Home >> Author Archives: Ryan Schuette

Author Archives: Ryan Schuette

Ryan Schuette is a journalist, cartoonist, and social entrepreneur with several years of experience in real-estate news, international reporting, and business management. He currently lives in the Washington, D.C., area, where he freelances for DS News and MReport.

Asking Prices Up 7.8% as South Takes Lead

Home prices leveled up nationwide in August, boosting long-dawdling markets in the South and accelerating the recovery in other states as foreclosure gluts begin to clear, according to Trulia. According to Trulia, asking home prices only nudged along by 1 percent nationally last month, just a little above the marginal climb in July. Asking prices, meanwhile, leapt ahead by 7.8 percent year over year.

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Survey: Realtors Want More Lender Support with Borrowers

Working with a public polling firm, New Jersey-based TD Bank released results Thursday from a survey it conducted with more than 150 Realtors around the United States. Most said they considered closing loans on time the most important quality in a lender and felt it was easier to work with banks focused on helping homebuyers. Two in five said they looked for banks that put buyers ahead of the lending process.

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Residential Construction Spending Sees July Upswing

Total construction spending, both private and public, surged to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $981.3 billion, up from $906.6 billion in July last year. For private residential construction, the numbers reflected a 7 percent boost year-over-year, eclipsing new home data in June at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $358.1 billion.

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Fed Chair Signals Caution as Economy Continues to Improve

Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen called for moderation in monetary policy in a major speech on Friday as the economy continued to show signs of a slow but steady recovery. Speaking from Jackson Hole, Wyoming, the central banker hailed a falling unemployment rate and improving payroll figures but held back from calling it significant enough process to notch up still-low interest rates.

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Survey Captures Housing Attitudes Among Single Buyers

Harris Interactive surveyed 1,462 homeowners for Century 21, capturing the look at singles from 675 participants. According to the poll, 45 percent of singles between ages 25 and 50 considered homeownership "very important." Single homeowners considered homeownership an important financial investment. Century 21 President and CEO Rick Davidson described the numbers as a "shift in the home-buying population" when it came to singles.

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Lawmakers Urge Fed to Rein in Bailout Powers

In a rare show of bipartisanship, Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) and David Vitter (R-Louisiana) joined four other senators and nine House members in a letter that warned against a weak proposed rule that signers said would fail to place "meaningful restrictions" on its ability to bail out financial institutions.

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Forecasting the Hottest Homebuilding Markets of 2014

Trulia Chief Economist Jed Kolko made projections on Monday for the rest of this year based on construction numbers reflected in Census and other government data that it collected from the past eight months and 2013. According to the company, construction is set to rise higher than year-over-year averages in major metropolitan areas like Boston, San Jose, and New York, with more major cities based in Texas.

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Fed’s Stimulus Decision Prompts Record-Low Mortgage Rates

Fed

Mortgage rates slid to new lows this week as investors dumped their cash into safe-haven Treasury debt, prompted by the Fed's decision to keep interest rates low for an unfixed time. Zillow found the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage slipping past 3.2 percent for the first time to arrive at 3.18 percent, down from 3.35 percent on Wednesday last week. The real estate website said this marks the lowest rate for the 30-year home loan since 2008, when it launched its weekly survey. Interest rates for 15-year fixed-rate mortgages dropped to 2.59 percent, while those for 5-year and 1-year adjustable-rate mortgages averaged 2.43 percent.

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