A trifecta of damaging winds between 130-156 mph, dangerous storm surge, and extremely heavy and widespread rainfall between 10-15 inches is expected to put 941,392 homes in the Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi coastal areas at risk for storm surge damage, according to data analysis for single-family and multifamily homes released by CoreLogic®.
The reconstruction cost value of all at-risk homes totals more than $200 billion.
Storm surge is the abnormal rise in seawater level during a storm, measured as the height of the water above the normal predicted astronomical tide. The surge is caused primarily by a storm’s winds pushing water onshore and can cause significant property damage.
“Atmospheric conditions are highly favorable for rapid intensification after Ida emerges from…
Homebuyers in June 2021 had 129 percent more house-buying power than in 2006, according to the June 2021 First American Real House Price Index (RHPI), released today. “House-buying power, how much one can buy based on changes in income and interest rates, increased by 6.8 percent in June compared with a year ago, propelled by lower mortgage rates and higher household income,” said Mark Fleming, chief economist at First American Financial Corporation, which releases the RHPI. First American is a leading global provider of title insurance, settlement services, and risk solutions for real estate transactions. “The affordability gain from increased house-buying power, however, was offset by the third component of the RHPI, nominal house price appreciation, which reached a record…
Mortgage rates held steady despite a tug-of-war between economic recovery and the fiscal impact of rising Covid-19 cases, according to Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey (PMMS®). The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 2.87 percent with an average 0.6 point for the week ending August 26, 2021, up slightly from last week’s 2.86 percent. A year ago at this time, the 30-year FRM averaged 2.91 percent. The 15-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 2.17 percent with an average 0.6 point, up slightly from last week when it averaged 2.16 percent. A year ago at this time, the 15-year FRM was 2.46 percent. The 5-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) averaged 2.42 percent with an average 0.2 point, down slightly from last week when…
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Los Angeles’ COVID-19 eviction moratorium, rejecting an effort by Southern California’s largest landlord organization to reverse the restriction. The Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles sued the city on June 11, 2020, challenging the eviction ban, prohibitions on late fees and interest on unpaid rent, and moratorium on annual rent increases. AAGA consists of 55,000 rental property owners and managers. Judge Daniel Aaron Bress wrote for the three-judge panel that upheld the moratorium, writing “the moratorium’s provisions were likely ‘reasonable’ and ‘appropriate’ given the circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic” and adding that there was “no apparent basis” on which the moratorium violates the U.S. Constitution’s Contracts Clause, as the landlord association alleged. The clause…
An investigation by The Markup found that lenders in 2019 were more likely to reject loan requests from people of color than white people, even if their finances looked much the same. The Markup examined more than 2 million conventional mortgage applications using statistical analysis that held 17 factors steady to account for explanations traditionally used to explain racial disparities in lending: the borrower’s credit history, debt-to-income (DTI) ratio and loan-to-value (LTV) ratio. According to The Markup, the bias was evident in the credit scoring algorithm “Classic FICO,” which was developed in the 1990s. Fannie and Freddie require lenders to use Classic FICO to determine whether an applicant meets their minimum threshold. Classic FICO focuses on traditional credit but does…
The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) reports mortgage applications increased 1.6 percent during the week ending August 20, 2021. They also report the Refinance Index increased 1 percent from the previous week and was 3 percent higher than the same week one year ago. Refis accounted for 67.3 percent of total applications, no change from the week before, while adjustable-rate mortgages fell to 3.1 percent of total applications. Lower rates led to an increase in refinance applications, with government loan applications jumping 10 percent to the highest level since May 2021,” said MBA’s Associate Vice President of Economic and Industry Forecasting Joel Kan. As for the housing market as a whole, Kan says there may be signs of cooling. “There was…
Mortgage refinancing exploded in July, according to mortgage data analyst Black Knight. The report shows rate lock volume, the number of borrowers who locked in their mortgage rate, jumped by 5.5% in July. Rate/term refinance grew 24% month-over-month, while cash-out refinance grew 20%. The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) decided in mid-July to remove the adverse market refinance fee put in place in 2020. The 0.5% fee was intended to alleviate any future financial burden placed on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac by the effects of the pandemic. Instead of a downturn, the housing market soared. The boom in refinancing is directly linked to the FHFA’s decision to reverse course. And now “[r]efinance volumes were undoubtedly boosted” by its repeal, Black Knight…
Texas and Arizona dominated top spots in WalletHub’s report on 2021’s best real-estate markets. Half of the top ten markets were in Texas, with Frisco, TX taking the number one spot. Five of the top thirty cities are in Arizona. WalletHub used two dimensions for the ranking: real-estate market data, such as median home prices, median days on the market, and number of seriously underwater mortgages; and economic environment data, such as job growth rate and housing affordability. The number of pending sales in Frisco, a suburb of Dallas-Fort Worth, rose by 42% from May 2020 to May 2021. High demand and low inventory forced Frisco’s median sale up by nearly 24% in the same time. The fourth, fifth, and sixth-ranked cities are also…
Private-label mortgages, blamed by some for helping cause the Great Recession of 2008, are on the rise, accounting for 4% of mortgage bonds issued last quarter were private-label mortgages according to the Wall Street Journal. Private-label mortgages are packaged and sold to investors without the guarantees of payment provided by Freddie Mac or Fannie May, and were pivotal in the last financial crisis. The private-label market had more than $42 billion of issuance in the second quarter, more than almost any quarter since 2008. The left-leaning Center for American Progress says private-label lending fed the private-label securities market (PLS) which in turn caused the 2008 market crash. Defenders of the mortgages note private-label mortgage loans are made to people who can’t access loans guaranteed…
Existing-home sales rose 2% on a seasonally adjusted annual rate from June to July, with first-time buyers accounting for 30% of sales, according to a report from the National Association of Realtors®. This marks two consecutive months of increases in home prices. There were no sales declines in any region, with two of the four major U.S. regions seeing gains, while one declined and one was unchanged. Existing home sales, including single-family homes, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops, increased 1.5% from July 2020, up from 5.90 million to 5.99 million. Another sign it’s a sellers market: 89% of homes sold within a month of being put on the market. NAR’s chief economist Lawrence Yun acknowledged that many of the sales remain…
