Home Price Decline Slows: Case/Shiller
Declines in U.S. home prices were not as severe in February as in the preceding months, with 16 of the 20 metro areas tracked by the Boston based S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index showing improvement in their monthly returns compared to January. February was the first month since October 2007 that the index’s 10-city and 20-city [...]
March Existing-Home Sales Fall
Existing-home sales fell 3.0 percent to a seasonally adjusted rate of 4.57 million units from a downwardly revised level of 4.71 million in February, NAR reported this morning. March sales were 7.1 percent lower than the 4.92 million-unit pace recorded the same period a year ago. The national median existing-home price for all housing types [...]
Fannie, Freddie Boost Loan Modifications
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac modified nearly 24,000 loans during the fourth quarter of 2008, up 76 percent from the third quarter, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s (FHFA) most recent Foreclosure Prevention Report. These modifications, along with the foreclosure suspensions that began last November, reduced the number of foreclosures by nearly 27 percent [...]
The End of an Era, The Beginning of an Epic
THE END OF A WASTEFUL ERA It’s about time we’ve ended the era of careless spending, precarious debt and risky trading. Three major structures: the credit market, the banking market and the political machine have poisoned the heart and soul of the American economy. The heart, which pumped the life-blood into our economy, was tainted through several [...]
Fed Report: Real Estate Stabilizing in Key Cities
While real estate and other industries remained weak in all 12 of the Federal Reserve districts, there is reason for optimism in several areas, according to the Federal Reserve, which released its periodic “Beige Book” report of economic activity on Wednesday.
In Boston and Cambridge, Fed contacts reported “early signs of improvement” in the residential real [...]
Federal Housing Rescue Plan Launches
The Obama Administration’s program to rescue distressed home owners got off the ground this week. The program was announced on Feb. 18, but it took several weeks to put the bureaucracy in place.
Six of the nation’s largest banks signed up to participate, the Treasury Department announced Wednesday. They are JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, GMAC [...]
Bad News for the FHA
The Wall Street Journal recently found that slightly more than 10 percent of borrowers who took out FHA loans in the 1st quarter of 2008 were at least two months behind within the first 10 months. That is up from a 9.4 percent rate seen a year earlier. These numbers may be up because FHA [...]
Federal Reserve Continues to Buy Fannie and Freddie Debt
This week the Fed continued it’s buying binge, purchasing $5.15 billion of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Federal Home Loan Bank’s debt this Monday. This is the eighth purchase of government securities since a buyback policy was announced last month. As part of a bid to help lower borrowing costs, the Fed purchased about $60 [...]
1st Quarter US Forclosure rate is up 24%
Nationwide, nearly 805,000 homes received at least one foreclosure-related notice from January through March, up from about 650,000 in the same time period a year earlier, according to RealtyTrac, Inc. There are a few reasons why this the numbers are up. For the past few months, many banks were in the process of negotiating with [...]
Best Walking Cities in America
San Francisco was named the best walking city in America by Prevention magazine in conjunction with the American Podiatric Medical Association and Sperling’s Best Places. Boston, New York City, Philadelphia and Chicago rounded out the top five. Metro areas were evaluated using 19 criteria, including population density per square mile, use of mass transit, crime [...]
