Data

The appraiser community is starting to show confidence in today's housing climate, United States Appraisals revealed in a release.

Following a "robust" holiday shopping season, consumer spending slowed to a more cautious pace in this year's first quarter, according to new data from the Chase Freedom Lifestyle Index. The index shows overall spending was down 9 percent from the last quarter of 2012, falling to a level about even with last year's first quarter. As winter gave way to spring, March saw consumers shift their spending focus to home improvement projects (up 25 percent from February) and clothing/apparel (up 28 percent).

In Greenwood Village, Colorado, Blueberry Systems, LLC announced the promotion of industry veteran Dominick Marchetti to COO.

Clarifire, a Florida-based leader in workflow automation technology announced the launch of its next-generation website, eClarifire.com.

While other states spent March gearing up for a busy spring season, Massachusetts saw a decline in sales throughout the month, the Boston-based Warren Group reported.

An estimated 37,764 new and resale houses and condos sold statewide in California in March--a monthly increase of 31.5 percent, according to information released by San Diego-based DataQuick. March's sales numbers also came in 0.8 percent above March 2012's 37,481, DataQuick reported.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) released Tuesday its House Price Index (HPI) for February, revealing home prices rose 0.7 percent month-over-month on a seasonally adjusted basis. Year-over-year, U.S. house prices were up 7.1 percent. As of February, the U.S. index rested at 196.3, 13.6 percent below its peak in April 2007 and was roughly the same as its October 2004 reading. FHFA's index has not declined on a monthly basis since January 2012.

Freddie Mac announced it is now offering a free, online CreditSmart tutorial to provide working families and new or inexperienced borrowers with basic sound information about building savings, personal credit, and making wise financial choices.

Stearns Lending, Inc., a nationwide mortgage lending institution encompassing retail, wholesale, and correspondent business channels, announced the appointment of Aaron Samples as VP of strategic development.

After experiencing the sharpest drop in two years in February, new home sales increased 1.5 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 417,000 in March, the Census Bureau and HUD reported Tuesday. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg expected March sales to increase to 419,000 from a February's originally reported 411,000. The median price of a new home, according to the Census-HUD report, plunged $17,900 (or 6.8 percent) in March to $247,000, the largest month-over-month decline since February 2011.