New mortgages are being approved with lower credit scores, and FHA loans appear to be leading the shift, according to studies by credit developer FICO and other entities. “As we get further away from the Great Recession, underwriting criteria seems to have eased, and a broader section of consumers are obtaining mortgages as a result,” according to FICO’s report.New loans for borrowers with FICO scores reaching as low as the 400s jumped from
The jump in home prices has prompted the cost of homeownership to outpace that of renting in more places across the country. The monthly costs of owning a home have increased by 14 percent over the past year—more than three times the 4 percent increase in monthly rental costs, according to a new analysis by realtor.com®.Only 41 percent of the U.S. population now lives in a county where a median-income household can afford to buy a home at the
A federal judge ruled on Thursday that federal aid to house more than 1,000 Puerto Rican families who fled to the mainland U.S. after Hurricane Maria must end in two weeks. The families have been living in U.S.-funded housing in hotels and motels across the country since leaving Puerto Rico following the storm September 20, 2017. Hurricane Maria caused massive destruction to the island, killing nearly 3,000 people, destroying homes and businesses
Mortgage rates haven’t been this stable since the fall of 2016. Rates did inch up this week, but only slightly and are still offering prospective buyers a window of opportunity, says Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s chief economist.“The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage barely inched up this week, continuing the summer trend of essentially being flat,” says Khater. “While sales and price growth have softened these last few months, this leveling of r
Home sales may be slowing overall, but not among first-time home buyers, according to a new report. Genworth Mortgage Insurance culled all publicly available government and proprietary mortgage industry data to see how this segment of buyers is faring in the housing market. In the first half of the year, first-time buyers purchased 985,000 single-family homes, the most during the first six months of a year since 2005, according to Genworth’s F
Realtor.com® is expanding its lead generation offerings for real estate professionals by bringing a new tech platform under its umbrella. News Corp, which owns Move Inc. and realtor.com®, announced it will be acquiring Opcity, a tech program that matches qualified home buyers and sellers with real estate professionals in real time.Opcity culls proprietary data sets to capture online leads and instantly connects clients who are ready to act with
Contract signings to purchase a home fell in July, marking the seventh consecutive month that pending home sales have dropped on an annual basis, the National Association of REALTORS® reported Wednesday.NAR’s Pending Home Sales Index, a forward-looking indicator based on contract signings, fell 0.7 percent to a reading of 106.2 in July. Contract signings are down 2.3 percent year over year. Declines in the South and West weighed down overall a
Home buyers want the mortgage process to be less onerous and faster. But they also want more personal interaction as they navigate a transaction and very big decision in their life, according to Fannie Mae’s National Housing Survey, a survey of about 3,000 recent home buyers.“As the Amazons and Ubers of the world continue to raise the bar for ‘consumer-grade’ experiences, home buyers have made it clear that it’s also time for the home p
It’s been a decade since the onslaught of the Great Recession, and the housing market has healed and changed drastically since then. Home prices in many markets have hit record highs—beating their pre-recession levels—and foreclosure rates are historically low, according to the National Association of REALTORS®.Stronger lending and regulatory reforms in recent years also have prevented the formation of another housing bubble, says NAR Chie
Rising sea levels are putting more homes at risk of flooding and leaving a long, expensive trail of destruction. In eight states alone, flooding has caused nearly $14.1 billion in lost value to homeowners, according to a new study by the First Street Foundation, a nonprofit group that advocates for solutions to rising sea levels.In an earlier study, researchers had found that $7.4 billion in potential home value appreciation had been swept away i
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