Locked Out? Are Rising Housing Costs Barring Young Adults from Buying their First Homes?

Freddie Mac research reveals that higher rents and home prices are the primary reason behind the eight percent decrease in the homeownership rate among young adults (under age 35) since the rate's peak in 2004. What does the future hold for tomorrow's young adults? More

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http://www.freddiemac.com/research/insight/20180628_rising_housing_costs.html?attr=rssEHR

Housing Costs Take Blame; Rent vs Own; Rates on Autopilot

A current post in Freddie Mac's Insight blog looks again at the decline in homeownership among young adults and tries to determine the role played by rising housing costs. The post is based on recent research by the company's Economic and Housing Research Group headed by Chief Economist Sam Khater. Adults in the age group usually categorized as Millennials (25 to 34) have deferred homebuying as higher prices push it further into the future. The weakening affordability is particularly hard on first-time homebuyers because prices increase the fastest among the lower-priced homes they would typically buy. At the same time, these young adults, who comprise a large share of first-time buyers, are excluded from the benefits of rapidly rising home values. "Unable to buy, many young adults have continued

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http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/reports/newsletter/2018/6/29/3429

Freddie Extends Appraisal Waiver Eligibility; Carson on HUD Accomplishments; Flat Rates

Mortgage rates haven't been too interested in making big moves recently. Today was no exception. In fact, most lenders' rate quotes would be indiscernible from yesterday's. The absence of movement could be good or bad , depending on your perspective. On a positive note, the absence of movement means rates are right in line with the lowest levels seen since the Italian political issues in late May. The other side of the coin is that nearly any day in the past 4 months has seen higher rates than nearly any day in the past 4 years. Trade-offs! As for economic data and scheduled events (things that have historically had an impact on rates), today brought the final reading of Q1 GDP. That might sound like a fairly important report. After all, GDP is one of the only economic reports with enough name

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http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/reports/newsletter/2018/6/28/3427

Pending Sales Lag 2017 for 5th Straight Month; Applications Fall Again; Rates Finally Move

The number of new contracts for existing home sales barely made it onto the bottom rung of analysts' expectations in May. The National Association of Realtors® (NAR) said its Pending Home Sales Index (PHSI) was down from the April reading of 106.4 to 105.9, an 0.5 percent decline. It is the second month in a row the forward-looking indicator has fallen and for the fifth straight month it lags its year-earlier level, this time by 2.2 percent. Analysts polled by Econoday had been looking for results ranging from a 0.5 percent decline to a positive change of 2.0 percent. The consensus was for an increase of 0.6 percent from April's reading. The PHSI is based on purchase contracts for existing single-family homes, townhomes, condos, and cooperative apartments. Those contracts are typically

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http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/reports/newsletter/2018/6/27/3425

Commercial/Multifamily Debt Surges; Home Price Reality Check; Rates in a Rut

Multifamily and commercial mortgage debt grew by $44.3 billion in the first quarter of 2018, a quarter-over-quarter increase of 1.4 percent, and the largest gain since before the Great Recession. The total debt at the end of the quarter was $3.21 trillion with the multifamily portion increasing by 19.3 billion or 1.5 percent. It was the third straight quarter that overall debt grew, the first time that has occurred since 2007. The gains were reported by the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) which puts holders of the debt into five major categories. The largest group consists of banks and thrifts, which hold 40 percent of the total, $1.3 trillion. The second group is agency and government sponsored enterprise (GSE) portfolios and mortgage-backed securities at 19 percent or $617 billion. Life

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http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/reports/newsletter/2018/6/26/3423

New Home Sales Surge; Rates Flat Despite Stocks; Lenders' New Love: Cost-Cutting

Conventional wisdom holds that interest rates tend to move in the same direction as stocks. This makes logical sense from a classical investment portfolio standpoint. If investors are selling stocks to buy bonds, the prices of stocks would fall and the price of bonds would rise. When bond prices rise, rates fall. But even with today's heavy losses in stocks, mortgage rates barely budged today. The reality is that the "conventional wisdom" is far from bulletproof, even though there are lots of past examples that support it unequivocally. Beyond that, bonds are their own animal. If they have strong enough reasons to avoid going somewhere, it's going to take a very big move in stocks to get them to go somewhere else--bigger than we saw today. The bonds that underlie mortgage rates are yet another

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http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/reports/newsletter/2018/6/25/3421

Housing Costs Take Blame; Rent vs Own; Rates on Autopilot

A current post in Freddie Mac's Insight blog looks again at the decline in homeownership among young adults and tries to determine the role played by rising housing costs. The post is based on recent research by the company's Economic and Housing Research Group headed by Chief Economist Sam Khater. Adults in the age group usually categorized as Millennials (25 to 34) have deferred homebuying as higher prices push it further into the future. The weakening affordability is particularly hard on first-time homebuyers because prices increase the fastest among the lower-priced homes they would typically buy. At the same time, these young adults, who comprise a large share of first-time buyers, are excluded from the benefits of rapidly rising home values. "Unable to buy, many young adults have continued

from
http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/reports/newsletter/2018/6/29/3429