By Peter Ricci The Case-Shiller Home Price Index, which we wrote about earlier today, is undoubtedly the most influential monitor for the nation’s home prices in the current market. But such enthusiasm, as Inman News has demonstrated in the past,

By Peter Ricci The National Association of Realtors’ new real estate TV ad is garnering quite a bit of attention in the real estate community, and not all of it good. Titled “Moving Pictures,” the ad plays from the

All three composites of the Case-Shiller Home Price Indices ended 2012’s second quarter with positive annual growth rates, the first time that’s happened since the summer of 2010, according to the latest data from Standard & Poor’s. Though S&P does not track

Real estate appraisals are among the more consistent topics that we cover here at Chicago Agent, and for good reason – though real estate, after a prolonged slumber, has been posting some of its best numbers in years, the most

By Peter Ricci Shadow housing inventory and government-held REO inventory have both been on a steady decline the last couple years, and if new short sale guidelines from the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) fulfill their aims, they’re a

By Peter Ricci The National Association of Realtors (NAR) did some serious political flexing this week with the GOP and its stance on the mortgage interest tax deduction. The Republican Party boldly excluded the deduction – long the third

By Carlo Calma, Peter Ricci On account of rising mortgage interest rates, mortgage applications fell 7.4 percent for the week ending August 17, according to the latest Weekly Mortgage Application Survey from the Mortgage Banker’s Association (MBA). And indeed, rates

By Peter Ricci New residential home sales increased 25.3 percent year-over-year in July to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 372,000, according to the latest joint report from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban

By Peter Ricci Existing-home sales reversed recent declines in July, rising 2.3 percent from June and 10.4 percent from July  2011, according to the National Association of Realtors. Median existing-home price was equally optimistic for the month, increasing yearly

By Peter Ricci Foreclosure sales present significant benefits to potential homeowners, the biggest one being the price – according to the most recent existing-home sales report from the National Association of Realtors, foreclosures sold for an average discount of

More than seven months after its initial unveiling, Barack Obama’s refinancing plan will make a return to Capital Hill on September, as the president renews calls for Washington to assist the nation’s underwater homeowners. The announcement is hardly a

By Stephanie Sims Historically, many of the world’s tallest buildings, like the Empire State Building and the Willis Tower, were built to house offices, but once the idea of living in a massively-tall building grew in popularity about a

We’ve been exploring the rapidly falling housing inventory for some time now, and though analysts have offered explanations for the decline, we had not yet seen a consumer-driven survey on the issue – until now with Redfin’s Real-Time Home Seller Survey. A

The National Association of Home Builders latest Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI) rose for the fourth consecutive month in August, reaching its highest point in more than five years. A measure of builder confidence for the newly-built, single-family

Housing affordability was one of the hidden jewels of the post-boom housing market, as falling home prices offered prospective buyers one of the best opportunities in decades to enjoy the benefits of homeownership. As the latest quarterly report from

Housing starts in July were up 21.5 percent from last year, according to the latest joint report from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Additionally, building permits, which are the clearest signal for