Double H Title

After a brief hiatus, we’re back!?Hope everyone is staying dry on this wet, cold mid-February ‘blah’ day.?? Pending Home Sales Approach All-Time-Low in January 2025. According to a Feb. 13 report & analysis of MLS data from Redfin, pending home sales were the 2nd lowest on record (since the 2008 mortgage meltdown) in January 2025 at 455,163 nationwide.??The lowest month???April 2020, the 1st full month of COVID-19 lockdowns, school closures, social distancing, plastic plexiglass dividers, ‘non-essential’ businesses shutdowns, etc.??The number in April 2020???413,419.??Other than that single-month anomaly, January 2025 was the worst month since the nadir of the mortgage meltdown: in Jan. 2012, pending home sales reached a then-modern-low of 467,337. For context, these figures are nearly 40% lower than the levels seen before the Fed bean hiking interest rates in early 2022.

Does anyone have a direct senior legal / regulatory / compliance contact at TDS Telecomm? Tia!!

ATTOM, leading curator of land, property and real estate data, released an?updated monthly report?on U.S. commercial foreclosures, finding a near-50% increase?? in commercial foreclosures in June 2024 vs. June 2023.??May 2024 saw levels of commercial foreclosure activity at approximately similar levels of peak commercial foreclosure activity following the mortgage meltdown some 15 years ago.??More ominous clouds are on the horizon, especially in the office space market: the wake of the pandemic gave rise to remote work situations and office utilization has plateaued at the same time office space valuations have fallen.??Additionally, hundreds of billions of dollars in office space loans are set to mature over the next few years, with more than $260 billion recently maturing or that will be maturing by the end of 2026, representing thirty percent (30%) of all office loans across 12,000+ properties nationwide. #TitleInsurance #CommercialRealEstate #RealEstateInvesting #ForeclosureMarket

According to a new analysis by Bloomberg & housing data firm Attom, owning a ??house is the least affordable in the U.S. since 2007, with costs of home ownership—mortgage payments, insurance & taxes—amounting to 35.1% of average take-home pay & up from 32.1% last year. ? Rob Barber, CEO of Attom, remarked that this latest data illustrates the “clear challenge for homebuyers.?It’s common for these trends to intensify during the spring buying season when buyer demand increases.?However, the trends this year are particularly challenging for house hunters.” #TitleInsurance #HomeAffordability #HomeOwnership #RealEstate

Unbelievable. ? The Biden Administration just approved a pilot program to offer/buy and ultimately guarantee 2nd?mortgages, a first.??Historically, the GSEs have only done this with 1st?mortgages.??Buying, offering and ultimately guaranteeing 2nd?mortgages will increase systemic risk into the entire U.S. housing market, exacerbate inflationary pressures as homeowners will be able to cash out home equity at cheaper, subsidized rates.??With homeowners incentivized to cash out equity in their homes, inflationary pressure will increase as more liquidity is injected into the economy.??Additionally, it will put a cold towel on an already mission-critical low inventory problem—arguably the single largest factor in the current affordability crisis by putting the so-called rate-lock effect on steroids, as homeowners increase leverage on their homes.??? ? Structured Finance Association CEO Michael Bright, also a former president of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae sister company Ginnie May ripped the proposal, appearing on Fox News Business ‘The Bottom Line’ on Tuesday, pulling no punches: “Freddie Mac is doing this, but Fannie Mae is going to have to follow.? They always do.?I really think we've jumped the shark on this one. Having the government subsidize and incentivize equity extraction through second mortgages, we're not solving any problems in our economy. Consumer spending is actually too high. The Fed is working on that through inflation.? You can get mortgage loans through banks and everything, but if the government comes in and really amps this up, you're talking about additional inflationary pressures.? You're talking about additional rate lock effect. People taking equity out of their ?? home means they're not going to sell their home and move.?We already have a supply crisis..." ? Bright went on to point out the Administration’s proposal is hypocritical & directly at odds with the Fed’s main goal of taming inflation:?“So (on the one hand) while the Fed is fighting inflation and trying to manage consumer spending incomes, (on the other hand) Fannie and Freddie uses the taxpayer balance sheet to try and juice consumer spending for reasons we don't really understand.? Taxpayers are going to bear the risk, more second liens.? I just don't think this is the trend we want to be going.” #Homeownership #RealEstateNews #TitleInsurance #MortgageRates #HousingIndustry

According to the Fannie Mae Economic and Strategic Research Group’s June 2024 analysis, affordability concerns do not appear to abating anytime soon, with its total ?? home sales prediction for 2024 reduced down to 4.82 million in 2024, representing an anemic increase of 1.3% from 2023 vs. the previously projected 2.8%-- a 60% reduction in projected home sale growth for 2024. As Doug Duncan, senior VP and Chief Economist, put it:?“Unfortunately, we’re still not forecasting a ramp-up in housing activity, which will require some combination of continued household income growth??, a further slowing of home price appreciation, or a decline in mortgage rates to bring affordability within range of many waiting first-time and move-up homebuyers.” #EconomicDevelopments #TitleCompany #FirstTimeHomeBuyers #MortgageRates

In a new study from Lending Tree, some 20 million U.S. homeowners ?? are so-called ‘house poor,’ spending more than 30% of their net take-home income on housing costs—mortgage, insurance, utilities, etc.??This figure represents 22% of all owner-occupied households in the U.S.?? A subset of this group—a staggering 44.2%-- are ‘severely house poor,’ spending more than 50% of monthly take-home income on housing costs. ? California tops the list, with 30% of homeowners being house poor & 46.42% being severely house poor.??West Virginia comes last, with 13.54% being house poor.?? #HousingCosts #TitleInsurance #Homeowners #RealEstate #PropertyOwnership

On the heels of last Friday’s jobs report by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, reflecting far higher job growth than anticipated by economists, the Fed took a wait-and-see ?? approach on its decision, holding rates steady earlier today.??The Fed retreated from its previous forecast of making 3 modest rate cuts in 2024, dialing back expectations & signaling that if there are any cuts in rates in 2024, there may (may) be only one.??Many on the Street expressed skepticism, however, at the prospects of any rate cuts for the rest of 2024. Roger Aliaga-Diaz, chief economist at the investment giant Vanguard, said in a statement to ABC News before the rate announcement that he believed the Fed would keep interest rates at current levels for at least the next six months.?The forecast, Aliaga-Diaz added, owes to "inadequate progress in the inflation fight and continued growth and labor momentum."??In a note to clients, Deutsche Bank echoed skepticism about rate cuts anytime soon.?“Fed officials have clearly signaled that they are in a wait-and-see mode with respect to the timing and magnitude of rate cuts," the note said. Related, the mortgage market reacted to the news with little change to the 7% +/- levels seen over the last few weeks, with the 30-year fixed at 6.99% an hour after the Fed’s announcement. #TitleInsurance #MortgageRates #RealEstate #HousingMarket #HomeLoans

The dramatic increase in both median home prices & mortgage payments over the last 3-4 years, and corresponding impact on affordability, have been well-documented. ? Another less-covered factor has been a similar increase in the net cost of home ownership (i.e., the costs?over and above?monthly mortgage payments): property taxes, energy bills (gas / electricity), internet & cable bills, basic maintenance & upkeep, homeowner’s insurance, etc.?These constitute the so-called ‘hidden’ costs of home ownership, often overlooked & not considered by prospective homebuyers in determining what kind of house they can (or can’t) afford.?? ? Yesterday, Bankrate published a national survey of the increase in the ‘hidden’ costs of home ownership over the last four years—again, costs over and above a mortgage payment.??According to Bankrate’s report, the average annual cost of owning and maintaining a single-family home in the U.S. is 26% ?? higher than four years ago.??For North Carolina over the same 4-year period, these ‘hidden’ costs of home ownership are 31% higher—outpacing the national average.??In March 2020, the average annual ‘hidden’ costs of home ownership in NC was $11,087 vs. $14,647 in March 2024, a 31% increase & an additional $3,447 annually, or $287.25 more each and every month. ? “Homeownership is a cornerstone of the American Dream and an important way for many to build wealth, but the ongoing costs extend way beyond the table stakes of buying a home.?In a market where median home prices have climbed above $400,000 nationally, the average annual cost of owning and maintaining a single-family home in the U.S. is 26 percent higher now compared to four years ago, according to Bankrate’s new Hidden Costs of Homeownership Study.?Bankrate aggregated the average costs of property taxes, homeowners insurance and home maintenance costs, which we estimated at 2 percent a year of the value of a home.?We also included energy, internet and cable bills and adjusted figures for property taxes, energy, internet and cable bills and homeowners insurance premiums for inflation.” #homeownershipjourney #TitleCompany #TitleInsurance #AffordableHousing

According to the Residential Property Mortgage Origination Report from ATTOM Data, there were a total of 1.28 million ?? mortgages originated during the first quarter of 2024, a 6.8% decline from 4th?Q 2023 and the lowest number of originations overall since 2000. ? This number is 69.3% fewer originations from the recent 2021 peak and directly attributable to the aggressive series of interest rate hikes, continued rising home prices & supply-side constraints. Outlook for any material change remains grim, noted Rob Barber, CEO of ATTOM: “There is reason to hope that we will see something of a turnaround when second-quarter data comes in, given the jump in lending activity that happened during the peak home-buying season of 2023.?But with little sign that interest rates are coming down, which could fire up refinance and HELOC lending, or that supplies of homes for sale are going up ? , any increase is likely to be limited.” #homeloans #realestatefinance #mortgagebroker #lendingindustry #housingmarket #homevalues #mortgagetitle #titleinsurance