By CHUCK GREEN With lumber prices toppling, it might be the ideal time to knock on wood. Gently, though. It just might be a bit fragile at the moment. Year to date, prices have sagged around 50%, according to 7seasgroupusa.com. They recently sunk to their lowest point in nine months as they traded under the $600-per-thousand-board-feet mark. Conversely, a year ago, prices, fueled by pent-up demand for construction and home upgrades in the aftermath of COVID on the heels of a frenzy of speculation, reached $1,733, which was unprecedented.But as the housing market backed down in light of escalating interest rates, lumber prices have borne the brunt, receding more than 60% from their March highs, according to Business Insider. In May,…
Housing payments have surpassed the dreaded 30% cost-burdened threshold thanks to the 30-year fixed rate’s recent half-point jump. Black Knight reports that it now costs $2,103 to make the principal and interest (P&I) payment on an average-priced home with a 20% downpayment. That equates to 36.2% of the median household income and sinks affordability to its lowest level in more than 35 years. Payments as a percentage of income are now higher than the previous record of 34.1% in July 2006, and significantly up from the long-term average of 25.1%. The Department of Housing and Urban Development defines cost-burdened families as those “who pay more than 30% of their income for housing” and “may have difficulty affording necessities such as…
Mortgage loan application volume rose by 4.2% last week despite rates surging to their highest point since November 2008, the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) weekly survey shows. The adjusted Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, increased by 4.2%. The adjusted purchase index rose 8%, while the unadjusted purchase index was up by 6% and was 10% lower YOY. The refinance index dropped by 3% and made up 29.7% of total applications. Refi volume is down 77% in the last year. ARM activity rose to 10.6% of total applications. Mortgage rates increased by 33 basis points to 5.98%, their highest since 2008 and the largest single-week increase since 2009. MBA Associate Vice President of Economic and Industry…
April’s existing-home sales slipped for the third consecutive month, falling 2.4% from March to a seasonally adjusted rate of 5.61 million, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) reported. Sales were down 5.9% year-over-year, with each of the four major regions seeing declines. The median price for existing homes of all types was $391,200, up 14.8% YOY. This is the 122nd consecutive month of YOY price growth, the longest-running streak on record. “Higher home prices and sharply higher mortgage rates have reduced buyer activity. It looks like more declines are imminent in the upcoming months, and we’ll likely return to the pre-pandemic home sales activity after the remarkable surge over the past two years,” said Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist. Housing…
By CHUCK GREEN The President recently released a Housing Supply Action Plan designed to pull back the throttle on the challenges of housing costs over time by increasing the inventory of quality housing in every community. The plan bills itself as the most comprehensive effort to close the housing supply shortfall in history. It includes legislative and administrative actions that could help close America’s housing supply shortfall in five years. It will begin by creating and preserving scores of affordable housing units in the next three years. According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, there’s a national shortage of seven million homes. There’s fewer than four affordable and available rental homes for every 10 extremely low-income renter households and…
By KIMBERLEY HAAS Protesters who claim BlueHub Capital has a predatory program that has fleeced distressed homeowners rallied in Boston on Tuesday morning. The Stabilizing Urban Neighborhoods program hit the spotlight in February of 2020, when a group of 14 homeowners filed a class-action lawsuit in Massachusetts Superior Court. WGBH reported at the time that the plaintiffs alleged they were the victims of predatory lending practices while facing foreclosure or hardship. BlueHub Capital leaders responded at the time by saying the SUN initiative had successfully helped more than 1,100 families facing foreclosure and eviction. “SUN has reduced borrowers’ collective outstanding mortgage principal by about $68 million and their monthly mortgage payments by nearly $42 million,” company leaders stated. “Almost all…
Delinquencies dropped to another record low in March, with only 2.7% of all mortgages in the U.S. experiencing some stage of delinquency, according to CoreLogic’s monthly Loan Performance Insights Report. Delinquencies were down 2.2 percentage points from March 2021, when they were at 4.9%. The share of early-stage delinquencies, or loans 30 to 59 days past due, was 1%, unchanged YOY, while the share of adverse delinquencies (60 to 89 days past due) was down 0.1% YOY to 0.3%. Serious delinquencies accounted for only 1.4% of U.S. mortgages, down from 3.5% the year prior and a high of 4.3% in August 2020. The share of mortgages in some stage of the foreclosure process, known as the Foreclosure Inventory Rate, decreased…
Rate lock volumes dropped again in May by 4.8% despite interest rate growth slowing, according to Black Knight’s latest Originations Market Report. While conforming 30-year rates rose at the beginning of the month to 5.5%, they cooled by month-end to 5.34%, 7 basis points down from April. Still, lock volumes fell for both rate/term and cash-out refis, down 23.6% and 11.9% respectively. Cash-outs are now down 42.2% from last year. “Ultimately, our OBMMI daily interest rate tracker showed 30-year conforming offerings finishing the month at 5.34%, down 7 basis points from last month. Still, despite this plateau in rates, rate lock volume continued to slide in May, with declines seen across all loan purposes,” said Scott Happ, president of Optimal…
Mortgage rates broke their downward streak this week, rising to an average of 5.23%, Freddie Mac reported Thursday. Freddie’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey (PMMS) found that the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) averaged 5.23%, up from last week’s 5.09%. A year ago at this time, the 30-year FRM averaged 2.96%. “After little movement the last few weeks, mortgage rates rose again on the back of increased economic activity and incoming inflation data,” said Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s Chief Economist. “The housing market is incredibly rate-sensitive, so as mortgage rates increase suddenly, demand again is pulling back. The material decline in purchase activity, combined with the rising supply of homes for sale, will cause a deceleration in price growth to more normal…
Second-home destinations saw YOY price surges in April, with four of the five most popular areas seeing more than 25% growth, Redin reported. While average rental prices increased 10% in areas not considered second-home destinations by Redfin, prices rose by 17.1% in vacation hotspots to $1,893. Redfin found a similar trend in the for-sale market, with the typical home in second-home markets selling for $516,423 in April, up 19.9% YOY and a new record. Prices in non-second-home markets increased by 14.8%. Phoenix, Cape Coral, FL, Naples, FL, Myrtle Beach, SC, and Las Vegas– the top five destinations for second homes– saw significant increases in both rental and home-sale prices. All but Myrtle Beach experienced rent growth above 25% YOY, and…
