciation remained
lower than it had been earlier in 2014, but the median sale
price, which has moved little since late last summer, was
still nearly 10% higher than it was the same time a year
earlier. A total of 7,456 new and resale houses and condos
sold in the nine-county Bay Area in December 2014. That was
up month over month 24.2% from 6,003 in November 2014 and up
year over year 14.1% from 6,532 in December 2013, according
to CoreLogic DataQuick data. A rise in sales from November
to December is normal for the season. Bay Area sales have
risen an average of 9.6% between those two months since
1988, when CoreLogic DataQuick data began. The region’s
monthly home sales have ranged between 7,000 and 8,000 for
seven of the last nine months. Since 1988, December sales
have varied from a low of 5,065 in 2007 to a high of 12,349
in 2003, and the December 2014 sales were 12.1% below the
December average of 8,482.

The median price paid for a home in the Bay Area was
$603,000 in December 2014. That was up month over month by
0.3% from $601,000 in November 2014 and up year over year
9.9% from $548,500 in December 2013. December 2014 was the
33rd consecutive month with a year-over-year gain in the
median sale price. However, those annual increases slipped
from double-digit to single-digit in the last two months of
2014. In December 2013 the region’s $548,500 median was
23.9% higher than in December 2012. The Bay Area median
sale price peaked at $665,000 in June and July 2007 and
dropped to a post-boom low of $290,000 in March 2009. “The
Bay Area’s residential real estate market ended 2014 on a
cautiously optimistic note, with moderate year-over-year
increases in both median price and sales counts,” said John
Karevoll, CoreLogic DataQuick analyst. “Supply continues to
be constrained, and the mortgage market remains difficult.
As long-term trends, cash sales and investor purchases are
declining slowly, but they are still significant market
factors. We know that there is a significant amount of
pent-up demand lying in wait, and there is a good chance the
market could see a surge this spring and summer as more
homes are put up for sale.”

Other December 2014 Bay Area housing market highlights
include the following:

– Adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs), an important indicator
of mortgage availability, accounted for 22.3% of the Bay
Area’s home purchase loans in December 2014, down from a
revised 23.6% in November 2014, and up from 22.2% in
December 2013. ARMs hit a low of 3.0% of purchase loans in
January 2009 and reached a post-housing-bust peak of 27.8%
in April 2014. Since 2000, ARMs have accounted for 46.2% of
all Bay Area purchase loans.
– Jumbo loans, or mortgages above the old conforming limit
of $417,000, accounted for 54.1% of purchase lending in
December 2014, down from a revised 56.4% in November 2014,
and up from 48.2% in December 2013. Jumbo usage dropped to
as low as 17.1% in January 2009. It reached 56.4% in May
2014 and has stayed close to that percentage since. Prior to
the August 2007 credit crunch, jumbo loans accounted for
more than 60% of the Bay Area’s home purchase loans.
– Foreclosure resales accounted for 3.7% of all resales in
December 2014, up from 2.8% in November 2014, and down from
4.6% in December 2013. Foreclosure resales in the Bay Area
peaked at 52.0% in February 2009, while the monthly average
over the past 17 years is 9.6%.
– Foreclosure resales are purchased homes that have been
previously foreclosed upon in the prior 12 months.
– Short sales made up an estimated 4.0% of Bay Area resales
in December 2014, up from a revised 3.9% in November 2014
and down from 7.9% in December 2013. Short sales are
transactions in which the sale price fell short of what was
owed on the property.
– Absentee buyers – mostly investors – purchased 18.3% of
all Bay Area homes in December 2014, up insignificantly from
a revised 18.2% in November 2014 and down from 22.5% in
December 2013. The November 2014 absentee level was the
lowest for any month since August 2010, when it was 17.8%.
The peak absentee share was 28.7% in February 2013, and the
monthly average since 2000, when CoreLogic DataQuick
absentee data began, is 15.7%.
– Cash buyers accounted for 19.0% of home sales in December
2014 – the lowest for any month since the cash buyer level
was 18.5% in October 2008. The December 2014 absentee level
was down slightly from a revised 19.3% in November 2014 and
down from 23.5% in December 2013. The peak was 32.3% in
February 2013, and the monthly average since 1988 is 13.7%.
– Bay Area home buyers used $2.18 billion of their own
money in the form of a down payment or as an outright cash
purchase in December 2014. They borrowed $3.06 billion in
mortgage money from lenders.
– The typical monthly mortgage payment for Bay Area home
buyers in December 2014 was $2,264. Adjusted for inflation,
that payment was 21.6% below the typical payment in spring
1989, the peak of the prior real estate cycle. It was 42.0%
below the current cycle’s peak in July 2007 and 77.1% above
the February 2012 bottom of the current cycle.

NAR – pending home sales inch up 0.2% in November

Trump targets Amazon in call for postal service to hike prices

CoreLogic – what caught the attention our readers in 2017

Trump’s agenda in 2018: What’s next?

ATTOM – the off-market housing market

NAHB – builders confident as market primed to expand in 2018

CoreLogic – home price winners and losers

CoreLogic – distressed sales accounted for 12% of homes sold nationally in November 2015

Oil prices attempt to trim losses

Mortgage applications down

Zillow – rapid reaction: December new home sales

WSJ – what’s ahead for jumbo-loan borrowers in 2016

According to a report released by the Harvard University Joint Center for Housing Studies,

CoreLogic – ability-to-leverage drives foreclosure risk

The Longview of Homeownership, Leverage and Foreclosures

The Role of Leverage in Default Risk

Leverage Drives Foreclosure Rates

Conclusion and Policy Implication

US factory activity falls to lowest level in 12 months

US manufacturing output rose modestly in

Other December 2014 Bay Area housing market highlights include the following:

Trump targets Amazon in call for postal service to hike
prices

CoreLogic – what caught the attention our readers in
2017

NAHB – builders confident as market primed to expand in
2018

CoreLogic – distressed sales accounted for 12% of homes
sold nationally in November 2015

According to a report released by the Harvard
University Joint Center for Housing Studies,

CoreLogic – ability-to-leverage drives foreclosure
risk

The Longview of Homeownership, Leverage and
Foreclosures

Other December 2014 Bay Area housing market highlights
include the following: