News

From RealTrends.com: The Federal Reserve announced that it intends to keep rates at their record lows at least through the end of 2014 and that their targeted inflation rate is to be 2%.  The Fed announced its intention to be more transparent in communicating the direction of its rate guidance and the factors that it uses to measure the economy’s performance.
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RealTrends.com: Many housing market forecasters have said that 2012 will be the year that housing turns the corner.  For those who closely follow housing there is abundant evidence that housing has already turned the corner.  Unit sales were up in December for the sixth consecutive month, without any new Federal government assistance (other than record low rates) and according to NAR pending home sales were up 11 months in a row, even though December’s numbers appear to have drifted down somewhat.
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From RealTrends.com:  Mortgage applications jumped 23.1 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis during the week ended January 13, 2012.  The increase in the Market Composite Index, a measure of loan application volume maintained by the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) reflected improvements in both the purchase and refinance business following the traditionally slow Christmas and New Year holiday period.  On an unadjusted basis the index increased 38.1 percent.
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By Steve Murray, REAL Trends.com: Last week several dozen Democratic members of the House of Representatives signed and sent a letter to Messrs. Geithner and Bernanke asking them to appoint someone new to run FHFA, the Federal entity that oversees Fannie and Freddie.  They did so because Edward DeMarco, who now runs it, is focusing on his mandate which is to protect the American taxpayer from further losses at the GSE’s.  He sees his mandate as doing just that and not on loosening standards to stimulate the housing market.
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From RealTrends.com: The December 2011 report shows that rate of housing sales increased substantially on an annualized basis from November 2011 and above a year ago.  Overall, December 2011 unit sales were up 3.7% from a year ago.
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From RealTrends.com: Mortgage rates remain near all-time lows with the 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage setting a new record with an interest rate of 3.91%, Freddie Mac said recently. That’s down from 3.94% a week ago.

Meanwhile, the 15-year, FRM remained at 3.21%, and the 5-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgage averaged 2.85% this week, down from 2.86% last week.

From RealTrends.com: Last week the U.S. reported that unemployment dropped to 8.6% a point not seen for the last two years and a rate not expected until later in 2012.  That is good news.  The not so good news is that only 120,000 net overall jobs were created far lower than the +200,000 needed monthly to offset gains in population.  Further it was reported that most of the decline was people dropping out of the search for a job.
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From RealTrends.com: Existing home sales increased 13.5% in October when compared to a year earlier and would be even higher if contract failures and cancellations plaguing the loan application process could subside, the National Association of Realtors said Monday.

Total existing home sales — including single-family townhomes, condominiums and co-ops — rose to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.97 million units in October, compared to 4.9 million in September and 4.38 million a year earlier.
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From RealTrends.com: Housing starts inched lowered in October, according to Commerce Department data, after climbing by double-digits the prior two months. But new residential construction remains at the highest level since March 2010.
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NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Permits for housing construction climbed in October, signaling an uptick in optimism among homebuilders.

The number of permits for future housing construction jumped to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 653,000 last month, up 10.9% from the revised rate of 589,000 in September, the Commerce Department said.
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