Tag Archives: Unemployment

Even with new-home sales tanking and recession fears redoubling over August, more renters clung onto the hope of homeownership, with 59 percent still aspiring to pocket a pair of keys and ink their names to mortgages, according to Trulia. The consensus: more than half of all homeowners believe in making the home their most important investment. According to Trulia, 70 percent of survey respondents held firmly to the idea that homeownership is central to the American Dream.

Despite the lure of record-low mortgage rates, fewer consumers stepped out from behind the fear of a global economic slowdown to purchase new homes, curtailing new sales by 2.3 percent month-over-month in August. Market watchers chalked up a six-month dearth to consumers wary about their job security, stock markets, and the threat of a new recession. The Census Bureau signaled a fallback to 295,000 housing units on a seasonally adjusted basis, down from 302,000 from July.

Debt crises and stimulus measures stole the mortgage-rates show as more investors flee to U.S. Treasury debt, with mortgage giant Freddie Mac holding that rates dithered by a few percentage rates and finance Web site Bankrate.com finding a fifth-consecutive week for record lows. Homebuyers nonetheless remain on the sidelines despite all-time highs for affordability, reflecting a dearth in demand, confidence, and jobs. Analysts fault a dismal economy and suggest that mortgage rates will remain low.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke again made waves Wednesday with an announcement that the central bank plans to sell $400 billion in short-term Treasuries to keep a heel on still-low interest rates and offset widespread fears that the U.S. economy may soon enter a downturn. The move follows successive efforts from the Fed, which more recently pledged to keep interest rates low until 2013. Speaking with MReport, economists largely panned the effort.

Mortgage application volume jumped from the previous week by 6.3 percent, reflecting the highly attractive plunge by interest rates to record lows, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. Even so, the good news comes amid a fall in home valuations and cash buyer interest, which Capital Economics says will likely depress sales activity across the housing market. Frank Nothaft, VP and chief economist for Freddie Mac, spoke to MReport about the forces behind anemic demand for home purchases at the Five Star Conference and Expo in Dallas.

President Barack Obama rolled out a $447 billion jobs bill and touted a major refinance proposal in a recent address, estimating that some 2.9 million homeowners could refinance their mortgages at current rates.

Clear Capital joins a list of firms and trade groups whose batch of surveys and reports dished on consumer confidence, market health, and job growth this week. On Thursday Clear Capital forecasted glacial prices.

The economy shed as many employees as it brought on in August, leading to a startling net gain of zero jobs on a seasonally adjusted basis. Housing sectors showed no immunity to fears of a recession and slowdown.

On the heels of attempts by investors to derail a mega settlement in the courts, Bank of America continued to shake up headlines Wednesday with multiple news outlets confirming that the mortgage giant plans to sell off its share of the correspondent mortgage market. With mortgage correspondents in the bank├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├óÔÇ×┬ós unit set to soon receive their pink slips, multiple news outlets quoted suggested that some 3,500 could feel impact in their jobs. New job losses would follow recently reported second-quarter fallout.

Fewer homebuyers filed for mortgage loans last week, with applications falling on average by 9.6 percent from the week before, according to a weekly survey released Wednesday by the Mortgage Bankers Association.