Home >> Author Archives: Seth Welborn

Author Archives: Seth Welborn

Potential Home Sales Drop, but Demand Still Strong

Potential home sales fell by 0.2 percent to 5.69 million in April, according to a recent study. This represents an 89.3 percent increase from the market potential low point reached in December 2008. What the study found is that strong consumer demand fueled gains in market potential for existing home sales, but this was offset by high prices and falling affordability.

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How the Budget Proposal Impacts HUD

Several HUD programs are slated to be cut according to the recent budget proposal, including the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Program. According to HUD, the CDBG Program has not been effectively targeting the poorest communities and has not demonstrated a measurable impact on communities. Other programs are to be cut due as HUD states that State and local governments are better-positioned to serve their communities’ needs in place of these programs.

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What’s Keeping Homeowners from Moving?

According to a recent report, if American homeowners moved at the same rate they did in 1990, there would have been about 2.8 million more homes sold in 2016. This would solve the ongoing inventory problem, but the fact is Americans just aren’t moving, for a number of reasons. The report cites three possible reasons for a non-moving population: an aging population, pockets of high negative equity, and an increase in single-family rentals.

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Big Cities are Running Out of Space

Cities are starting to run out of space. Especially space-constrained cities like New York have started to run out of room for builders, leading them to move to city-center areas where high-density building is allowed, and charging much higher prices for it. Builders are focusin more on high end apartments with better profit margins, leaving only the wealthiest residents as the ones who can buy.

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Easing the Down Payment Burden for Military and Veterans

The amount of down payment assistance programs available dropped very slightly in Q1, but thousands of programs are still out there. A recent report highlights the most important of these programs available to military and veterans. On top of VA loans, veterans can expect to cut down their down payment entirely with these programs.

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Builders Cutting Down on Starter Homes

Millennials are starting to move into the housing market, but with inventory dwindling they may be out of luck. The solution? Newly built homes. Though millennials are often first time buyers, it does not necessarily mean they are starter home buyers.

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Adapting to a Tech-Heavy World

Following in the footsteps of other industries, mortgage firms are starting to adopt new technologies like Application Programming Interfaces (API) in order to reduce errors and costs and speed up transactions. Lenders utilizing APIs said they do so primarily to integrate appraisal and verification information with their Loan Origination System. According to lenders, loan production holds the greatest potential for APIs and Chatbots alike.

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