MBA Newslinks Archive

“Many homebuyers will likely find it much more economical to simply stay in their existing homes. This will continue to dampen repeat buying volumes and continue the dominance of first-time homebuyers in the housing market. Since existing homeowners won’t release their starter homes into the market, and since we aren’t making up for that deficit through new construction, prices will likely keep going up for first-time homebuyers.”–Karan Kaul, researcher with the Urban Institute.

“In nearly every major market today, single-family homes are being permitted at a lower rate than they were historically as builders face a number of challenges in adding new homes, including land and labor costs. What this means for buyers is a smaller supply of homes on the market, leading to increased competition and higher home prices.”–Zillow Senior Economist Aaron Terrazas.

“While the strong economy has nudged serious delinquency rates to their lowest level in 12 years, areas hit by natural disasters have had increases. The tragic wildfires in the West will likely lead to a spike in delinquencies in hard-hit neighborhoods.”–CoreLogic Chief Economist Frank Nothaft.

“The picture that emerges of the first half of 2018 is one of modestly rising volumes. The volume of single-asset sales under $250 million was the highest on record, just besting the first half of 2016. Multifamily and industrial single-asset sales posted strong increases, hotel and suburban office sales less so and central business district office and retail volumes were down.”–Cushman & Wakefield Americas Head of Capital Markets Research David Bitner.

“Nationwide the number of equity rich homeowners is more than twice the number of seriously underwater homeowners, but the gap between home equity haves and have-nots persists because home price appreciation is certainly not uniform across local markets or even within local markets.”–Daren Blomquist, senior vice president with ATTOM Data Solutions, Irvine, Calif.

“It’s a very favorable court ruling as the alternative would have been incredibly disruptive. A different decision might have impaired or invalidated foreclosures because of the licensing question and added significant costs as the secondary market scrambled to figure out how to apply the decision.”–Justin Wiseman, MBA Associate Vice President and Managing Regulatory Counsel, on a recent court ruling in Maryland that consumer protections in in a regulatory act are not applicable to passive statutory trusts that have no consumer interactions.

“Despite recent data indicating a strong U.S. economy and job market, including signs of wage growth, overall mortgage applications fell for the third straight week as housing continues to be hampered by the lack of homes for sale and crimped affordability.” –MBA Associate Vice President of Economic and Industry Forecasting Joel Kan.

“Credit availability continued to expand, driven by an increase in conventional credit supply. More than half of the programs added were for jumbo loans, pushing the jumbo index to its fourth straight increase, and to its highest level since we started collecting these data. There was also continued growth in the conforming non-jumbo space, which reached its highest level since October 2013.”–MBA Associate Vice President of Economic and Industry Forecasting Joel Kan.

“For more than six years, we’ve been riding a wave of home price appreciation above the 25-year average. The question now is whether tightening affordability will end that streak and if more deceleration is on the horizon.”–Black Knight Executive Vice President for Data and Analytics Ben Graboske.

“The mortgage finance industry has invested heavily in technology to meet this demand to compete for millennials’ mortgage loan business. The technology investment that has occurred in the mortgage industry in recent years to better serve millennial first-time home buyers also helped make the manufacture and underwriting of mortgage loans less risky with fewer defects and misrepresentation on loan applications. Sometimes, unintended consequences aren’t so bad.”–Mark Fleming, chief economist with First American Financial Corp., Santa Ana, Calif.