By Peter Ricci Well, it’s Christmas Eve, the time of mistletoe and yuletide and egg nog. But while visions of sugarplums may be dancing in the heads of most people tonight, we’ll be going to sleep with another, equally

By Peter Ricci In an effort to shore up its struggling finances, the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) has announced that it will be tightening its mortgage standards and policies for certain homebuyers in 2013. The FHA’s finances have been

By Peter Ricci The multifamily housing market continued its dominant performance in the American Institute of Architects’ (AIA) Architecture Billings Index, a leading economic indicator of future construction activity that is based on the billings from the nation’s architectural firms.

By Peter Ricci There was nothing but good tidings and cheer in the National Association of Realtors’ (NAR) existing-home sales report for November, which found existing-home sales to have increased 5.9 percent from October to November and 14.5 percent

By Peter Ricci Building permits increased 3.6 percent from October to November and 26.8 percent year-over-year in the latest joint study by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Altogether, between single-family and multifamily

By Peter Ricci The Houston real estate market continued to surge in November, with housing inventory falling to its lowest level in 12 years and both average and median home prices setting new records for a November in the

By Peter Ricci The National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index, the leading measure of builder confidence for the newly-built, single family home market, rose for the eighth consecutive month in December, hitting its highest mark since April

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 If the housing downturn has accomplished anything, it’s given us a new perspective on data. Formerly obscure sets of data, from the Case-Shiller Home Price Indices to the monthly delinquency reports from CoreLogic, are now pivotal cues

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

The Bay Area office of Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate Gary Greene presented a check for $65,000 to the Sunshine Kids Foundation on November 27 at the Bay Oaks Country Club Golf Course. The funds were raised at

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