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Nearly half of U.S. mortgage payers own at least 50 percent equity, according to ATTOM’s Q2 2022 Home Equity & Underwater Report. This means that the balance of loans taken out against the home is less than half the estimated market value of the property.As Statista's Anna Fleck notes, the share of equity-rich homeowners has been rising continuously for the past nine quarters. While it hit 34.4 percent in Q2 of 2021, it rose to 44.9 percent in Q1 of 2022, and finally to today’s figure of 48.1 percent for Q2 2022.You will find more infographics at StatistaAccording to ATTOM,...

The housing and renting market continues to teeter on the brink, and the newest incoming data doesn't offer up any clear signs of stabilization. In fact, new data continues to suggest the opposite: that volatility in housing could only be beginning...and that we're going to have plenty of fodder on deflation, which we have talked about frequently, invoking the effects of a "reverse bullwhip" on the economy. A new report from Apartments.com examining multifamily rent growth trends for July 2022 shows that the Sunbelt markets are set up for what is being called a "a significant collapse of demand" heading...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. construction spending tumbled in June as outlays on single-family homebuilding declined sharply amid rising mortgage rates. The Commerce Department said on Monday that construction spending dropped 1.1% in June after gaining 0.1% in May. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast construction spending would rise 0.1%. Construction spending increased 8.3% on a year-on-year basis in June. Spending on private construction projects decreased 1.3% after increasing 0.2% in May.

China’s property sales will likely drop by about 30% this year — nearly two times worse than their prior forecast, S&P Global Ratings said, citing a growing number of Chinese homebuyers suspending their mortgage payments. Such a drop would be worse than in 2008 when sales fell by roughly 20%, Esther Liu, director at S&P Global Ratings, said in a phone interview Wednesday. The latest developments have delayed a recovery in China’s real estate sector to next year from this year, she said. ... Most homes in China are sold before completion, generating an important source of cash flow for...

REVEALED: 15 key US states where Chinese citizens are buying $6B of property after being banned by other countries for pushing up house prices as Ron DeSantis calls it a 'huge problem' Chinese investors bought $6.1billion worth of property in the US between April 2021 to April 2022, a report by The National Association of Realtors (NAR) revealed. Florida ties with Indiana for the third hottest pick with the Chinese. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, 43, called a 'huge problem.' 'I don't think they should be able to do it. I think the problem is these companies have ties to the...

Inflation is crippling rural America and driving some people to consider moving closer to cities in an effort to ease the financial stress, according to the latest analysis from one expert. Iowa State University professor Dave Peters has been studying the effect of inflation on people in rural communities as part of the school's Small Town Project. He found that this year alone, expenses for rural Americans had increased by 9.2%, but their earnings only increased by 2.6%. And Peters has pinpointed where it's hurting most. "Mainly, fuel prices, particularly among the farmer and agricultural community," he said. "They really...

The number of home sales in California in June dropped a staggering 21% year-over-year, a report from the California Association of Realtors revealed this week. Outside of the early pandemic downturn in 2020, that plunge is the biggest since 2008, during the nadir of the Great Recession. The Bay Area has seen a similar trend to the rest of the state, with home sales down a whopping 29% over past year. The cost of buying a home, however, hasn't yet dropped in San Francisco. Zillow data shows that the average cost of a single family home in the city in...

A cooling trend sparked by rising mortgage rates continued to chill Southern California’s housing market, with home prices and sales dropping at a time when they typically are on the rise. Home prices dipped from May to June for the first time since 2010. Sales fell from May levels for the first time since 2013. Despite the cool down, experts say a market crash still appears unlikely. “We’re still in what we call in the industry ‘a slight seller’s market,’ ” said Geoffrey Tackney, broker and co-owner of GMT Real Estate in Garden Grove. “We’re entering a neutral market, but...

Here we go loop de loop! Traders are pricing in a 75 basis point rate increase at the July FOMC meeting despite collapsing Fed 5-year inflation breakeven rates. Money markets are betting on a three quarter-percentage point hike by Federal Reserve officials later this month, wagering the US will need to ramp up the pace of monetary tightening to tame inflation. The repricing comes ahead of a key inflation report due Wednesday. The headline figure for June is set to accelerate to 8.8% year over year, the highest since 1981. Bankrate’s 30Y mortgage rate fell slightly ahead of today’s inflation...

Alarm! The Federal Reserve is reversing its excessive monetary stimulus policies left over from the financial crisis of 2008 (and Covid) and the mortgage industry and potential home buyers are paying the price. Mortgage applications decreased 1.7 percent from one week earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending July 8, 2022. This week’s results include an adjustment for the observance of Independence Day. The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index decreased 4 percent from one week earlier. The unadjusted Purchase Index decreased 14 percent compared with the previous week and was...

The giant sucking sound in the home loan industry grew louder Wednesday when Sprout Mortgage told employees it’s going out of business. The company broke the news to its more than 300 staffers during a conference call Wednesday, according to HousingWire. A former employee of the Long Island-based mortgage lender told the publication that Sprout had already slashed its workforce several times.

The US housing crisis has been decades in the making, but combined with an inflation squeeze and a systemic shortage of affordable housing, more renters have nowhere to go. erardo Vidal, who has lived in the same apartment in Queens, New York, with his family for 9 years, recently received a $900-a-month rent increase this year. “It means having to uproot my entire family, given the fact we’re still having a difficult time earning money due to the pandemic and loss of jobs,” said Vidal. “It’s unfair that we are being basically forced out of places we lived in for...

In a normal housing market, a relatively quick and painless home sale is by no means a given. It's not unheard of for homes to sit on the housing market for months on end without a buyer -- especially if they're not priced or marketed well. Today's housing market is different, though. Right now, real estate inventory is down, and buyer demand is strong. That puts sellers in a strong position to not just move their homes off the market quickly, but command strong sale prices. If you're thinking of selling your home, there are certain items you should tackle...

“Ah Redfin,” Glenn Kelman wrote in an all-staff e-mail two weeks ago, “I’m sorry to say that we’re asking about 8% of our employees to leave…” The online real estate brokerage’s CEO went on to announce a sweeping layoff. It was either that or cease to exist… Redfin (RDFN) stock is down more than 90% since February 2021. And last month, demand came in at 17% less than the brokerage expected. It’s a brutal time in real estate. Last year’s manic market has cooled in a matter of months. Mortgage rates have soared, crushing demand. It might feel like another...

Remember the booming housing market — where Americans had great opportunities to relocate and/or trade up? Those days are likely to become a fading memory, thanks to rising interest rates, and arguably have already come to a screeching halt. CNBC reported that the latest data from the National Association of Realtors (NAR) showed the worst result in two years for sales of existing homes:Sales of existing homes in May dropped 3.4% to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 5.41 million units, according to the National Association of Realtors.Sales were 8.6% lower than in May 2021. April’s sales were revised slightly...

More than half a dozen affordable housing projects in California are costing more than $1 million per apartment to build, a record-breaking sum that makes it harder to house the growing numbers of low-income Californians who need help paying rent, a Times review of state data found. The seven subsidized housing developments, all in Northern California, received state funding within the last two years and are under construction or close to breaking ground. When completed, they will provide homes for more than 600 families. But their exorbitant price tags mean that taxpayers are subsidizing fewer apartments than they otherwise could...

Real estate firms Redfin and Compass are laying off workers, as mortgage rates rise sharply and home sales drop. In filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Compass announced a 10% cut to its workforce, and Redfin announced an 8% cut. Shares of both companies fell Tuesday. Redfin’s stock touched a new 52-week low. Mortgage demand has fallen to its lowest level in over two decades. Rates have taken off since the start of this year, rising from 3.29% in early January to 6.28% now, according to Mortgage News Daily. Rates shot up more than half a percentage point in...

HAVANA, Cuba — Marco put his home up for sale, a concrete, one-bedroom house outside the Cuban capital, just blocks from the beach. He's hoping to sell almost everything he has to fund the journey out of Cuba. "Everything is for sale. ... Everything," he says. Marco doesn't want to use his full name because he's afraid he could face government repercussions for talking about his plans to leave the country. If he gets out, he'll become the latest in the largest wave of Cubans to leave the island in decades. Many are trying to cross by land from Mexico...

You better hope it doesn’t get Cold Outside. Because the cost of heating your house just rose 5.74% this morning (natural gas futures). To $9.01. Between Biden’s anti-fossil fuel policies and the war in Ukraine, natural gas futures are up 255% under Biden. With rising natural gas prices, one would think American consumers and American home builders would start building higher-density housing like duplexes. But The Federal Reserve has helped America build BIGGER houses (as in greater square footage). Note that following the financial crisis and the takeover of the US economy by The Fed, median square footage of US...

One of the most detrimental aspects of an inflationary or stagflationary crisis is that, in most cases, housing costs tend to rise while home sales fall. It might seem counterintuitive; one would assume that as sales fall so should prices, but this is the upside-down world of inflation. Certain commodities and products, usually necessities, almost always skyrocket in price, ultimately driving most American families out of the market completely. One of the only exceptions to this rule is when the government institutes rent or price controls. In Weimar Germany, for example, the government enforced strict regulatory controls on landlords, fixing...