Purchase

Mortgage credit availability dropped slightly in February, making three consecutive months of tightening, but that streak will likely end with falling interest rates, the Mortgage Bankers Association said.

Nearly all the main components of home sale statistics on Hawaii island and Kauai rose last month, according to a report released last week.

Consumer sentiment for home buying stayed near its record high behind low mortgage rates and a strong job market, though the declining stock markets and COVID-19 concerns may change that soon, according to Fannie Mae.

Canadian housing starts remained at elevated levels in February, amid strength in the detached-home market.

Mortgage rates, which fell to a 50-year low last week, are keeping Oahu's real estate market relatively strong even as uncertainties mount over the economic impacts of coronavirus outbreaks.

Mortgage interest rates dropped this week to the lowest level on record, fueling an already hot spring housing market and triggering a refinance boom in the Twin Cities.

Even as concern over the rapid spread of the novel coronavirus mounts, the most recent data on area home sales from the Northwest Multiple Listing Service shows the market for Seattle-area residential realty remains hot.

Single-family home sales in the Rockford, Ill., region rose last year to heights not seen in more than a decade and climbed even higher in January, according to the Rockford Area Association of Realtors.

January's plummeting mortgage rates led to a spike in the share of millennials refinancing their home loans, a trend that should carry into February and March, according to Ellie Mae.

The dollar amount of fix-and-flip properties purchased using financing reached a 13-year high in 2019, but the share of flips financed was lower year-over-year, according to Attom Data Solutions.