By Peter Ricci Declining foreclosure activity and strengthening home sales contributed positively to home prices in October, with FNC’s latest Residential Price Index increasing 3.7 percent year-over-year for the month. In addition, the Residential Price Index was up 0.4

By Peter Ricci The American Enterprise Institute strikes again! After being one of the first major research firms to call the Federal Housing Administration’s (FHA) finances into question, the Institute has published another analysis of the FHA’s books, and

By Peter Ricci Some of the nation’s top homebuilders, including PulteGroup and Lennar Corp., are finding a substantial revenue stream from an unlikely source – mortgage lending. Both builders, reports Bloomberg, have seen sizable returns from their in-house mortgage

By Peter Ricci The precipitous decline of mortgage interest rates has been one of the major stories in real estate in 2012, but recent actions by the Federal Reserve has some thinking that rates could fall even further in

By Peter Ricci In the last few years, there have been some big changes in Cuba. Fidel Castro is no longer in power, having passed the baton to his young brother Raul; citizens are allowed to purchase cell phones;

By Peter Ricci In its latest American Dream Survey, real estate website Trulia found that 93 percent of millennials who rent plan to purchase a home some day, and 72 percent of the entire demographic consider homeownership to be part of

By Peter Ricci The holiday season is often a strange one for real estate agents, many of whom are winding down their business for the year, closing up any loose ends from the summer homebuying season, or, for the

By Peter Ricci A new report from the Wall Street Journal is validating what many have been suspecting for months – President Obama is planning on replacing Acting Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Ed DeMarco by early next year, and

By Peter Ricci The for-sale-by-owner (FSBO) market is one of untapped potential, like an oil reserve that real estate agents haven’t quite reached yet. After all, these are consumers who are looking to sell their homes, but are not

Despite the continued economic uncertainty involving the fiscal cliff, consumers are increasingly confident about the U.S. housing market, as Fannie Found in its National Housing Survey for

By Peter Ricci The Multifamily Production Index, the National Association of Home Builder’s (NAHB) measure of builder sentiment in the apartment/condominium market, was positive again in the third quarter with an index level of 52. That’s the third straight

By Peter Ricci Completed foreclosures declined 17 percent year-over-year in October, as the strengthening housing market and the National Mortgage Settlement continue to improve the mortgage market. According to the latest National Foreclosure Report from CoreLogic, in addition to the

By Peter Ricci Every day, if not every moment of every hour, new details are reported about Congress’ ongoing battle to avert the so-called “Fiscal Cliff,” with various policies, tax proposals and political rhetoric being exchanged across the aisles.

By Peter Ricci Asking prices continued to show improvement in the Trulia Price Monitor, a leading indictor of market activity that studies the asking prices of new property listings on the real estate website. Overall, the Trulia Price Monitor found

By Peter Ricci The findings of the National Association of Realtors’ (NAR) 2012 NAR Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers on the home search process was perhaps the most encouraging part of the entire study, as it found that though

By Peter Ricci In a free webinar open to the public, the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) assessed the politics and economics surrounding the housing market following the reelection of President Obama. Featuring Jerry Howard, the association’s CEO, Jim Tobin,