News

What do you do when you find out Santa Claus doesn't exist? That's the situation House Budget Committee Chair Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) faces now.

Despite some obstacles in the homebuilding recovery and three consecutive monthly declines in the National Association of Home Builder's homebuilder confidence index, Capital Economics remains largely optimistic about the homebuilding rebound. The analytics firm is sticking with its previous prediction that housing starts will reach about 1 million this year and 1.3 million next year as rising home prices help to mitigate increases in construction costs.

In a release, Fitch Ratings maintains its cautious view of recent gains in home prices, suggesting recent news of rising prices and sales volumes "are not moving in sync with key economic indicators that would otherwise support a sustainable price level." One of those key indicators in unemployment, which has fallen in the past several years--partly as a result of fallout in labor force participation, not an improving employment situation, Fitch says.

Users of DataQuick's National Property Database will now be able to search through four customized databases to more accurately identify business prospects.

Carrington Technology Solutions, LLC and Equator Business Solutions announced the commercial availability of RentPointe, Carrington's proprietary software application designed to meet the complexities of managing diverse portfolios of single-family rental properties.

Apartment markets improved in April in all categories, according to the National Multi Housing Council's (NMHC) April Quarterly Survey of Apartment Market Conditions. All four of the survey's indexes--Market Tightness, Sales Volume, Equity Financing, and Debt Financing--came in above 50, which marks the point between improving and deteriorating conditions. April's gains reverse findings made in January, when Market Tightness and Sales Volume dropped below 50 for the first time since 2010.

Construction employment proved to be the silver lining in March's otherwise dismal job report, Freddie Mac says in its economic and housing outlook for April.

In San Diego, Mortgage Capital Management (MCM) announced it is now offering an automated report system designed to track and report loan processing times to help banks identify their highest performing entities.

Commercial and multifamily originations rose 33 percent to $244.2 billion in 2012, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA).

Nationwide Title Clearing, Inc. (NTC), a Florida-based mortgage industry service provider, joined other firms in Las Colinas, Texas, late March at the Five Star Institute's second annual MPact conference.