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The American Land Title Association (ALTA) has named RedVision as an Elite Provider for the company, according to a press release. The Elite Provider program is made up of service providers that offer comprehensive benefits to the title insurance and settlement services industry.

Builders are exuding more confidence in the real estate market as more buyers purchase homes with unwavering certainty. According to the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB)/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI), builder confidence in the market for newly built, single-family homes in June reached a high of 59.

The housing industry has been a constant contest among homebuyers, and although competition eased up slightly last year, buyers wanting to purchase homes in the most coveted areas have not had much of a break. FindTheHome.com recently released a report titled “The 50 Most Competitive Housing Markets of 2015” that lists 50 of the most sought-after metro areas for homebuyers.

Yesterday, as mortgage rates crept up to 4 percent this week for the first time since November 2014, consumers responded with a decrease of mortgage applications by 9 percent, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) Builder Application Survey (BAS) data for May 2015.

Borrowers who owe more money to banks than their home is worth is slowing decreasing, however more than half of these borrowers are stuck in an underwater free fall with little to no hope of resurfacing. According to Zillow’s first quarter Negative Equity Report released today, although the negative equity rate is falling, more than half or 4 million homeowners owed the bank at least 20 percent more than the worth of their home.

Increases in home prices and the stock market pushed household wealth to nearly 85 trillion for the first quarter of 2015, according to the Federal Reserve’s Statistical Release titled “Financial Accounts of the United States” released today. The net worth of households and nonprofits rose increased by $1.63 trillion to $84.9 trillion during the first quarter of 2015. Meanwhile, the value of directly and indirectly held corporate equities increased $487 billion and home values rose $503 billion.

In response to the positive Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) employment data released on Monday, the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rose above four percent this week for the first time since November 2014. Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey (PMMS), revealed that the average fixed mortgage rates averaged 4.02 percent for the week ending June 11, 2015.

For the 27th consecutive month, cash sales made have fallen to 34.6 percent of total home sales nationally in March 2015, down from 39 percent in March 2014, according to CoreLogic data released today.

Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC, a San Francisco real estate start-up recently conducted a survey of home sellers and discovered that since 2014, more than one in four sellers nationally sold their home in less than two weeks. Despite the multiple bids and offers a seller may receive, the survey also noted that they are more likely to choose an offer based on emotion rather than money, compared to pre-recession times.

Mortgage applications increased by 8.4 percent for the week ending June 5, 2015 from one week earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association's (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey. Last week’s data included an adjustment due to the Memorial Day holiday.