Tag: Housing

  • Home prices fall in January and are even falling in some cities: S&P Case-Shiller

    A “For Sale” sign outside a home in Atlanta, Georgia, on Friday, February 17, 2023. Dustin Rooms | Bloomberg | Getty Images Home prices fell just 3.8% nationally in January from a year earlier, according to the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller US National Home Price NSA Index. That is a decrease from the 5.6% in December. […]

  • Home sales peak in February, median price falls

    A “For Sale” sign outside a home in Atlanta, Georgia, on Friday, February 17, 2023. Dustin Rooms | Bloomberg | Getty Images Existing home sales rose 14.5% in February compared to January, according to a seasonally adjusted tally by the National Association of Realtors. That brought annual sales to 4.58 million units. It was the […]

  • Can I evict tenants who have lived in a house I inherited for years without a lease?

    I inherited a house in San Francisco from my aunt. My aunt had rented her basement (probably illegally) to an elderly couple for a few years at a price below market price. I don’t believe there was a lease, and it’s probably against the building code to have tenants in the basement. The couple’s family […]

  • Demand for mortgages is rising despite volatile interest rates

    Demand for mortgages increased for the second week in a row, despite some volatility in mortgage rates. Total application volume rose 6.5% last week compared to the previous week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s seasonally adjusted index. The average contract rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming loan balances ($726,200 or less) fell from […]

  • Mortgage demand is recovering slightly, despite rising interest rates

    A “For Sale” sign outside a home in Atlanta, Georgia, on Friday, February 17, 2023. Dustin Rooms | Bloomberg | Getty Images After falling to a 28-year low last week, demand for mortgages recovered slightly, even as interest rates rose. Total mortgage applications rose 7.4% last week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s seasonally adjusted […]

  • Mortgage rates back more than 7% as markets fear inflation

    The average rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage rose more than 7% to 7.1% on Thursday, according to Mortgage News Daily. Growing fears that inflation will not cool are driving up bond yields. Mortgage rates loosely track the yield on the US 10-year Treasury. “Rates continue to move at the suggestion of economic data and […]

  • Demand for mortgages falls when interest rates rise

    A prospective buyer and her real estate agent view a home for sale at an open house in Parkland, Florida. Carline Jean | Tribune News Service | Getty Images Mortgage rates rose again last week, pushing buyers back to the sidelines just as the housing market should warm up in the spring. Mortgage applications to […]

  • House prices in the United Kingdom are showing the sharpest annual decline in a decade

    February saw a 0.5% month-over-month decline, with prices now 3.7% lower than their peak in August 2022, as higher mortgage rates and a crisis in the cost of living continued to deter home buying. “The recent string of weak home price data began with the financial market turbulence in response to the mini-budget in late […]

  • How Wall Street bought single-family homes and put them up for rent

    Institutional investors could own 40% of U.S. single-family homes by 2030, according to MetLife Investment Management. And a group of lawmakers in Washington, DC believe Wall Street should pull out of the market. “What we’re saying is we don’t have private equity to buy up single family homes,” said Rep. Ro Khanna, a Democrat representing […]

  • In the midst of high housing costs, how to figure out what to spend on rent

    Gremlin | E+ | Getty Images There is often a gap between theory and practice, what we should do and what we actually do. But when it comes to the long-held advice for renters to spend no more than 30% of their income on housing, it’s increasingly impossible to even try to meet the goal, […]