Underwater, upside down and short sale are just some of the familiar labels for homeowner equity positions in the wake of the housing crisis. The terms referring to owing more on a mortgage than a home is worth are no longer commonplace as the number homes with negative equity fell to its lowest level in nine years according to CoreLogic’s latest Equity Report. The amount of equity in mortgaged real estate increased by $427 billion in the second quarter of this year.
SIGNIFICANT SPIKE
Mortgage interest rates jumped to the highest point since late June according to Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey for the week ending September 19. Though interest rates began declining late last year, the traditionally busy home-buying season got a late start. Freddie Mac credits the strong labor market for last week’s 15% year-over-year increase in the number of mortgage applications.
PROMISING POLL
A majority of consumers believe that now is a good time to buy or sell a home according to the National Association of Realtors®’ (NAR) September Housing Opportunities and Market Experience (HOME) Survey. In the survey of 2,705 households conducted July through September, 74% of respondents said now is a good time to sell and 63% said it’s a good time to buy.
IDEOLOGICAL ANGST
More people are comfortable with ethnic diversity than political differences. As part of their ongoing analysis of migration trends, Seattle-based real estate brokerage Redfin surveyed 3,000 people who bought or sold a home in the last 12 months or plan to in the next year. Thirty-eight percent said they would be hesitant about moving to an area where most residents have differing political views from their own, compared to 22% who said they would be hesitant about moving to a place where they’d be in the racial minority.
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