Veros Real Estate Solutions, an enterprise risk management and collateral valuation services company, released new research that shows its Automated Valuation Model does not discriminate based on redlining.
Experts have recently sounded the alarm on bias in home appraisals. Studies have shown that homes occupied by Black Americans are consistently undervalued compared to similar homes with white owners.
Automated home appraisals are supposed to reduce the problem by removing human biases altogether, but concerns persist that the algorithm, fed human-produced data, can reproduce these problems. Further, they may be harder to spot because of the apparent objectivity of the technology.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau introduced a rule intended to safeguard homeowners against this issue earlier this month.
“While machines…
By KIMBERLEY HAAS Analysts say that being located near certain grocery stores can have an impact on a home’s value. Average houses near Trader Joe’s are $987,923, compared to $891,416 near Whole Foods and $321,116 near ALDI, according to an analysis released last week by ATTOM, a curator of real estate data. Rick Sharga, Executive Vice President of Market Intelligence at ATTOM, said homebuyers consider where they will do their grocery shopping when looking at houses. “It turns out that being located near grocery stores isn’t only a matter of convenience for homeowners but can have a significant impact on equity and home values as well. And that impact can vary pretty widely depending on which grocery store is in…
Pending home sales fell for a third consecutive month in August, with three of the four regions seeing month-over-month declines, according to the National Association of Realtors. The Pending Home Sales Index dropped by 2% between July and August. Year-over-year it tanked by 24.2%. All four regions saw pending sales drop year-over-year. The West, however, experienced a small uptick month-over-month, up by 1.4%. The Northeast PHSI fell by 3.4% from July, while the South fell 0.9% and the Midwest dipped by 5.2%. “The direction of mortgage rates – upward or downward – is the prime mover for home buying, and decade-high rates have deeply cut into contract signings,” said NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun. “If mortgage rates moderate and the…
The value of a typical American home dropped for the second straight month, down 0.3% from July to August in the largest monthly dip since 2011. Zillow’s latest market report found that affordability is directing market declines, with lower-priced homes staying hotly competitive while expensive markets see drastic declines. The U.S. typical home value is now $356,054. Areas that saw big gains during the pandemic are now susceptible to fast drops, losing their appreciation momentum from the Great Migration. Midwestern markets, which tend to be more affordable, remain hot, while Western markets are comparatively tanking. Volatile mortgage rates are impacting these areas as borrowers find it increasingly hard to even qualify for a loan, let alone house-hunt. “Substantial day-to-day and…
Good Morning! Today is February 3, 2022. The U.S. is deploying 3,000 more troops to Eastern Europe. The Army said it would immediately discharge unvaccinated soldiers. Jeff Zucker resigned as the president of CNN over a romantic relationship with an executive. The Mortgage Note Reports Millennial Domination: Despite challenging conditions for first-time homebuyers, Millennials make up a majority of homebuyers in most of the US’s largest metros, especially Denver, Seattle, and Boston. Home Value Record: December 2021 saw a record annual surge in U.S. home value led by Austin, TX, which saw total home values equivalent to the 2020 GDP of Ecuador. And in other mortgage and housing news… Love In The Air: A survey from Zillow found 34% of…
December 2021 saw a record annual surge in US home value, the largest gain seen in any December since at least 2001, according to a new analysis of Redfin’s Housing Value Index. U.S. home value rose 18.6% year-over-year (YOY) to $38.6 trillion. Austin, TX, saw home values double that, jumping 39.2% YOY. That shakes out to $365.9 billion, roughly the 2020 GDP of Ecuador and the biggest gain of any metro tracked by Redfin. December marked the 17th consecutive month of double-digit price gains as inventory shrank to a record low. Cape Coral, FL, saw the second-highest gains (36.9%), followed by Grand Rapids, MI (33.1%), Phoenix (32.8%), and Boise, ID (32.8%). Cape Coral and Phoenix have consistently made the list…
By Rhett Wilkinson Home values in the United States exploded during the last year, as interest rates and home inventories both hit record lows. Report after report is finding good news for home sellers, including: The Federal Housing Finance Agency’s Home Price index released last month revealed that prices were up an incredible 11 percent from Nov. 2019 to Nov. 2020. Home values swelled in December by 3.2 percent over the prior quarter. That’s the biggest jump in at least 25 years, a new Zillow report says. U.S. housing gained nearly $2.5 trillion in value in 2020 – the most in a single year since 2005, with the full stock of U.S. housing now worth $36.2 trillion, according to a new Zillow analysis.Homebuyer demand…
Fueled by record-low interest rates and scarce inventory, home value growth surged in December by 3.2 percent over the previous quarter – the largest increase in at least a quarter century, according to a new report released by Zillow. Typical home values in the U.S. climbed to $266,104 in December, up 8.4 percent from a year earlier – the highest annual increase since January 2014. “The housing market ended 2020 with an exclamation point, as home values rose sharply near the end of the year at their fastest quarterly rate on record,” said Jeff Tucker, senior economist at Zillow. “Sales are taking place at a rapid clip as momentum gathering in the market since June is still pushing forward at…
Home values may fall in the second half of the year as the housing market and economy as a whole cope with the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, accouding to a report released by Zillow on Thursday. According to the Zillow Home Value Index, the typical home value in the United States is $251,598, up 4.3 percent from last year – a small acceleration from April’s 4.2 percent year over year. But by more recent measures the growth rate has begun to slow. In April, home values grew 0.41 percent month over month and slowed to 0.35 percent in May, the biggest one-month slowdown in more than a year – and “a possible indicator that the market is headed for…
