Mortgage and Real Estate News: February 2015

Friday, February 27, 2015

How Millennials are Transforming the Homebuying Process - US News

For decades, the telephone has been the real estate agent’s tool of the trade. But a new wave of younger homebuyers is changing the way agents use those phones. Millennials, those born between 1980 and the late '90s don’t want to talk. They want texts.

“We’re on our phones all the time, and this generation does not like to pick up the phone,” says Player Murray, managing broker at Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices York Simpson Underwood Realty in Raleigh, North Carolina. “They don’t want to bother with a conversation if it can be texted.”

Saturday, February 21, 2015

The Conditions Holding Interest Rates Down are Starting to Change

One investment call that most investors, myself included, got wrong last year was predicting interest rates would go up. This time around, while U.S. long-term yields have rebounded from their January lows, rates have generally been lower than where they ended 2014, calling into question: Will long rates stay low and defy expectations again in 2015?

Warm Regards,

Lillian Wong
Sr. Loan Officer
NMLS 630337
Prospect Mortgage
14635 N. Kierland Blvd. Ste. 100
Scottsdale, AZ 85254
Cell 480 650 5412
Fax 877 220 7982
www.lillianwong.net

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Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Here are millennials' favorite neighborhoods in 6 big US cities

The Generationed City project at the University of Waterloo, led by Professor Markus Moos, seeks to understand the social, economic, and geographic characteristics of different age groups in the US and Canada. One of their projects is to map which cities and neighborhoods have the highest concentrations of young adults.

The maps show the location quotients of adults age 25 to 34 for neighborhoods in a number of major North American cities. Location quotients measure relative geographic concentration by comparing the proportion of young adults in each neighborhood to the proportion in the overall metropolitan area.

Chinese New Year 2015: A fortune teller's take on the economy

It's that time of year again! Lunar New Year is right around the corner, and many Chinese are consulting fortune tellers to learn what the year of the goat has in store.
But what do fortune tellers foresee about the world's second-largest economy?

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Confidence Among U.S. Homebuilders Declines to Four-Month Low

(Bloomberg) -- Confidence among U.S. homebuilders decreased in February to the lowest level in four months as winter weather prevented some prospective buyers from touring new developments.

The National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo sentiment gauge fell to 55 this month from 57 in January, according to figures issued from the Washington-based group Tuesday. The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey called for 58. The decline was led by a slump in customer traffic.

Sunday, February 8, 2015

Record inflows for Jeff Gundlach's DoubleLine

Jeff Gundlach's DoubleLine Capital is raking in cash despite uncertainty about the bond market.

DoubleLine's mutual funds took in assets of $3.04 billion in January, a record monthly net inflow for the money manager since it opened to investors...

Don’t assume strong jobs numbers will trigger Fed rate liftoff

The U.S. 10-year T-note has jumped a quarter-percent in four days, half of the springboard this morning on wild news from the job market. Mortgage damage is limited, low-fee deals still just under 4 percent.

The first Friday each month brings the immediately prior-month count of new jobs. And revisions of prior months, holy smokes. The January figure was above forecast, 257,000 jobs gained, but nothing exciting. However, November was revised from a gain of 353,000 to 423,000, and December from 252,000 to 329,000 — the best three months in 17 years.

Saturday, February 7, 2015

Where zombie foreclosures are making a comeback

Vacated by the homeowner and left unattended, zombie foreclosures are still plaguing many housing markets.

Nearly one in four homes in foreclosure at the end of January were already abandoned by the owner before being repossessed, a recent RealtyTrac report found.

Metro Phoenix homebuilding still years from recovery

The long-awaited recovery of metro Phoenix's homebuilding market is still a few years away, according to leading housing research firm RL Brown Reports.

A new forecast calls for 11,000 houses to be built across the Valley in 2015, up slightly from the 10,840 constructed in the area last year. And the report's publishers, RL Brown and Greg Burger, call that a "moderately optimistic" forecast.

Thursday, February 5, 2015

Here’s the real reason college grads aren’t getting homes

A recent post from Liberty Street Economics, the blog from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, gave the public finance perspective on student loan debt.

As you all may be aware, the current administration is looking at ways to help college students receive a greater proportion of tuition assistance.

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