Tag Archives: Home Prices

Home sales fell in July, but still managed to hover over last July's levels and reach new heights not seen since 2008, according to the RE/MAX July 2015 National Housing Report released Tuesday.

A slight drop in nationwide housing affordability was recorded in the second quarter of 2015, mostly due to rising home prices, according to the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Opportunity Index released today.

Interest rates on conventional purchase-money mortgages and home loan amounts increased from May to June, according to Federal Housing Finance Agency indices of new mortgage contracts.

Due to increasing demand and limited supply of homes, the national median sales price of homes has reached a new record high. Additionally, existing-home sales increased in June to their highest pace in over eight years, according to a report from the National Association of Realtors released Wednesday.

As home prices continue to increase and the market picks up momentum, more properties are being sold at a discounted price. In a recent blog from the National Association of Realtors (NAR), author Scholastica Cororaton, a research economist at NAR found that 63 percent of properties sold at a discount compared to the listing price in May 2015, according to the May 2015 Realtors Confidence Index Survey.

Although home sales in the U.S. have reached their highest peak since 2007 during the first four months of 2015, foreign homebuyers are not adding to these growing sales. According to a blog by Frank Nothaft, CoreLogic’s chief economist, in relation to the same period one year ago, home sales jumped 9 percent with the help of lower fixed mortgage rates by one-half percentage point, but foreign buyers did not help with this increase.

Home prices nationwide, including distressed sales, increased by 6.3 percent in May 2015 compared to this time last year, according to CoreLogic’s May 2015 Home Price Index Report (HPI). This will make 39 months of consecutive year-over-year increases in home prices nationally.

Home prices have continued to rise across the country in April 2015 and for the last 12 months at a moderate pace, according to the results from the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices released today. The Case Shiller Index, which covers all nine U.S. census divisions, posted a 4.2 percent annual increase in April 2015, compared to a slightly higher 4.3 percent increase in March 2015.

Home sales in May were greater than in any other May since 2008, while home prices continued to rise, according to the RE/MAX National Housing Report. Sales are on a four-month trend in which they were higher than both the previous month and the same month in the previous year.

Increases in home prices and the stock market pushed household wealth to nearly 85 trillion for the first quarter of 2015, according to the Federal Reserve’s Statistical Release titled “Financial Accounts of the United States” released today. The net worth of households and nonprofits rose increased by $1.63 trillion to $84.9 trillion during the first quarter of 2015. Meanwhile, the value of directly and indirectly held corporate equities increased $487 billion and home values rose $503 billion.