News & Press

• Five Issues For Housing In 2012

• Author: Nick Timiraos, The Wall Street Journal
• Trying to figure out where the housing market is headed in 2012 offers a strong sense of déjà vu: The market feels just as it did at the beginning of 2011, when many pundits optimistically predicted that housing would finally hit bottom. The housing market didn’t deteriorate in 2...
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• Help With A Down Payment

• Author: Vickie Elmer, The New York Times
• With most lenders requiring home buyers to put down at least 20 percent — and sometimes, with more expensive properties, an even greater amount — the best holiday gift some people might receive would be help with the down payment.
  
  Under federal tax law, each individual is perm...
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• HARP 2 Refinance Plan A Boost To Borrowers, Banks

• Author: Kathleen Pender, San Francisco Chronicle
• The government's expanded refinance program for underwater homeowners, dubbed HARP 2, looks better than expected for both borrowers and banks.
  
  The Obama administration announced the broad outlines of the plan on Oct. 24. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac filled in most of the details in guid...
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• How To Figure The Fuzzy Math Of Internet Home Values

• Author: Alyssa Abkowiz, Wall Street Journal
• Jason Gonsalves worked hard to turn his 6,500-square-foot stucco-and-stone home in the suburbs of Sacramento into the ultimate grown-up party pad, complete with game room, custom wine cellar and an infinity-edge pool overlooking Folsom Lake. When interest rates fell recently, Mr. Gonsalves, who runs...
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• Ten Things You Need To Know About Buying Or Selling A Home

• Author: Deborah K. Dietsch, The Washington Post
• After staying put during the economic recession, you might be tempted by stabilizing real estate prices and low mortgage interest rates to sell your house and buy your next place. What you may not realize is how long and complicated the process of buying and selling a home has become. New lending re...
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• Supply vs. Demand: Why Is Housing Hurting?

• Author: Nick Timiraos, The Wall Street Journal
• Is low demand or poor supply the biggest cause for concern in the current housing market?
  
  Of course, one of the biggest problems facing the U.S. housing market right now is that there aren’t enough buyers for homes. Mortgage rates are hovering near their lowest levels in most Americ...
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• Next Generation Of Homeowners Are Freaked Out

• Author: Michael S. Derby, The Wall Street Journal
• A new paper by Federal Reserve Bank of Boston economists used consumer sentiment data collected in the Michigan Survey of Consumers over the summer to try to find out how the housing market’s terrible state of affairs was affecting the willingness to buy a new home. Age mattered, which suggest...
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• Determining A Home's Value

• Author: Vickie Elmer, The New York Times
• Again and again, you hear about mortgage rates hitting historic lows; now you’re thinking it’s time to refinance. But one hitch may hold some homeowners back: declining property values.
  
  “Homes have lost equity,” said Kathleen Bowen-Ha, the owner-broker and an appra...
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• Realtors Expect 1% Rise in California Home Sales

• Author: John Gittelsohn, Bloomberg
• Home sales in California, the most populous U.S. state, are likely to rise 1 percent in 2012 after being “essentially flat” this year, the California Association of Realtors forecast today.
  
  Sales of existing homes are expected to rise to 496,200 units from a projected 491,100 ...
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• Six Mistakes Housing Investors Make

• Author: Karen Blumenthal, The Wall Street Journal
• Traditional investments are delivering low returns, and home prices are at bargain levels. Is it time to consider buying some rental housing?
  
  Investing in real estate right now can be surprisingly profitable, if everything goes well. Rents are climbing in many areas, and more properties m...
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• Mortgage Rates Hit Record Lows In Freddie Mac Survey

• Author: Los Angeles Times
• Mortgage rates have plunged to all-time lows amid concerns the economy is stalling again, Freddie Mac said in its weekly survey.
  
  Lenders were offering the 30-year fixed-rate home loan at an average rate of 4.12% this week, down from 4.22% last week, Freddie Mac said Thursday. The 15-year ...
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• How To Lower Your Property Taxes

• Author: J. Neumann, The Wall Street Journal
• Home prices are still going down in many markets. But your property-tax bill might well be going up.
  
  The good news: There are ways to fight back.
  
  Property taxes across the U.S. have increased by nearly 20% from 2005 to 2009, the most recent data available, according to an April...
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• Home Listings Fall but Woes Persist

• Author: Nick Timiraos, The Wall Street Journal
• The number of homes listed for sale declined sharply in a number of U.S. cities during the second quarter, offering glimmers of hope that some housing markets are starting to recover.
  
  At the end of June, nearly 2.34 million homes were listed for sale on multiple-listing services in more t...
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• Short Sales, Long Waits: Buyers And Sellers Find Process Frustrating

• Author: Greta Guest, Detroit Free Press
• Short sales are among the most arduous real estate transactions, often taking six months or more to close -- if they get done at all.
  
  They can be a life raft for distressed homeowners who owe more on their houses than what they're worth, but the experience depends on a variety of fact...
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• Debunking Popular Real Estate Myths

• Author: Lew Sichelman, Los Angeles Times
• When it comes to real estate, all is not always as it seems. Many buyers — and some sellers — labor under misconceptions that could sink their housing aspirations.
  
  Take the notion that you will hunt for a house until you find the "perfect" one. Sorry. There is no suc...
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• Survey Shows Opposition to Down Payment Requirements and Elimination of Mortgage Interest Deduction

• Author: National Association Of Realtors
• The National Association of Realtors' ("NAR") ninth housing pulse survey reflects that, as the housing market continues to struggle, Americans worry that policy proposals coming out of Washington could drag the market down further or deter potential new homeowners.
  
  There is ...
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• Riskier Loans Make A Comeback, As Private Firms Take The Field

• Author: Annamaria Andriotis, The Wall Street Journal
• After years as the lending market's undesirables, aspiring home buyers with less-than-stellar credit are being offered home loans again—with some of the same conditions and catches critics say tripped up subprime borrowers five years ago.
  
  According to analysts, a handful of priv...
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• Sellers Brace For New Mortgage Caps

• Author: N. Timiraos & A. Zibel, The Wall Street Journal
• The federal government is readying its first retreat from the mortgage market, with the size of loans eligible for government backing set to decline in October.
  
  As an emergency measure three years ago, Congress raised to as high as $729,750 the maximum loan amount that Fannie Mae, Freddie...
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• For Home Prices, It's Back To At Least 2004

• Author: Floyd Norris, The New York Times
• Is your home worth as much as it was seven years ago? If so, you’ve done better than most Americans.
  
  What is most impressive about the decline in home prices is the ubiquity of the fall and how many years of gains were wiped out. Real estate agents, using some dubious statistics, us...
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• Why Investing In Rentals Could Be A Good Move

• Author: Amy Hoak, MarketWatch

• “For the first time in a long time, you can buy that home and can get a cash-on-cash return immediately,” said William King, director of valuation services for Veros Real Estate Solutions, a supplier of housing data to the country’s largest banks, as well as government organizat...

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• Confidence In Value Of Homeownership Persists Through Bust, Survey Shows

• Author: Alejandro Lazo, Los Angeles Times
• The real estate bust appears to have done little to alter Americans' confidence in the investment value of homeownership.
  
  A robust 81% of adults said buying a home is the best long-term investment a person can make, according to a national survey by the Pew Research Center in Washingt...
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• Without Loan Giants, 30-Year Mortgage May Fade Away

• Author: Binyamin Applebaum, The New York Times
• How might home buying change if the federal government shuts down the housing finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac?
  
  The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage loan, the steady favorite of American borrowers since the 1950s, could become a luxury product, housing experts on both sides of the pol...
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• Getting a Mortgage Before the Door Shuts

• Author: Karen Blumenthal, The Wall Street Journal

• If you have been sitting on the fence trying to decide whether to buy a new house or refinance a mortgage, you should act soon. New loans are starting to get costlier.
  
  The mortgage market is facing pressures from new laws and regulations, still-declining home prices and the ongoing nee...

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• Now May Be The Time To Buy A Home

• Author: Kathy M. Kristof, Los Angeles Times
• If you're into bottom-fishing, now may be the time to start trolling for real estate. At least that's the advice of Michael Corbett, author of "Before You Buy: The Homebuyer's Handbook for Today's Market."
  
  "I'm pretty comfortable saying that five years f...
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• Existing Home Sales Jump 12%

• Author: Blake Ellis, CNNMoney.com
• Sales of existing homes jumped in December, marking the fifth month of gains in the past six months, based on an industry report released Thursday.
  
  Previously-owned home sales climbed 12.3% in December to an annual rate of 5.28 million, from 4.70 million in November, according to the Nati...
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• Real Estate: Finally a Good Investment?

• Author: Dave Kansas, SmartMoney
• The housing market still looks pretty bleak: There were a record one million foreclosures last year, home prices are still falling in many regions and the number of "underwater" properties is at a record high.
  
  And things don't look much better in other areas of real estate. ...
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• Now Is The Time To Sell, Real Estate Consultant Says

• Author: Mary Umberger, Los Angeles Times
• Sell now, avoid (some) regret later.
  
  That was Steve Harney's advice recently to a roomful of real estate agents. Harney is a housing industry consultant who told the assembled agents of John Greene Realtor in Naperville, Ill., that they should tell clients who have been sitting on the...
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• Housing bust? So what? We Still Want To Own

• Author: Les Christie, CNNMoney.com
• The American Dream is still alive and kicking, including within immigrant and minority communities, according to a survey from mortgage giant Fannie Mae.
  
  The housing crisis hasn't quenched the homeownership thirst, the company found. More than 51% of people said the bust did not chang...
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• Housing Recovery After 2012, Consumers Say

• Author: Roger Showley, San Diego Union-Tribune
• Nearly 60 percent of Americans believe the housing market won’t recover until 2013 or later, according to a survey released Tuesday by Trulia.com and RealtyTrac.
  
  Conducted Nov. 2-4, just before the midterm election, the survey of 2,034 adults also showed 49 percent are interested in...
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• What Happened to the Government's Short Sales Program?

• Author: Nick Timiraos, The Wall Street Journal
• In April, the Obama administration formally rolled out a new program, called Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives, that was designed to spur more short sales, where banks allow homeowners to sell their homes for less than the mortgage debt outstanding.
  
  Like other foreclosure-preventio...
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• A Housing Recovery In 2011? Experts Are Divided

• Author: Mary Umberger, Los Angeles Times
• Optimists, pessimists and Ferraris — a compendium of real estate musings:
  
  • Wait till next year. Or 2012. You probably shouldn't set your heart on any significant housing recovery in 2011, Yale University economics professor Robert Shiller said.
  
  That's not hi...
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• Paying Down Mortgage Usually Not Financially Wise

• Author: Kathleen Pender, San Francisco Chronicle

• While some people are worrying about how they will make their next mortgage payment, others are wondering whether it makes sense to make extra payments in advance.
  
  Steve McBee of Tracy says, "I keep a few months' mortgage payments in a savings account in case I lose my job. It...

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• 5 Tips for Selling Your Home Quickly in Today's Market

• Author: Dan Steward, RISMedia
• It’s one thing when someone says "Things are looking up," but quite another when the numbers actually bear that out. Happily, the latter is the case, evidenced by the latest statistics that show that home prices may be stabilizing. Namely, national home prices jumped an impressive 3....
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• Refinancing Now Could Be Better Than Waiting For Mortgage Rates To Drop Further

• Author: Kenneth R. Harney, Los Angeles Times
• When the Federal Reserve recently rolled out its plan to pump $600 billion into the credit markets, many homeowners and buyers might have figured that because mortgage interest rates are now likely to fall again, why not postpone the loan application they were contemplating?
  
  Fed Chairman ...
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• The Jumbo-Mortgage Comeback

• Author: M.P. McQueen, The Wall Street Journal
• When the credit crisis hit more than two years ago, many banks cut back or stopped making loans for more-expensive homes. Now, smaller and regional lenders are issuing more new jumbo loans and doing more refinancings—as are some big banks that never stopped making them. If the trend continues,...
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• A Tale Of Two Housing Busts: Why Is California Recovering And Florida Still Struggling?

• Author: Alejandro Lazo and E. Scott Reckard, L.A. Times
• California and Florida had a lot in common during the housing industry's last boom-and-bust cycle.
  
  Both were overrun by buyers hooked on high-risk mortgages, speculators who helped push prices to historic peaks and builders who didn't know when to stop. When the bubble burst, the ...
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• Federal Reserve's Proposed Home Appraisal Rules May Not Prevent Inaccurate Valuations

• Author: Kenneth R. Harney, Los Angeles Times
• You may have missed it, but the Federal Reserve proposed far-reaching new rules Oct. 18 that could affect home real estate appraisals — and millions of owners' equity holdings — nationwide.
  
  The rules, which are scheduled to take interim effect in December and then be final...
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• No-Interest Mortgages? No Chance

• Author: Amy Hoak, The Wall Street Journal

• Imagine financing a home purchase with a no-interest mortgage. You probably never would want to move again.
  
  Granted, it is doubtful that you will ever have that luxury. But if rates continue to drop, as some in the mortgage industry suggest they may, mortgage rates could inch in the di...

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• Downsizing Is Booming

• Author: Tanya Mannes, San Diego Union-Tribune
• Goodbye, McMansion. Hello, bungalow, condo or suburban split-level.
  
  The Great Recession may be over, but many people’s lifestyles will never be the same. They are saving more, spending less, simplifying their lives and — increasingly — downsizing their homes.
  
  ...
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• Housing Inventories Rise for Eighth Straight Month

• Author: The Wall Street Journal

• Housing inventories rose in many U.S. cities for the eighth straight month in August in a sign of the continued headwinds facing a soft housing market.
  
  The number of available homes for sale in 26 major metropolitan areas at the end of August increased 0.4% from one month earlier, acco...

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• 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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