Data

Home prices continued to advance in September, bringing third-quarter growth to 3.2 percent, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices released Tuesday. Both the 10- and 20-city component indices rose 0.7 percent month-over-month and 13.3 percent year-over-year in September. Since bottoming out in March 2012, the 10- and 20-city composites have recovered 22.9 percent and 23.6 percent, respectively; compared to their June/July 2006 peaks, both indices are down about 20 percent.

National home prices rose 0.2 percent over the month in September, reaching $232,000 for the month, according to Lender Processing Services' (LPS) Home Price Index, which was released Monday. Year-over-year prices rose 9 percent in September, according to LPS. Nevada and Connecticut posted the greatest price changes over the month--though in opposite directions. Home prices in Nevada jumped 0.8 percent over the month, while prices in Connecticut fell 0.9 percent.

The National Association of Realtors' (NAR) Pending Home Sales Index (PHSI), a forward-looking sales indicator based on contract signings, was 102.1 in October, a drop of 0.6 percent from September's revised level of 102.7. It was the fifth consecutive monthly decline. "The government shutdown in the first half of last month sidelined some potential buyers," said NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun. "In a survey, 17 percent of Realtors reported delays in October, mostly from waiting for IRS income verification for mortgage approval."

According to Change Sciences' findings, mortgage sites as a whole are "less usable" than sites providing traditional e-commerce offerings, such as Amazon and Walmart. Compared to other financial sites, mortgage domains rank about average; they fall short when put against personal finance sites. "Many mortgage sites are missing an opportunity to establish a meaningful rapport with mortgage shoppers," Change Sciences said in its report.

Commercial real estate (CRE) patterns are expected to continue on a steady but modest growth path, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) predicted Friday in its quarterly CRE forecast. "Jobs are the key driver for commercial real estate, and the accumulation of 7 million net new jobs from the row point a few years ago is steadily showing up as demand for leasing and purchases of properties," said NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun. However, Yun said, "the difficulty of accessing loans remains a hindrance to a faster recovery."

With the federal government shutdown and debt ceiling negotiations still fresh in the nation's collective mind, Fannie Mae expects "continued market volatility" heading into the start of 2014.

Lenders Compliance Group Inc. (LCG) announced the appointment of Michael J. Wallace Esq. to the position of director of marketing compliance.

Despite a softening market, competition among buyers remained fairly fierce in October, Redfin reported in its Real-Time Bidding Wars release for the month. Last month, 55.9 percent of offers written by the brokerage's agents faced competition from other buyers, a decline from 58.3 percent in September. Bidding wars have been on a downward slope since peaking at 79 percent in February. Even with the decline, though, competition last month was higher than expected, given the effects of the government shutdown on consumer confidence.

Though tightened underwriting standards have been partly to blame for why housing isn't recovering faster, CoreLogic's Sam Khater says the silver lining is that loan performance has improved greatly. "While there has been much consternation about underwriting being too tight in the context of forthcoming mortgage regulations, one underappreciated outcome has been the very good performance of mortgages during the last few years," Khater said in an article in CoreLogic's most recent Marketpulse report.

According to Ellie Mae's data, which draws from a sampling of the loan applications flowing through the company's network, purchase loan share was 61 percent in October.