BLOGS

Expert Home Price Forecasts Revised Up for 2023 Toward the end of last year, there were a number of headlines saying home prices were going to fall substantially in 2023. That led to a lot of fear and questions about whether there was going to be a repeat of the housing crash that happened back in 2

Where Are People Moving Today and Why? Plenty of people are still moving these days. And if you’re thinking of making a move yourself, you may be considering the inventory and affordability challenges in the housing market and wondering what you can do to help offset those. A new report from Gravy A

Home prices continue to climb with ‘striking’ regional differences, says S&P Case-Shiller Prices nationally rose 0.7% month to month, seasonally adjusted. The index’s 10-city composite fell 1%, year over year, slightly less than the 1.1% decrease in the previous month. The 20-city composite dropped

Don’t Fall for the Next Shocking Headlines About Home Prices If you’re thinking of buying or selling a home, one of the biggest questions you have right now is probably: what’s happening with home prices? And it’s no surprise you don’t have the clarity you need on that topic. Part of the issue is ho

30YR Fixed 6.98% -0.02% 15YR Fixed 6.35% -0.02%   Slow Housing Market's Questionable Excuse (And a Much Better Alternative) Inventory! That's been a buzzword for the housing market for more than a decade, but it's been especially prevalent in 2023 as the excuse for slower home sales.  How good of an

30YR Fixed 6.88% -0.02% 15YR Fixed 6.30% -0.01%   Rent Increases Return to Pre-Covid Levels Increases in single-family rents soared in the post-pandemic environment but have now moderated to the annual levels in the pre-pandemic years of 2010 to 2019. CoreLogic’s Single-Family Rent Index (SFRI) reco

Explaining Today’s Mortgage Rates If you’re following mortgage rates because you know they impact your borrowing costs, you may be wondering what the future holds for them. Unfortunately, there’s no easy way to answer that question because mortgage rates are notoriously hard to forecast.   But, ther

30YR Fixed 6.96% -0.13% 15YR Fixed 6.38% -0.04%   Home Prices Hit New Peaks Despite Affordability Issues   The Black Knight Mortgage Monitor for May doesn’t even hint at a housing crisis on the horizon. Affordability is again (or maybe still) a concern, but buyers are out there, and home prices refl

30YR Fixed 7.14% -0.08% 15YR Fixed 6.50% -0.15%   Mortgage Rates Back Over 7% as Markets Digest Economic Data Until a few weeks ago, it looked like we might have seen the last of 7% mortgage rates, but the last 2 weeks have been brutal. The culprit has been a collection of several scheduled economic

Today’s Housing Inventory Is a Sweet Spot for Sellers One of the biggest challenges in the housing market right now is how few homes there are for sale compared to the number of people who want to buy them. To help emphasize just how limited housing inventory still is, let’s take a look at the lates

30YR Fixed 7.02% -0.02% 15YR Fixed 6.42% -0.03%   Mortgage Rates Jumped Over 7% This Week, Even if You Heard They Were 6.71% Mortgage rates have been hovering in the high 6's for weeks, but they broke above 7% on Thursday. At the same time, multiple news outlets reported a 30yr fixed rate of 6.71%.

30YR Fixed 6.91% -0.01% 15YR Fixed 6.32% +0.00%   April Home Prices Bolster Case for Recovery Both the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index and the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s (FHFA’s) Home Price Index (HPI) show home prices continuing to increase in April although at a muc

Do homes with solar panels sell for more than comparable homes without panels? Caption     Yes, homes with owned solar panels typically sell for more than comparable homes without panels. According to a study by Zillow, homes with solar panels sell for an average of 4.1% more than comparable homes w

Eco-Friendly, Energy-Efficient Homes Attract Buyers Smart Home Features - Add Value to Homes   Are you planning to sell your house? If so, you may be surprised to hear just how much buyers value energy efficiency and eco-friendly features today. This is especially true as summer officially kicks off

30YR Fixed 6.95% +0.05% 15YR Fixed 6.32% +0.04%   Two Ways to Look at Existing Home Sales The reality of the home sales market is in the eye of the beholder these days and the just-released Existing Home Sales report doesn't shed much light.  The National Association of Realtors (NAR) logged an annu

30YR Fixed 6.90% +0.03% 15YR Fixed 6.28% +0.03%   New Home Construction Growth Swings From 14 Year Low to 13 Month High Although the New Residential Construction report released by the Census Bureau has notoriously wide margins of error, it's rare to see numbers like today's rendered irrelevant by a

30YR Fixed 6.89% -0.01% 15YR Fixed 6.28% -0.01% Mortgage Rates 101, Part 5: What Causes Mortgage Rates to Change? Mortgage rates change daily, and sometimes multiple times per day. In this article, “mortgage rates” will refer to the combination of upfront cost and actual interest rate described here

Oops! Home Prices Didn’t Crash After All During the fourth quarter of last year, many housing experts predicted home prices were going to crash this year. Here are a few of those forecasts: Jeremy Siegel, Russell E. Palmer Professor Emeritus of Finance at the Wharton School of Business: “I expect ho

There is no one-size-fits-all answer to the question of how much a house is worth. A house's value depends on several factors, including the location, size, condition, and amenities of the home. The value of a house can also be affected by the current market conditions. Here are some of the factors

30YR Fixed 6.98% -0.03% 15YR Fixed 6.27% -0.03%   Mortgage Applications Decrease Again, Volatile Rates, Stagnant Inventories The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) said its Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, decreased 4.6 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis dur