The decline in single-family home sales should hit bottom in the first quarter of 2008 after completing a 40% drop since the end of the 2003-2005 housing boom, according to economists at the National Association of Home Builders.Despite a projection that sales will begin to move upward slowly in the second quarter, NAHB chief economist David Seiders is forecasting that 2008 home sales will be off 5.6% from this year's pace. "Home sales should bottom out by the end of the first quarter of 2008, and I have starts up in the third quarter of next year, assuming the inventory overhang stabilizes," Mr. Seiders said at the NAHB's construction forecast conference. The association is forecasting that new-home sales will drop by 21.2% this year, to 828,000, and by another 5.6% in 2008, to 781,000 -- which is on par with sales in the late 1990s. The association can be found online at http://www.nahb.com.
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Ohio-based Liberty Home Mortgage joins several companies who started using a more modernized FICO credit score for nonconforming mortgage originations recently.
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The CFPB has dissolved the Office of Supervision, Enforcement and Fair Lending and eliminated the job of associate director in a move that impacts how it designates nonbanks for supervision.
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The plan that the Federal Housing Finance Agency floated calls for Freddie Mac to actively invest in some new closed-end seconds as cash-out refinancing subsides.
April 17 -
The push comes amid what one expert highlighted as lax funding efforts for two Department of Housing and Urban Development grant programs.
April 17 -
Conventional lending drove volumes higher, particularly in the purchase market, the Mortgage Bankers Association said.
April 17 -
Net charge-offs at the Charlotte, North Carolina-based bank increased by more than 80% in the first quarter compared with a year earlier. BofA executives say that the rising losses were in line with the bank's risk appetite.
April 16