Real Estate News in the Central Florida Area and Around the Country.

Home Sales on the Rise

LAKELAND — Both the state and local housing markets carried their momentum from 2015 into the start of the new year with home sales on the Rise

The latest report from Florida Realtors revealed year-to-year increases in closed sales and median prices for single-family homes. Statewide, there were 16,259 closed sales for existing single-family homes in January, which is a 2.7 percent increase from last year. The $199,000 median sale price for those homes also represented a 13.7 percent increase from a year ago.

“Florida’s housing market remains on a steady path,” said Matey Veissi, president of Florida Realtors, in a press release. “While inventory levels are tight, the month's supply of homes for sale remains…

3318 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post

Collection Records Show Many Renters Who are Evicted are Repeat Offenders

An effective way to predict the behavior of renters is through examining rental-related collection records, according to a new analysis from TransUnion.

According to TransUnion, involuntary turnover (which includes defaults as well as evictions for other reasons) costs property managers about $3,500 per unit in court costs, lost revenue, and other types of expenses.

“Rental evictions and collections records offer a unique, insightful look into a resident’s current record,” said Mike Doherty, SVP of TransUnion's rental screening solutions group. “Rental-related collection records may be timelier than eviction public records—which can take weeks or months to process through…

3437 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post

Economy and Homeowners Are in a Better Position than You Think

Not everyone thinks the economy is as bad off as doomsayers have been saying lately. In fact, William Dudley, president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, says the expansion we’ve experienced for the past seven years has put American homeowners in a much better position to withstand any pending trouble.

Dudley spoke at a recent press briefing at the New York Fed to address the state of an economy that has been, despite what it might seem, steadily getting better since mid-2009. But because the expansion has been going for so long, Dudley said, many are starting to “whether this expansion has already entered its twilight years.”

But such fears are not based in real…

4496 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post

Waiting to see if the jobs report measures up

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) will release the first employment summary of 2016 on Friday, February 5 (technically, it’s the second employment summary released this year, but the first one that covers part of 2016 since the last one covered December). Employment growth for October through December was solid, averaging job gains of 284,000 per month for the three months.

The recent job growth was the final piece of the economic puzzle the Fed needed in order to raise the short-term interest rates in December. In early January, the BLS reported that 292,000 jobs were added in December 2015.

“The bright spot in recent economic reports has been the labor market,” Freddie Mac stated in its January…

5487 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post

Freddie Mac Kicks Off 2016 With Largest Ever Delinquent Loan Auction

As Fannie Mae did earlier in January, Freddie Mac kicked off 2016 in a big way with residential non-performing loan (NPL) sales. On Friday, Freddie Mac announced its largest bulk NPL transaction yet—an auction of residential NPLs serviced by Nationstar Mortgage totaling $1.6 billion in unpaid principal balance (UPB).

The NPLs are being offered in seven pools—five Standard Pool Offerings (SPOs), which are geographically diversified, and two Extended Timeline Pool Offerings (EXPOs), which are geographically concentrated. EXPOs. While SPOs often include larger pools of loans, the loans featured in EXPOs include smaller pool sizes and a longer marketing period, and target participation…

3681 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post

Which is better: 15 yr or 30 yr mortgage?

A 15-year mortgage is a smart choice for households in housing markets where price increases have been modest, but a tougher call for households in hotter markets.

The Federal Reserve Board is on track to raise interest rates as soon as today. It’s a move that will mean higher mortgage rates, higher monthly payments, and reduced purchasing power for new borrowers. Homebuyers, who haven’t seen an interest rate increase in nearly 10 years, may be tempted by lower-rate 15-year mortgages. But do the advantages of a 15-year mortgage outweigh the costs? The answer depends partly on where you live.

We’ve crunched the numbers for the largest U.S. metros, and found that:

  • With the median US household income, …

4401 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post

Orlando Among Cities Building The Most New Housing

Today's the big day for the Citrus Bowl parade in downtown, so plan your travel time in and out accordingly.

Now, let's start this morning with an interesting item from Forbes, which named Orlando as one of the top "Cities Doing the Most to Address the U.S. Housing Shortage."

Forbes notes that nationwide, there is an undersupply of new housing, but some metros are doing better than others at meeting demand.

Orlando is No. 5, with 19,306 permitted multifamily units, trailing only Charlotte, Houston, Raleigh and Austin in the rankings, which were created by looking at the number of building permits for single and multifamily units in the 53 largest U.S. metros from 2011 through 2014 as compared…

3974 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post

Why did home sales drop so dramatically last month?

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) released their latest Existing Home Sales Report which covered sales in November. The report revealed that sales:

“…fell 10.5 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.76 million in November (lowest since April 2014 at 4.75 million)…”

That revelation gave birth to a series of industry articles, some of which quoted pundits questioning whether the housing market was slowing. In actuality, there is one rather simple explanation to much of the falloff in sales last month. It is likely the implementation of the “Know Before You Owe” mortgage rule, commonly known as the TILA-RESPA Integrated Disclosure (TRID) rule, which went into effect on…

3281 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post