Team Thayer Property Servicing

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...

Foreclosure starts rose for the first time in eight months....  in May, but there is still reason to be optimistic about the United States housing market, according to the latest Mortgage Monitor Report of the latest available data released by Black Knight Financial Services. The report indicated that foreclosure starts nationwide rose by 9.5 percent. The rise in May reverses the eight month trend of continuing decline in starts. However, the outlook for the housing market is still trending upward compared to years past and Black Knight cautioned against reading too much into the backwards step. "While foreclosure starts did rise over 9 percent in May, it's important to remember the historical trend is still one of improvement," said Kostya Gradushy, Black Knight's manager of Loan Data and Customer Analytics. "On a year-over-year basis, January through May foreclosure starts were still down 32 percent, and we are still looking at the lowest level of foreclo...

As economists had expected, the  latest employment numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics  show that with the U.S. adding 217,000 jobs in May, the number people in the workforce has finally surpassed pre-bust levels, to a new all-time high. Unemployment is still higher than most would like — 6.3 percent by the most commonly employed measure, and higher by others. The so-called U-6 measure, which includes 7.3 million people working part-time because that’s all they can find, stood at 12.2 percent,  notes Calculated Risk blogger Bill McBride . Long term unemployment remains a key problem, McBride says — 3.374 million unemployed workers have been on the hunt for a new job for more than 26 weeks. But overall, “this was another solid employment report,” the widely followed blogger wrote. McBride says he’ll be retiring what some readers have called the “scariest jobs chart ever,” which he’s been running to show the severity of the downturn, “until the next recessio...