From RealTrends.com: Nationwide housing starts inched up 1.7 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 546,000 units in July from a downwardly revised figure in the previous month, according to U.S. Commerce Department figures released today. The gain occurred entirely on the multi-family side, with single-family housing production falling 4.2 percent to 432,000 units.
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 Mortgage rates fell in the past week to the latest in a series of record lows amid concerns about the state of the U.S. economy, according to a survey released on Thursday by Freddie Mac, the second-largest U.S. mortgage finance company.

Rock-bottom rates should continue to spur demand for home loan refinancing, putting extra cash into consumers’ hands that they can save, use to pay off existing debt or funnel into the economy through extra spending.
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From RealTrends.com: The trend in firming home prices solidified in the second quarter with more metropolitan areas showing increases from a year ago, aided by a surge in home sales driven by the home buyer tax credit, according to the latest survey by the National Association of REALTORS®.

In the second quarter, 100 out of 155 metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) had higher median existing single-family home prices in comparison with the second quarter of 2009, including 14 with double-digit increases; two were unchanged and 53 metros showed price declines. In the first quarter of this year 91 areas had higher prices, while only 26 MSAs experienced annual price gains in second quarter of 2009.

Source: NAR

From RealTrends.com: In the second quarter of 2010, 22 percent of homeowners who refinanced their first-lien home mortgage lowered their principal balance by paying in additional money at the closing table. This ties the record for the third highest cash-in share since Freddie Mac began keeping records on refinancing patterns in 1985. The revised cash-in share in the first quarter was 19 percent.
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From RealTrends.com: In the first quarter of 2010, U.S. single-family home prices rose an average of 2 percent over the year-ago quarter, the first year-over-year national gain since 2006, according to Fiserv Case-Shiller Indexes. Despite the gain in the national average, prices were actually lower in 303 of the 384 metro areas compared to the 2009 first quarter. The overall increase was driven by strong price increases in markets such as the San Francisco Bay Area and Washington, D.C. However, prices in many markets continued to plummet, with double-digit drops in Detroit, Las Vegas and many small Florida markets.

Detailed information on the Indexes can be found at the Fiserv Case-Shiller website, click here.

Go In-Depth Market Report for Las Campanas