Big Enterprise economists said Tuesday that the economy is slowly recovering, but that the housing market could put a damper on growth for one more year. “What we’ve observed right now is an economy that’s growing, but not growing as quickly as we’d like to it to grow, ” said Martin Regalia, chief economist for [...]
There’s a silver lining behind the cloud of falling actual estate values here in the Golden State: With mortgage rates still relatively low, housing affordability has climbed in Silicon Valley and other parts of California. According to the California Association of Realtors, 37 percent of households in Santa Clara County could afford to acquire a [...]
The S&P Case-Shiller home cost data for the initial quarter of 2011 are so dreadful that nearly every person agrees that the U.S. housing market is in the midst of a “double dip.” Curiously absent from several of these analyses is the role played by the federal government in helping to engineer a double-dip with [...]
Owning a home is not out of reach anymore if you live in Rock Island, Moline or Sterling, Illinois. Thanks to many grants, Rock Island leaders are fixing up houses and offering monetary support to home buyers. The incentives are in part to the Neighborhood Stabilization Grant and American Recovery Act. The programs are not [...]
With the latest news out over the weekend on the dismal housing values here in Southern California 1 can assume that all the government acronyms HAMP, HARP, HASP, NSP, FHFA, HAFA, etc., are all brought to you today by the letter “F,” as in failure. Lest you be led over the cliff, quit for a [...]
I lately attended a meeting at the National Association of Realtors headquarters in Chicago. Our two-day meeting was highlighted by speaker Steve Harney, recently named one of the most influential individuals in the real estate business. Steve is the man thousands of lenders and real estate specialists go to for real estate market data. Steve [...]
Amongst the most hotly contested ideas bank regulators have proposed to lessen the risk of another monetary crisis is rule producing a 20 percent down payment mandatory on some new residence loans. Consumer advocates, civil rights groups and lending business groups alike have said the proposed rule would deter numerous families from ever purchasing a [...]
Minorities and the working class may locate it harder to acquire houses under a U.S. strategy that would call for larger down payments to qualify for lower-cost mortgages, according to lenders, consumer groups and lawmakers. Bankers and consumer advocates, frequently at odds on policy problems, united today to make the case for revising the government [...]
While the U.S. housing market remains in flux since of high employment and record foreclosures, KB Home, 1 of America’s premier house builders, has discovered success in constructing and advertising homes and properties that are green and environmentally-friendly. On May possibly 17, KB Home unveiled the Primera Terra, the largest Leed Platinum-certified residential community in [...]
Even as property sales slow and prices fall, optimistic San Diego and Riverside county homebuilders are opening a lot more new communities than they have in the last two years, builders and analysts said. The North San Diego County and Southwest Riverside County housing markets are glutted with bank-owned houses and short sales, which put [...]