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Consumer News and Advice Archive
Of the approximately 4 million mortgages that are either 90 or more days delinquent or in foreclosure, the numbers that are delinquent 90 days or more has shrunk to levels not seen since 2008.
The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) recently urged Congress to proceed with caution and conduct a cost-benefit analysis before implementing any new regulations or requirements that call for the federal government to develop a National Ocean Policy, which the Administration is now contemplating.
Social media continues to evolve and be a powerful force and way to reach new and existing customers, clients, and markets. One of the biggest problems with this power vehicle is that businesses don't know how to take advantage of it.
"Business owners are spending countless hours online but wiping out,” says Starr Hall, social media strategist and author of The Social Wave: Why Your Business is Wiping Out with Social Media and How to Fix It. “They aren't reaping the benefits of their online outreach. If you fall into this category, it's time to change your social media approach."
Mortgage-related failures among lenders are down 42 percent this year from this point in 2010. The improvement is entirely due to fewer failures among federally chartered banks; mortgage-related losses contributed to the same number of nonbank mortgage lenders and credit union failures this year as last.
So far during 2011, the casualty list of banks that have failed due to mortgage-related casualties stands at just 105. By this point in 2010, MortgageDaily.com had tracked 158 mortgage-related firms and businesses that had failed or closed.
REGIONAL SPOTLIGHT—According to the third quarter Manhattan residential market report released recently by Brown Harris Stevens, the average Manhattan apartment sale price of $1,437,302 was on par with last quarter and up just 1% from same period in 2010. As was the case with last quarter,
Rates were already low at the start of the quarter, but following the Fed's announcement last week, the national average rate on a traditional 30 year fixed rate mortgage has inched lower. Informa Research Services, a subsidiary of Informa plc (LSE: INF), encourages qualified homeowners to take advantage
The third quarter of 2011 came to an end this past Friday and it makes you wonder; where did the time go? One thing you're not left wondering is whether mobile will remain an important part of the technological and marketing landscape moving forward.
Mortgage lenders take almost 7 days on average to respond to consumer inquiries via phone, and over one day to respond to inquiries received via email, resulting in a poor return on their marketing investment, bottom line under-performance and a disappointing or even damaging customer experience. ...
Pending home sales slipped in August with a mixed regional performance but are higher than a year ago, according to the National Association of REALTORS®. The Pending Home Sales Index, a forward-looking indicator based on contract signings, declined 1.2 percent to 88.6 in August from 89.7 in July but is 7.7 percent above August 2010 when it stood at 82.3. The data reflects contracts but not closings.
Data through July 2011, released recently by S&P Indices for its S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices, the leading measure of U.S. home prices, showed a fourth consecutive month of increases for the 10- and 20-City Composites, with both up 0.9% in July over June. Seventeen of the 20 MSAs and both Composites posted positive monthly increases; Las Vegas and Phoenix were down over the month and Denver was unchanged.
Processing delays have taken their toll on first-time home buyer interest in short sales, which now account for more than one of every six house sales, according to the latest Campbell/Inside Mortgage Finance HousingPulse Tracking Survey.
First-time home buyer purchases of short sales dropped to 39.7 percent of short sale transactions in August. That represented a three-month slide and was the lowest level for first-time home buyers ever recorded by the HousingPulse survey.
Greg Rand (
@gsrand), CEO of
OwnAmerica and host of Rand on Real Estate on 770 WABC, talks with a current business owner who is looking to expand on his investments and voicing his concerns about residential vs. commercial investments.
A home inspection is a crucial component of making a smart home-buying decision. According to Jay Gregg, director of marketing for Pillar To Post, not all home inspections are equal. Gregg, who has experience in home inspections, sales marketing and as a previous Pillar To Post franchisee,
Litigation over the foreclosure process reached its highest level in the second quarter than in any quarter since MortgageDaily.com’s Mortgage Litigation Index was introduced in 2007.
The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) recently released its third annual report on guarantee fees (g-fees) charged by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the Enterprises), concluding that the average “g-fee” on single-family mortgages increased in 2010 relative to 2009, from 22 basis points to 26 basis points.
The report finds that the Enterprises’ g-fees continued to convey cross-subsidies from mortgages that posed lower credit risk, on average, to loans that posed higher credit risk, but overall that cross-subsidization was substantially less in 2009 and 2010 than in 2007 or 2008.
