Housing markets

The coming months are likely to see greater focus on single-family rentals, reduced credit availability and potential new competitors entering the market.

Home prices in many areas have peaked and the equity cushion that has bolstered loan performance is starting to erode, but some think damage will be limited.

JPMorgan Chase's asset-management arm entered into a deal to acquire more than $1 billion of single-family rentals, a sign that choppy markets haven't scared investors away from suburban housing.

More than 30 million homes in the U.S. are mortgage-free, with Florida — which has the highest proportion of retirees — the state with the biggest percentage of free and clear residences, suggesting it's better shielded from a decline in real estate prices.

Choices of which homes are used for comparisons play a major role in disparate home valuations for Black and white homeowners, according to studies recently released by the National Community Reinvestment Coalition and academic researchers.

But costs are still elevated annually in double-digit ranges for 46% of markets, according to the National Association of Realtors.

Redfin Corp. is shuttering its iBuying business and laying off workers for the second time in almost five months, as the likelihood of a prolonged U.S. housing slowdown continues to ripple through the industry.

It came as a surprise to many housing experts that Asian, Black and Hispanic homeownership rates all jumped last year by more than 2 percentage points, according to quarterly Census Bureau data.

The $1.3 trillion decline was the largest quarterly drop in dollar volume and the biggest falloff on a percentage basis since 2009, according to Black Knight.

The limit for high-cost areas for 2023, 50 percent above the baseline limit, would be approximately $1.08 million, writes a former principal economist with the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

But far more staff reductions will be needed to bring numbers back in line with the norm prior to the past two years' extraordinary housing boom.

The company had benefited from the hot pandemic housing market until rising mortgage rates cooled demand, leaving it holding real estate that was worth less than its purchase price.

The share of borrowers who owe no more than half of the property's market value increased to 48.5% last quarter, according to Attom, a real estate data firm.

A typical entry-level purchaser was 36 this year, three years older than in 2021, data from the National Association of Realtors released Thursday showed.

The closure of its nationwide retail business — which followed the shuttering of its consumer direct business in Q2 — pushed the Florida bank into a $1.4 million loss for the most recent quarter.

The $93 million deal comes one year after Cavco, a manufactured housing construction company itself, completed the purchase of another builder, The Commodore Corp.

U.S. pending home sales sank last month by the most since the immediate aftermath of the pandemic, illustrating a swift and steep downturn for a housing market beset by soaring borrowing costs.

The collapse in U.S. home construction during the third quarter took its biggest chunk from gross domestic product in nearly 15 years as surging mortgage rates dealt a hammer blow to demand.

Purchases of new single-family homes decreased 10.9% to a 603,000 annualized pace following an unexpected gain in August, government data showed Wednesday.

The cuts account for 5% of its workforce of 5,791 full-time employees as of the end of June.