News & Press

• The Best Moves For Home Buyers And Sellers

• Author: Beth Braverman, Money Magazine
• Plenty of forces, from overly cautious lenders to inaccurate appraisals, are wrecking real estate deals right now. But one of the biggest roadblocks to getting a house sold these days is the disconnect between buyers and sellers.
  
  In general, sellers have gotten more realistic in pricing t...
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• When Personal Style Impedes a Sale

• Author: Christine Haughney, New York Times
• John Blesso feels as though he has made plenty of compromises to try to sell his Morningside Heights apartment. Before every open house over the past five months, he has hidden away his toaster, cocktail shaker, vinegar, olive oil, salt, pepper, remote controls, shaving cream and loofah, and even ta...
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• Credit Rescoring Can Help You Qualify For A Mortgage

• Author: Kenneth R. Harney, Los Angeles Times
• Call it the great real estate disconnect of 2010: Mortgage rates have been at half-century lows and home prices have stabilized, but applications for mortgages to buy houses have declined most weeks during the last three months, as measured by the Mortgage Bankers Assn.
  
  What's going o...
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• Remember Jumbo Loans? They're Back!

• Author: Diana Olick, CNBC.com
• Amid all the double-dip discussions in the housing market is an odd ray of hope on the high end.
  
  With little to no fanfare, it appears jumbo loans are not only getting cheaper, they're getting easier to obtain.
  
  After several years of stagnation in high-end housing, thanks t...
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• Fannie Mae To Prohibit Lenders From Changing Home Appraisals

• Author: Kenneth R. Harney, Los Angeles Times
• Picture this: You've signed a contract to sell your house. Your buyers say they've nailed down the right mortgage. All is well. But then the appraisal comes in low — $25,000 to $50,000 under what was agreed in the contract.
  
  The buyers refuse to pay a dollar more than the app...
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• Homebuyer Credit Extension Heads To Obama

• Author: Tami Luhby, CNNMoney.com
• First-time homebuyers will have until Sept. 30 to close on their purchases and land an $8,000 tax credit under a bill passed by the Senate late Wednesday.
  
  President Obama is expected to sign the bill, which was overwhelmingly approved by the House on Tuesday. The deadline had been June 3...
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• Deeds-in-lieu Gain Favor With Lenders As Alternative To Foreclosure

• Author: Kenneth R. Harney, Los Angeles Times
• Short sales have been the hot solution for financially stressed homeowners and their lenders for the last year, but here's another potent foreclosure alternative that's about to take center stage: deeds-in-lieu.
  
  Some of the largest mortgage servicers and lenders in the country are...
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• Home Shortages Could Develop As Recovery Unfolds

• Author: Lew Sichelman, Los Angeles Times
• Sooner or later, the economy will rebound, jobs will return and new households will form. When that time comes, however, there might not be enough housing to accommodate all the new family formations.
  
  At a time when millions of foreclosures have flooded the market, and millions more are s...
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• After Shopping For A Home, Tired Buyers Often Make Poor Mortgage Choices

• Author: Lew Sichelman, Los Angeles Times
• New research suggests that buyers' minds are so taxed after they go through the ordeal of finding a house that they often rush into the next step — applying for a loan — and make poor choices.
  
  Sometimes they opt for the first choice presented to them without regard to the ...
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• Luxury Sales Bounce Back

• Author: J. Chung & J. Hagerty, The Wall Street Journal
• For years, Jennifer Metz and her husband John yearned for a bigger home in San Francisco. Three months ago, the couple started looking, figuring that in this shaky economy, their $3 million budget should provide them a pick of attractive homes and accommodating sellers.
  
  They were wrong. H...
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• Housing Won't Be Derailed by End of U.S. Tax Credit, Agents Say

• Author: Courtney Schlisserman, Bloomberg Businessweek
• The expiration of a government tax credit yesterday may slow, rather than derail, a budding rebound in U.S. home sales being fueled by the drop property values, according to real-estate executives.
  
  “The meat and potatoes about the housing recovery and the reason to get out and buy a...
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• California Home Default Cases Plunge

• Author: Alejandro Lazo, Los Angeles Times
• The California foreclosure crisis appears to be abating, new data show, as the federal government and big lenders step up efforts to keep troubled borrowers in their homes.
  
  Mortgage default notices — the first step toward foreclosure — plunged 40.2% statewide in the first thre...
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• Home Sales Expected To Rise 5.2 Percent In March In First Increase Since November

• Author: Alan Zibel, Los Angeles Times
• Home sales are expected to rise 5.2 percent in March, reversing three months of declines, as government incentives juiced the housing market and kicked off what's expected to be a strong spring selling season.
  
  Economists polled by Thomson Reuters forecast the National Association of R...
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• What Do Buyers Want In A Home? Survey Offers Clues

• Author: Lew Sichelman, Los Angeles Times
• Home buyers tend to want it all, especially in this age of affordability, when prices and mortgage rates are low.
  
  But this also is the age of frugality, a time of economic uncertainty when many people are not as concerned about their next pay raise as they are about the next round of layo...
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• $18,000 In Combined Homebuyer Tax Credits For A Limited Time

• Author: California Association Of Realtors
• Californians have a brief window of opportunity to receive up to $18,000 in combined federal and state homebuyer tax credits.  To take advantage of both tax credits, a first-time homebuyer must enter into a purchase contract for a principal residence before May 1, 2010, and close escrow between...
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• Is California's High-End Housing Market In Trouble?

• Author: Emily Peck, The Wall Street Journal
• While sales of low-priced foreclosed homes are sparking bidding wars in some areas and there’s talk of healing in California, a huge storm cloud hovers over the Golden state: the high-end real estate market.
  
  In California, delinquencies on jumbo mortgages, which are too large for go...
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• Bid to Curb Mortgage Tax Break Falters

• Author: James R. Hagerty, The Wall Street Journal
• The latest effort to scale back some tax deductions on mortgage interest, one of the nation's most-enduring tax breaks, is finding little support in Congress.
  
  President Barack Obama's latest budget proposal, released in February, includes a provision that would shrink deductions f...
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• Good Real Estate News: Home Equity Is Rising Again

• Author: Kenneth R. Harney, The Washington Post
• Is that some piece of rosy propaganda put out by housing lobbyists to stimulate more home buying? Not unless you consider Federal Reserve economists to be shills for the real estate industry. The Fed conducts massive research into mortgage balances and home-value changes in hundreds of local markets...
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• Housing Momentum Builds but Perils Persist

• Author: James R. Hagerty, The Wall Street Journal
• There's new evidence the housing market is healing after a four-year slump, but the danger of further price drops remains amid persistent job-market weakness, according to The Wall Street Journal's quarterly housing survey.
  
  Inventories of homes listed for sale are down sharply acr...
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• California's Home Inventory Shrinks To 5-Year Low

• Author: Jim Carlton, The Wall Street Journal
• California's inventory of unsold, previously owned homes shrank to a five-year low in December, in another sign that the state may be coming out of its worst housing slump in decades.
  
  The supply of unsold single-family homes dropped to 3.8 months from 5.6 months a year ago and 16.6 mo...
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• California Home Prices Inch Up In December

• Author: Alejandro Lazo, Los Angeles Times
• California home prices ticked up 1.1% in December from the month prior, according to data released today, continuing a slow but steady trend of improvement for the Golden State’s housing market.
  
  The median price paid for a home in December was $264,000, up from $261,000 in November,...
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• Mortgage Rates Back Below 5%, Freddie Mac Says

• Author: E. Scott Reckard, Los Angeles Times
• Freddie Mac's widely watched survey of the mortgage market is out this morning with another round of good news for borrowers: The third straight week of falling interest rates has taken the 30-year fixed loan below 5% again. It's hard not to wonder how long this can last.
  
  Accordin...
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• Going to sell the house? Don't wait for 'spring' in February

• Author: Mary Umberger, Chicago Tribune
• It's nearly spring -- at least that's the case in the parallel, slightly weird universe of real estate.
  
  Traditionally, the "spring" home buying season, theoretically the busiest time in the marketplace, begins the day after the Super Bowl. Why this is so has never been c...
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• U.S. Home Prices Are Flat, With Bay Area Showing Most Improvement

• Author: Alejandro Lazo, Los Angeles Times
• San Francisco and Tampa, Fla., sit at opposite corners of the country and at opposite ends of the housing recovery.
  
  As home prices are picking up nationally, the San Francisco Bay Area has shown improvement for seven consecutive months and posted the strongest gains in home prices in Octo...
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• Another Big Gain in Existing-Home Sales as Buyers Respond to Tax Credit

• Author: National Association Of Realtors
• Existing-home sales rose again in November as first-time buyers rushed to close sales before the original November 30 deadline for the recently extended and expanded tax credit, according to the National Association of Realtors.
  
  Existing-home sales – including single-family, townhom...
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• Nine Consecutive Gains for Pending Home Sales

• Author: National Association Of Realtors
• Pending home sales have risen for nine months in a row, a first for the series of the index since its inception in 2001, according to the National Association of Realtors.
  
  The Pending Home Sales Index ("PHSI"), a forward-looking indicator based on contracts signed in October, in...
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• The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index Edges Up

• Author: The Conference Board
• The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index, which had declined in October, increased slightly in November. The Index now stands at 49.5 (1985=100), up from 48.7 in October. The Present Situation Index was virtually unchanged at 21.0 versus 21.1 last month. The Expectations Index increased to 68....
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• October Home Sales Rise 10.1% From September

• Author: The Associated Press
• Home sales surged for the second month in a row in October, climbing to the highest level in 2 1/2 years as first-time buyers rushed to take advantage of an expiring tax credit.
  
  Home sales nationwide are now up nearly 37 percent from their bottom in January, data showed, though they are s...
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• Loan Ceiling Extended

• Author: Bob Tedeschi, The New York Times
• Buyers of homes in high-priced markets have some reason to cheer: the federal government recently extended through 2010 the maximum dollar amount for “conforming loans.” This will probably mean better options for borrowers who might otherwise have had to take out “jumbo” mort...
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• Rates On 30-year Mortgages Remain Below 5%

• Author: The Associated Press
• Rates on 30-year mortgages stayed below 5 percent this week but remained above the record set earlier this year, Freddie Mac said Thursday.
  
  The average rate for a 30-year fixed mortgage fell to 4.83 percent, down from 4.91 percent last week, the mortgage company said. Last year at this ti...
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• September Sales & Price Report

• Author: California Association Of Realtors
• Home sales increased 2.1 percent in September in California compared with the same period a year ago, while the median price of an existing home declined 7.3 percent, the CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® (C.A.R.) reported today.
  
  "The market’s momentum continued in Septem...
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• Economists Say Recession To End In Third Quarter

• Author: Ryan Carter, Staff Writer, Whittier Daily News

• WEST COVINA - More than 90 percent of economists predict the recession will end this year, according to a closely watched assessment of the economy released Wednesday. But the way back to economic health won't be easy, economists, businesses owners and the unemployed said.
  
  About 74...

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• Home Buyers Jump In As Prices Plunge In Pasadena

• Author: Dan Abendschein, Staff Writer, Pasadena Star-News

• PASADENA - Two years ago, owning a three-bedroom craftsman home in Pasadena was a dream Arturo and Olga Avon could never hope to attain.
  
  Today, with the median home price lower than it has been for at least five years, the Pasadena couple - and many others like them - got a rare crack ...

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