All Blog Posts Tagged 'refinance' (157)

The luxury home market is gaining momentum, with prices rising and many areas where upscale housing once struggled now turning into a seller’s market, according to the Institute for Luxury Home Marketing. 

“Prices have been trending up fairly strongly since the beginning of the year,” Laurie Moore-Moore,…

About 96,000 borrowers will receive an additional check to correct errors made in initial payments sent to compensate them for foreclosure mishandlings. The payments are part of a nationwide settlement. Some borrowers were issued amounts that were too low, the Federal Reserve announced, and the new checks will make up…

Where do luxury homes tend to sell the most? Coldwell Banker’s Luxury Market Report recently revealed the top U.S. cities with the highest number of luxury home sales in the $1 million-plus category. The cities in the top 10, along with the number of sales in the $1 million-plus tier for 2012 : 

• New…

Some cities are posting big drops in population, due to unemployment, crime, or even Mother Nature. CNNMoney recently highlighted Census Bureau data that shows the U.S. cities that are seeing the most rapid declines in residents. 

The five fastest shrinking cities in the U.S.…

Home owners who faced a wrongful foreclosure will receive compensation from lenders in amounts ranging from a few hundred dollars up to $125,000 beginning in April, federal bank regulators said this week. The average payment represents about $850 per eligible loan.

The review was designed to determine…

The U.S. Census Bureau recently released its annual report on homeownership vacancy rates on the 75 largest metropolitan areas in the U.S for 2012.

The data is used extensively by public and private sector organizations to evaluate the need for new housing programs and initiatives, according to the U.S.…

Inventories of for-sale homes have fallen to record lows in many areas, but some markets are still reporting plenty of choices for home buyers. Plus, in some areas home prices haven’t experienced large increases as in other places this past year. 

Realtor.com reports the following five best locales for…

Billionaire B. Wayne Hughes, a sharecropper’s son who became a billionaire pioneering warehouses for Americans needing storage space, is buying thousands of houses to rent as more people find homeownership out of reach.

Hughes, 79, has purchased about 10,000 properties through his American Homes 4…

ZipRealty, a real estate brokerage company, is finding more housing markets starting to tilt in sellers’ favors. 

For the average home in the U.S., the gap between the listing price and closing price is narrowing with sellers able to get more than 98 percent of their home’s listing price back. Also,…

The suburbs have the highest concentration of wealthy people, more so than cities, according to new U.S. Census Bureau data. 

The wealthy tend to stay near major population centers, according to the study. For example, the region with the highest concentration of wealthy households in the nation is…

In a historical context, home prices typically increase about 3 to 4 percent a year. 

But in the years preceding the housing crash, prices in 2002 started soaring 7 percent a year, then 8 percent in 2004, and 12 percent by 2005, CNBC.com reports. 

A “new bubble” may be forming, CNBC columnist…

About 85 percent of online listings include photos, but the type of photo really can make a big difference, says Ken H. Johnson, an associate professor of finance at Florida International University’s Hollo School of Real Estate and co-author of a 2011 study on photos in real estate.

“When people first look…

Real estate agents are recasting themselves online as not just the person who helps you find or sell a home but as “neighborhood specialists,” The New York Times reports. 

Real estate is the best industry to work in nationwide, according to the 2013 Top National Workplaces rankings by WorkplaceDynamics. Founded in 2006, WorkplaceDynamics is the fastest-growing employee survey provider in the United States.

Despite real estate professionals facing a “down market for the…

After the holidays, buyers tend to start getting more aggressive with their house hunting. Search activity usually peaks around March or April in most states, according to a new study of home searches from 2007 to 2012 conducted by Trulia. 

The study revealed that post-holiday motivation pushed many…

The number of homes that sold for $5 million or more in California reached a record in 2012, according to DataQuick, a real estate information service. 

DataQuick reported that 697 homes sold for more than $5 million in 2012, up from the previous record of 491 in 2011.

California also reached sales…

With a housing market on the mend in many areas, some cities are experiencing big increases in home prices. 

"What a difference a year makes," says Jed Kolko, Trulia's chief economist. "In 2012, prices rose in 82 of the 100 largest metros, compared with just 12 metros seeing price increases in 2011. The…

Purchasers of 12 properties in Detroit got an unwelcome surprise when they visited their new places: The homes were nothing but a pile of dirt.

Kristine Diven and Micho “Detronik” McAdow say they purchased a home at auction and went to check on it weeks later to find it completely demolished. The couple…

Home buyers have plenty of information available at their fingertips. They’re educated and savvy when it comes to real estate. They educated themselves with data and trend reports on the housing and financial markets, as well as on their own communities. They know that you are no longer the gatekeeper of…

Ten major banks have agreed to pay more than $8.5 billion in a settlement with federal regulators over lenders’ past mistakes in processing foreclosures.

About $3.3 billion of the settlement is to help 3.8 million eligible home owners who were foreclosed upon in 2009 and 2010. About $5.2 billion of…