More positive news for housing this morning, with Standard & Poor’s Case Shiller report showing that home prices rose 2.2 percent and 2.3 percent in its 10-city and 20-city composite indices in June.
Americans have shown continued interest in buying and owning homes. The demand for new homes is real. We need to keep focused on removing obstacles to homeownership. The new QM, when it emerges, should not impede the market further.
Phoenix, Oakland, Calif., and Boise, Idaho, are among the 10 housing markets that saw the biggest second-quarter improvement in both median list prices and for-sale inventories, according to data from Realtor.com.
A 3 percent increase in residential construction spending in May pushed overall construction spending up 0.9 percent for the month, the largest jump since December 2011.
Economists at the National Association of Home Builders recently analyzed the impacts of the expiration of the Bush-era tax cuts (or “Taxaggedon,” as tax policy experts call it) on home builders, and the outlook is not bright.
Further supporting his belief that the U.S. housing market is headed for recovery, Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett announced Monday the investment firm had put in a $3.85 billion bid for troubled mortgage company Residential Capital LLC.
Fresno, Calif., and Camden, N.J., were among the top 10 housing markets for first-time home buyers in 2011, according to a new report from Inman News. See which other markets made the list.
A new report from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis offers a state-by-state breakdown of real gross domestic product last year. North Dakota saw the largest GDP gain in 2011, up 7.6 percent, while Wyoming experienced the steepest decline (-1.2 percent
