Unemployed homeowners with mortgages owned by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae (Frannie) now have the option of participating in a mortgage forbearance program. The revised policy took effect February 1, 2012 for Freddie Mac and will take place March 1, 2012 for Fannie Mae. Not all homeowners with a mortgage from Frannie – 60% of [...]

As both jobs and home sales remained scarce, 34% of all California home resale activity in the fourth quarter of 2011 was attributed to real estate owned (REO) inventory — approximately the same as in the prior quarter and down from an even higher 38% one year earlier. [For current REO data and analysis, see [...]

37,734 new and resale home transactions closed escrow in California during December 2011, up 4% from 36,215 transactions one year ago. December is the fifth consecutive month in which home sales volume surpassed corresponding months in 2010, which could indicate the beginning of a larger trend. Home sales volume was relatively flat from month to [...]

‘Twas the season of giving when California Attorney General (AG) Kamala Harris sued government sponsored entities (GSEs) Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae (Frannie), just a few days before Christmas. The California AG filed the two suits not long after having seceded from the national negotiations which were underway between the Big Banks and a number [...]

The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) has extended the waiver of its anti-flipping restrictions through December 31, 2012. The waiver allows buyers to continue using FHA-insured mortgage financing to purchase single family residences (SFRs) from sellers who have owned the property for less than 90 days – the concurrent or nearly concurrent double escrow or assignment [...]

As the income chasm widens between the top 1% of earners in the U.S. and everyone else, social mobility likewise continues to decline, according to the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, Alan Krueger. Krueger points to a number of indicators that income inequality is indeed present in the U.S. and that it is [...]

Coming by a down payment acceptable to today’s mortgage lenders is altering the outlook for homebuyers in this post-Millennium Boom era, following 30 years of ever relaxing mortgage qualification requirements. While 100% financing came to be regarded as the standard during the Millennium Boom, today’s homebuyers in need of purchase-assist financing are again making down [...]

A new tool built as a platform for visualizing current rates of inflation in the context of long-term pricing trends has been introduced by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. The Inflation Dashboard, as it is called, shows current inflation rates from a choice of perspectives, divided into six categories: retail prices; inflation expectations; labor [...]

Europeans are more interested in California real estate than ever, according to a recent study by the real estate website, Trulia. Based on global web traffic to view real estate listings on their site, Trulia reported the top 50 metro areas in the U.S. that Europeans are eyeing. Seven of the top 50 cities were [...]

China’s government has stepped in to tame the fired-up dragon that is/was the Chinese real estate market.  Real estate investments in China are now witnessing rapidly declining prices, and the country’s smart private money is looking elsewhere to invest excess funds. Unlike in the U.S., where the government allows the free market to reign until [...]