Housing markets

Americans' decades-long love affair with the U.S. West appears to be souring as high housing costs in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Seattle encourage migration to the South, a new analysis shows.

It's possible that the remaining litigation could be resolved by mid-year, wrote Keefe, Bruyette and Woods analyst Ryan Tomasello

Equity-rich mortgages — those that have a loan-to-value ratio of 50% or lower, meaning the borrower's equity stake is at least half the property's value — decreased to 46.1% from 47.4% the prior quarter, according to the US Home Equity & Underwater Report published by real estate data firm ATTOM. 

The company's building unit saw income slow, but the mortgage banking division number accelerated on both a quarterly and annual basis.

A national gauge of prices climbed 0.2% in November from October, according to seasonally adjusted data from S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller. That's slower than the 0.6% monthly gain in October.

A potential buyer with a budget of $3,000 per month for their payments is now able to afford an approximately $453,000 home.

The National Association of Realtors' index of contract signings increased 8.3% to 77.3 after holding at a record low a month earlier, according to data out Friday.

Purchases of new single-family homes increased 8% to a 664,000 annual pace last month, after an upward revision to November's figure, government data showed Thursday.

While becoming more popular in the past year as mortgage rates have increased, the differential is small between those that did and didn't pay points for a permanent buydown, Freddie Mac said.

The real estate markets where prices are expected to rise the most this year will see an average increase of 5.14%.

Though the rate of growth for these conversions has slowed due to higher financing costs and long lead times associated with zoning and permitting, the trend is here to stay.

The number of homeowners spending more than 30% of income on housing costs jumped 18% from pre-pandemic 2019, according to a new Harvard analysis.

With many already living in aging properties, the millennial generation could be stuck with the costs, a Leaf Home/Morning Consult survey claimed.

Timothy Harleth is launching Generational Equity Labs, a fund that plans to use a technology platform linking would-be homebuyers to institutions to support equity sharing.

Bidding wars are also coming back into play in several markets across the country, with the Northeast, in particular, seeing increased activity, according to Redfin.

Contract closings decreased 1% from a month earlier to a 3.78 million annualized rate, according to National Association of Realtors data released Friday.

Sekisui House Ltd. announced a $4.9 billion agreement on Thursday to buy MDC Holdings Inc., ikely the biggest U.S. purchase of a homebuilder by a Japanese company.

The median listing price per square foot changed an average of 11.04% from one year to the next in the top five metro areas.

Lending activity among builders surged over 22% annually in December, but the growing share of FHA-backed borrowing in the segment took a step back for the first time in four months, the Mortgage Bankers Association said.

Single-family home construction fell by the most since July 2022, following a surge in November, while multifamily projects rose to a five-month high.