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Wednesday, March 13, 2013 |
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As housing heads into the critical spring market, credit is finally beginning to thaw. Lenders are increasingly approving low down payment loans, and government sponsored mortgage giant Fannie Mae is buying more of them.
It is a noticeable shift from the last four years, when 20 percent down on a home purchase loan was the only game in the neighborhood.
"In general lenders have been willing to do more than they may have been willing to do in the past," said John Forlines, chief credit officer for Fannie Mae's single family business. "Our requirements have not changed significantly, but other parties taking risk, the lenders and mortgage insurance companies in particular, have been more flexible than they may have been in the past."
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Wednesday, March 13, 2013 |
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Consumer confidence in the U.S. housing sector continued to rise in February, but more people expect mortgage rates to increase over the next year, according to Fannie Mae's FNMA -1.02% monthly national-housing survey.
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Wednesday, March 13, 2013 |
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After years of wild swings, the U.S. housing market is slowly returning to normal.
The latest forecast from Fiserv (FISV) Case-Shiller predicts home prices will increase by an average of 3.3% annually over the five years ending September, 2017.
"2012 was the first year since 1997 that the housing market has resembled something [close to] normal," said David Stiff, Fiserv's chief economist. "For the past 15 years, home price changes and sales volumes have either been boosted by a bubble mentality or crushed by crash psychology."
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Wednesday, March 06, 2013 |
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The housing market recovery picked up steam in the final three months of last year, with prices rising at an annual rate of 7.3%, according to S&P Case-Shiller, while a government report showed sales of new homes also shot up higher.
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Monday, February 18, 2013 |
Home prices in the fourth quarter of 2012 showed a rate of annual appreciation greater than in any quarter since the end of 2005 the National Association of Realtors® (NAR) said today. There were 133 metropolitan areas in which median prices rose during the quarter out of the 152 tracked by NAR. Prices increase in 120 areas in the third quarter and only 29 one year earlier. Twenty-nine areas posted price declines in the recent period.
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