Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Home prices rose a substantial 3.6 percent during the second quarter compared with the three months ended March 31, but are still down 5.9 percent compared with the second quarter of 2010.
Read the full story
http://money.cnn.com/2011/08/30/real_estate/home_prices/index.htm?hpt=hp_t2
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Calif. median home price: July 2011: $294,230 (Source: C.A.R.)
Calif. highest median home price by region/county July 2011: Marin: $761,030 (Source: C.A.R.)
Calif. lowest median home price by region/county July 2011: Madera $92,500 (Source: C.A.R.)
Calif. Pending Home Sales Index: July 2011: 117, a decrease of 1.7 percent compared with prior month.
Calif. Traditional Housing Affordability Index: Second quarter 2011: 51 percent (Source: C.A.R.)
Mortgage rates: Week ending 8/18/2011 30-yr. fixed: 4.15 fees/points: 0.7% 15-yr. fixed: 3.36 fees/points: 0.6% 1-yr. adjustable: 2.86% Fees/points: 0.6% (Source: Freddie Mac)
Thursday, August 25, 2011
C.A.R.’s Research and Economics recently issued its latest “Real Estate 411” article, which discusses the impact of the U.S.’s credit downgrade and its impact on mortgage rates.
According to the article, the problems with U.S. Treasuries, and the debt crisis here and abroad are adding another layer of uncertainty to an already uncertain marketplace right now. The main question for housing in particular is where mortgage rates are headed.
Standard & Poor’s downgraded the U.S. Treasury and Fannie and Freddie (GSEs) which caused financial market gyrations across the board. However, the other two rating agencies, Moody’s and Fitch, have not made any changes to their credit rating of the U.S. Treasury or the GSEs.
While some have reported the downgrade is likely to lead to a bump in interest rates, in actuality, the yield on the 10-year Treasury, to which most mortgage rates are tied, has hit recent lows because of what is taking place in the global financial marketplace.
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