Home Values Are Back On the Rise
Home Prices Are No Longer in Free Fall According to the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the Home Price Index posted its first quarterly increase since 2007 last quarter. The news was reported Tuesday. The Home Price Index is an interesting metric.  It’s huge in its scope, accounting for every home sold in the country that backs a mortgage bound for Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac with two notable exceptions: It doesn’t track new cons

Des Moines Shows Largest Jump in Sales Over Last Year
What’s The Real Estate Market Doing? Do you ever wonder how our real estate market is here in Des Moines? Unfortunately, we spend a lot of time listening to how rough things are in other cities around the country, but too often we don’t really consider what our real estate climate is like. I’m a fan of having as much information available before I

Existing Home Sales Continue to Rise
Home Inventories Haven’t Been This Low in Nearly 3 Years Another month, another piece of evidence that the housing market is in recovery. Existing Home Sales surged in October as the nation’s homebuyers took advantage of low mortgage rates, low list prices, and, for some, a generous tax credit. Home resales are

Black Friday Has a Lot to do With Rates This Week
Lock in Your Rate, This Could Be a Bumpy Week This week, though, because a heavy data calendar is combining with a holiday-shortened trading week, rates aren’t likely to stay as tame. Monday: Existing Home Sales Tuesday: Consumer Confidence, Home Price Index, Fed Minutes Wednesday: New Home Sales, Personal Income and Outlays Each of these data points are market-movers by themselves. In tandem, however, they could really shake things up. Then, at the tail end of the week, markets will react to Black Friday. If stores look full Friday and initial receipts appear high, stock markets should rise at the exp

A Mildly Stable Week for Mortgage Rates
Rates Rose For the First Time in a Month Mortgage markets worsened last week on a mixed bag of economic data.  Inflation data came in soft, but so did the start of the holiday shopping season. For the first time in a month, mortgage rates worsened last week, adding roughly 0.125 percent on conforming fixed-rate products, and a little bit more on ARMs. Despite rates worsening, there was still some good news for home buyers and would-be refinancers. Mortgage rate volatility was markedly lower than in recent weeks.  You could shop for mortgage rate last week and actually take your time about it. This is in stark contrast to the last month