Zillow told employees they will be allowed to work from home through the end of the year, extending the flexible working arrangement brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. “Today we let our team know they have flexibility to work from home (or anywhere) through the end of 2020,” Zillow CEO and co-founder Rich Barton tweeted. “My personal opinions about WFH have been turned upside down over the past 2 months. I expect this will have a lasting influence on the future of work … and home. Stay safe.” Zillow, launched in 2006 and based in Seattle, employees more than 5,000 people. The web-based company has a database of more than 110 million properties. “Software and the people who create, deploy,…
The coronavirus will have a disproportionate impact on Latino, Asian and African-American households due to the nature of the jobs members of these communities hold and how much of their income they pay for housing, according to a new analysis by Zillow. With more than 22 million Americans filing for unemployment in the last four weeks, a large number work in the food, retail and arts industries. Nationwide, Zillow found, 8.3 percent of white workers are employed in these industries – compared to 12.7 percent of Latino workers, 10.2 percent of Asian workers and 10.1 percent of African-American workers. This is made worse by rent burdens for each community. White households in these industries spent 25.1 percent of their income on…
Homeownership rates climbed to 65.3 percent in the first quarter of the year, the highest rate since the end of 2013. Data released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau showed that homeownership ticked up 0.2 percentage points during the quarter and was 1.1 percentage points higher than the first quarter of 2019. The report showed that homeowner vacancy rates were 1.1 percent – which was 0.3 percent lower than the first and fourth quarters of 2019. The rental vacancy rate of 6.6 percent was 0.4 percent points lower than the first quarter of 2019 and slightly higher than the 6.4 percent in the fourth quarter of 2019.…
The number of mortgages in forbearance amid the coronavirus pandemic keeps climbing. The latest data released Monday by the Mortgage Bankers Association shows 6.99 percent of mortgage borrowers – or 3.5 million – were in forbearance as of April 19. That’s up from 5.95 percent a week earlier. On March 2, roughly 0.25 percent of loans were in forbearance. MBA’s numbers are even higher than those released Friday by Black Knight, which estimated that 6.4 percent of all mortgages were in forbearance as of April 23. “Forbearance requests fell relative to the prior week but remain roughly 100 times greater than the early March baseline,” said Mike Fratantoni, MBA’s Senior Vice President and Chief Economist.” While the pace of job…
The number of loans in forbearance continues to outpace regulators’ expectations, with an estimated 3.4 million homeowners pushing pause on mortgage payments amid the coronavirus pandemic, according to data released Friday by Black Knight. According to the firm’s forbearance tracker, 6.4 percent of all mortgages have entered into forbearance as of April 23 – up from 5.5 percent a week ago. On March 2, roughly 0.25 percent of loans were in forbearance. Black Knight reports that 1.57 million Fannie and Freddie loans are in forbearance, making up 5.6 percent of their share of the mortgage market. Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Mark Calabria said early this month that he expected no more than 300,000 Fannie and Freddie loans to fall into forbearance…
A trio of housing reports released Thursday found that home prices aren’t dropping amid the ever-changing housing market brought on by the coronavirus pandemic, though sales are down. While price increases have slowed, Zillow found that the median list price of homes for sale in the United States was 0.4 percent higher than a year ago as of April 19. List prices were up about 7 percent year over year at this time in 2019. Additionally, the National Association of Realtors says 74 percent of members surveyed say their clients haven’t reduced listing prices to attract buyers. And he Census Bureau also announced Wednesday that new home sales tumbled 15.4 percent in March from February – and 9.5 percent below March…
Mortgage rates rose ever so slightly this week, reflecting nearly a month of stable rates after swings in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic. The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 3.33 percent, according to Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey released Thursday. “Mortgage rates have stabilized over the last few weeks as the market searches for direction in the fog of economic data,” said Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s Chief Economist. “While financial markets initially rallied on the news of Federal Reserve support and are improving due to the Senate’s passage of a new small business stimulus, we continue to see a deep economic contraction amidst uncertainty about the recovery formation.” The survey found: The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage average of 3.33…
MBS Highway President and CEO Barry Habib presented a bleak scenario resulting from the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s announcement Tuesday that mortgage lenders will have to cover four months of missed payments from borrowers under forbearance during the coronavirus pandemic. In a Facebook Live with the Association of Independent Mortgage Experts, Habib warned that lenders may be incentivized to hold on to new loans and potentially ruin borrowers’ credit, unless more federal protection is enacted. He presented a scenario in which a servicer issues a loan and makes 50 basis points on the deal. “If a loan went bad on a first-payment default because they needed forbearance or they’re gaming the system … so on a $300,000 loan, you risk losing $21,000 to…
Home prices in the United States rose 0.7 percent in February over the previous month – and 5.7 percent over a year earlier, the Federal Housing Finance Agency announced Wednesday. “U.S. house prices posted a strong increase in February,” said Dr. Lynn Fisher, Deputy Director of the Division of Research and Statistics at FHFA. “The growth in home prices coincides with other data showing robust housing market activity in early 2020 preceding the current crisis. House prices had positive monthly gains in every census division. Transactions still do not reflect much, if any, influence from the COVID-19 outbreak as of February.” Seasonally adjusted monthly house price changes from January 2020 to February 2020 were up in all nine census divisions of…
Mortgage applications dipped slightly last week, falling 0.3 percent from a week earlier, according to the latest report released Wednesday by the Mortgage Bankers Association. The Refinance Index decreased 1 percent last week, but was 225 percent higher than the same week one year ago – driven by historically low interest rates. The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index increased 2 percent from one week earlier. The unadjusted Purchase Index increased 3 percent compared with the previous week and was 31 percent lower than the same week one year ago. “Mortgage applications were essentially unchanged last week, as a slight drop in refinance activity was offset by a 2 percent increase in purchase applications,” said Joel Kan, MBA’s Associate Vice President of…
