News

The S&P Dow Jones Indices released its results of for the S&P/Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index Tuesday, showing that home prices experienced year-over-year gains of 4.7 percent in August compared to a 4.6 percent increase in July.

HUD Secretary Julián Castro, whose name has been bantered for months as a possible vice presidential candidate, joined Realtor.com Chief Economist Jonathan Smoke in a conversation Monday evening about millennial housing held at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. In the conversation, Secretary Castro and Smoke addressed a number of questions surrounding America's most talked about generation and how they are faring the housing market amid numerous regulatory changes.

In 2014, the market share of independent mortgage companies rose to 47 percent for home purchase loans and 42 percent for refinance loans, the highest those shares have been at any point in the last 20 years, meaning nonbank mortgage companies have more than regained their market share they lost due to the Great Recession.

With interest rates lower than they have been since 2012, now is likely the best time to purchase a home, according to Trulia’s most recent Rent vs. Buy Report.

With so many positive reports on the housing market thus far in 2015, economists believe that growth in 2016 will keep the upward trend going, but not without a few headwinds.

New single-family home sales in September 2015 fell dramatically to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 468,000, down 11.5 percent from the revised August rate of 529,000, according to estimates released jointly Monday by the U.S. Census Bureau and HUD.

Black Knight Financial Services' Data and Analytics division released its August 2015 Home Price Index report, finding that U.S. home prices were up 0.3 percent in August and up 5.5 percent year-over-year.

Pavaso Inc., recently announced the completion of its pioneering end-to-end digital process for the mortgage/real estate industry with the addition of its sales contract negotiation tool for real estate agents.

First Guaranty Mortgage Corp., a Virginia Corp., has named Jane Gershman as its National Servicing Director. Prior to her new role, Gershman was SVP of Servicing Operations at SUNTRUST. In addition, she also served as Prior SVP, Loss Mitigation Division, ServiceLink; EVP, Loan Servicing Operations, CITI Residential Lending (formerly AMC Mortgage Services), where she also held the positions of SVP, Loan Servicing, President, AMC Insurance Agency, and President Town & Country Trustee Services

Parkside Lending, a national wholesale and correspondent lender, recently announced its insurance subsidiary PSL Insurance Company, LLC has been approved to become a member of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Cincinnati.