News

Statewide, sales of single-family homes increased 7.0 percent annually in October to a total of 2,379, the Warren Group reported this week. It was the best October sales figure since 2007, when transactions totaled 2,605. The year-to-date sales total came closer to catching up to last year, coming to 21,546—a decline of less than 1 percent.

Asking prices on for-sale homes jumped 1.5 percent month-over-month in November, outpacing a pre-revised increase of 1.0 percent in October, according to property data firm Trulia. Examining local market data, Trulia found increases were largely split along age lines, with asking prices rising faster in metros predominantly populated by Gen X, baby boomers, and senior Americans compared to those occupied by more millennials.

In a testimony before the Senate Banking Committee's subcommittee on housing, Mabel Guzman, 2014 chair of the National Association of Realtors' (NAR) Conventional Finance and Lending Committee, highlighted some of the biggest challenges constraining homeownership.

Movement Mortgage, one of the nation's fastest-growing privately held mortgage banks, announced that 35-year housing veteran John Ritz Miller will join the company early next year as regional director for the Washington, D.C., area.

Cash sales accounted for 34.8 percent of total home sales, CoreLogic reported, down from 37.2 percent in September 2013. The share of cash sales has fallen annually every month since January 2013. Before the start of the housing crisis, the cash sales share of total homes averaged nearly 25 percent.

RoundPoint Mortgage Servicing customers concerned about any issues surrounding their loan can now access the company's Consumer Ombudsman online, thanks to an upgrade introduced this week.

Quicken Loans' Home Price Perception Index, a measure of the gap between appraiser and homeowner opinions of home values, shows appraisers' home value estimates were on average 1.56 percent higher than homeowners nationally.

Total mortgage application volumes increased 7.3 percent for the week ending December 5, according to survey data from the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA). The jump, which includes seasonal adjustments, followed a drop of the same amount the week prior.

Indecomm-Mortgage U, a full-service training company serving the mortgage industry, announced the development of a new suite of training tools designed to help bring lenders in compliance with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's (CFPB) soon to be implemented integrated mortgage disclosure rule.

Sales of single-family homes in Rhode Island increased by 3.2 percent in October from the previous year, the fifth time in 2014 single-family home sales have increased year-over-year in the state, according to a report released Monday by the Warren Group.