Only 65.1 percent of U.S. households own homes, which is the lowest amount since 1996. A big reason for that decline, according to a new piece by the Associated Press (AP), is the relative absence of first-time homebuyers, a longtime

By Peter Ricci The Pending Home Sales Index, a prospective data set compiled monthly by the National Association of Realtors (NAR), increased by 10.4 percent in October, rising from 84.5 in September to 93.3 last month. In addition, the

Suburbia has been taking a bit of flack, as of late. The New York Times, as highlighted by NewGeography, ran two op-eds this past weekend proclaiming the decline of suburban living. Urban theorist Chris Leinberger claiming that Americans were abandoning

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced today it is offering more than $40 million to various housing counseling programs. The grants will be awarded competitively to approximately 500 HUD-approved counseling agencies and State Housing Finance

The Knight Frank Global House Price Index, a massive, wide-ranging collection of data that operates as a Case-Shiller-esque index for the global housing market, was just released by Knight Frank, and it offers some startling revelations on how housing

Courtesy of a new report from Lender Process Services (LPS), the delinquency markets have yielded several batches of data this week, with some good, some bad, and some suggesting we still have a long way to go. The good

Construction spending, driven by renewed investment in housing, rose in October for the third straight month, exceeding analysts’ projections and increasing by 0.8 percent, according to a Business Week article by Alex Kowalski. Riding on low interest rates, a

CoreLogic released its third quarter negative equity report yesterday, and it revealed an interesting paradox in housing for 2011 – though prices resumed their downward trend in the third quarter, and investment remains sluggish, negative equity is still declining, albeit

Hispanic households made up more than half 0f the U.S.’ new household units in the third quarter, a strong indicator that a powerful group of buyers has emerged in the wake of the housing downturn. According to Census Bureau

The Pending Home Sales Index, a prospective data set compiled monthly by the National Association of Realtors (NAR), increased by 10.4 percent in October, rising from 84.5 in September to 93.3 last month. In addition, the index posted a

Ideas abound on how GSEs and private banks should deal with their backlog of distressed and foreclosed homes, a collection of properties known as the shadow inventory. From fire sales with investors to rental conversions, a new idea seems

Financing has been one of the main talking points since the housing downturn began in early 2007. Potential buyers, we are told by numerous outlets and trade groups, are unable to secure valid financing for homes because of stingy

The PMI Group, one of the country’s largest mortgage insurers, filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings last week to an amount of $736 million in debts, according to a HousingWire piece on the development. The bankruptcy filing is intended to

New-home sales rose slightly in October by 1.3 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 307,000, according to new data from the Commerce Department released this morning. The data, which represented a 4,000-unit increase from September, beat economists’

Financial institutions insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) displayed positive gains on lower loan-loss provisions in this year’s third quarterly report; 63 percent of the FDIC’s client banks reported higher earnings, according to FDIC data cited by

According to a survey by Reuters of economists and housing analysts, U.S. home prices will begin to improve in 2013, only after another year of stagnant recovery in 2012.  The survey polled 27 economic analysts between November 17 and