Team Thayer Property Servicing

  This week marks a turnaround in real esate with reports uniformly showing strength. Job growth and relatively low mortgage rates are making buyers feel optimistic at model homes from coast to coast. N ew home sales activity picked up: Sales increased 6.8% in April Sales for the first 4 months of 2015 increased 23.7% over the same period in 2014 Supply is down relative to sales – now at 4.8% Median sales price is up 8.3% year on year due to decreased supply Pending home sales data from the NAR is positively effervescent: Homes going under contract were up 3.4% in April; March results were revised up by 1.2% This indicator has increased every month in 2015 to the highest level since May, 2006 The year-on-year gain is a very healthy 14% Mortgage delinquencies moved in the opposite direction in Q1. The national delinquency rate hit 2.95% according to TransUnion. This is the 13th consecutive quarterly drop and well below the market peak of 6.94% reached in 2010 and the

Pending Home Sales Rise to Highest Level in Nine Years The  National Association of Realtors  (NAR) recently reported in their  Pending Home Sales Index  (PHSI) that, pending home sales increased in April for the fourth consecutive month and reached their highest peak in nine years. All four major regions saw growth in April, led by the Northeast and Midwest. “The steady gains in contract activity each month this year highlight the fact that buyer demand is strong,” said Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist. "Realtors are saying foot traffic remains elevated this spring despite limited—and in some cases severe—inventory shortages in many metro areas. “ The index is a forward-looking indicator based on contract signings, NAR reported. It increased 3.4 percent to 112.4 in April from a slight upward revision of 108.7 in March and is now 14 percent above 98.6 in April 2014. This is the largest annual increase since 15.1 percent in September 2012. Year-over-year, the index ha

F reddie Mac  has sold its third bundle of seriously delinquent single-family mortgage loans of 2015 via auction, according to an  announcement from Freddie Mac  on Tuesday afternoon. The winning bidder was LSF9 Mortgage Holdings, LLC. The sale included 1,052 non-performing loans serviced by Ocwen Financial with an aggregate unpaid principal balance (UPB) of $201 million. The loans were offered for sale in a single pool. The loans were sold on May 21 and the transaction is expected to close in July. The cover bid price, which was the second highest bid, fell in the mid-70s percent of the UPB for the pool of loans. The weighted average BPO was 93 percent, average loan size was $191,177, and the note rate was 5.28 percent, according to Freddie Mac. The deeply delinquent status of the loans, which are three years delinquent on average, indicates that the borrowers have already been evaluated for or are in some stage of loss mitigation, or are in some stage of foreclosure. Twen

The  April 2015 First-Time Buyer Mortgage Risk Index  (FBMRI) for Agency loans increased by nearly a full percentage point year-over-year up to 15.28 percent, indicating that those mortgage loans are moving deeper into the high-risk category, according to data released this week by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI)'s  International Center on Housing Risk . Risk layering is largely responsible for the increase in risk on mortgage loans taken out by first-time buyers, according to AEI. Seventy percent of first-time mortgage buyers in April 2015 had a combined LTV ratio of 95 percent or more and 97 percent of them had a 30-year term. Without substantial home price appreciation, the low down payment and slow amortization makes it likely that these first-time buyers will have very little equity in their homes for many years. Also contributing to the higher risk among first-time buyers is that approximately one-fifth of them fit the traditional definition of subprime mortgag

Imagine 3 appraisals on one property, and all of them have a different value. How can appraisers have any credibility when there is so much difference? I hear this question all the time, so I wanted to pitch in some thoughts to hopefully strike a balanced conversation for home owners, agents, and appraisers. Here are three points to consider for perspective. Any thoughts? Range of Values:  We like to think value is incredibly precise, but one of the best things we can do is realize there is a range of value in real estate. This means realistically buyers might be willing to pay anywhere between $330,000 to $340,000 for a particular property instead of such an exact figure of $334,568. The same is true when we buy a new car or even buy something on Craigslist. Rather than being tied down to one exact figure, we often recognize there is a price range we’d be comfortable paying. We might think of a Camry as having a value anywhere from $21,500 to $23,000 or a used bookcase being a d

Freddie Mac eased its  U.S. Freddie Mac  rel conomic and Housing Market Outlook  for May today, revealing that low mortgage rates kept affordability high in the first quarter of this year for buyers, but housing markets probably will see interest rates increase for the rest of the year. The outlook credits market participants attempting to anticipate the Federal Reserve's timing around rising short term interest rates as the likely be the cause of the increase. “For the remainder of this year, we're likely to continue to see these mortgage rate swings as market participants try to anticipate Fed timing around rising short term interest rates,” said Len Kiefer, deputy chief economist at Freddie Mac. “Unfortunately, perspective homebuyers may experience bouts of affordability shock in many housing markets." Outlook Forecast: Due to weak first quarter data, revising down the forecast for economic growth for 2015 from 2.6 to 2.3 percent. With tight for-sale inve

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The percentage of residential mortgage borrowers who are delinquent (more than 60 days behind on their mortgage payments) was reported at 2.95 percent in Q1, the first time it has been below 3 percent in more than seven years, according to TransUnion's Quarterly Industry Insights Report released Monday. Q1 marked the 13th consecutive quarterly decline in mortgage delinquency rate. Q1's percentage of 2.95 was a drop from 3.29 percent in Q4 2014 and from 3.59 percent in Q1 2014. Before Q1, the mortgage delinquency rate had not been below 3 percent since Q3 2007 (immediately prior to the beginning of the recession), when it was reported at 2.61 percent. Subprime consumers had a delinquency rate of 27.23 percent in Q1, a decline of 9 percent year-over-year; it was reported at 29.7 percent for Q1 2014. The delinquency rate for both subprime consumers and all consumers peaked in Q1 2010 at 40.5 percent and 6.9 percent, respectively. "It's taken more than seven years,

Existing homes sales this year are expected to hit levels not seen since just after the peak, in 2006, driven by strong job growth, low interest rates and a gradual loosening of lending standards, according to the National Association of Realtors. Lawrence Yun, chief economist at the realtor association, said in his mid-year forecast on Thursday that he expects home sales to end up around 5.3 million in 2015, a significant pick-up from 4.9 million sales in 2014. Last year, economists also anticipated robust growth in the home sales, but were disappointed when a spike in interest rates early in the year and poor wage growth dampened the market. Mr. Yun said that early results this year point to a pick-up in home sales, including sales in the first few months, foot traffic at homes on the market and strong job growth. Buyers who have been kept out of the market by low wages and strict lending standards are likely to start coming back. “There is sizeable pent-up demand,” h

Foreclosure inventory tumbled by 25.7%, while completed foreclosures also dropped by 15.5% from March 2014, according to the latest report from  CoreLogic  . There were 41,000 completed foreclosures nationwide in March 2015, down from 48,000 in March 2014, representing a decrease of 65.2% from the peak of completed foreclosures in September 2010, according to CoreLogic data. Completed foreclosures are an indication of the total number of homes actually lost to foreclosure. Since the financial crisis began in September 2008, there have been approximately 5.6 million completed foreclosures across the country, and since homeownership rates peaked in the second quarter of 2004, there have been approximately 7.7 million homes lost to foreclosure. “We are seeing additional improvement in housing market conditions due to a decline in the serious delinquency rate to 3.9%, far below the peak of 8.6% in early 2010,” said Frank Nothaft, chief economist for CoreLogic. “Despite the decline