MLS Real Estate & Listings Blog

The Pacific West and Tri Counties Association of Realtors, a Realtor trade group in Southern California, has lost about 2,500 members since the end of 2006 with the decline in area home sales. But the group has a plan — lots of plans, in fact.  more…

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The Bush administration has put forward a sweeping plan for reorganizing the regulation of the financial system that would include national licensing standards for mortgage brokers and the elimination of federally chartered thrifts.

Many of the major aspects of the plan unveiled today by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson would require congressional approval, and are not likely to be achieved during President Bush’s final year in office, Paulson acknowledged.  more…

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In today’s tough real estate market, brokers are looking for all sorts of ways to connect with consumers — especially online — and an interactive software company is offering technology that aims to do just that.

WebsiteAlive, a provider of live chat software, has created a version of its platform for real estate sites and is partnering with LuxuryRealEstate.com to offer it to real estate companies.  more…

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High-value homes tend to decline in value at a steeper rate than lesser-value homes in a declining market, according to an analysis by real estate valuation and marketing company Zillow.

The analysis is based on a review of the company’s estimates of home values over time — the company refers to these estimates as Zestimates. The company broke homes into five categories of home values, each representing 20 percent of the market, to analyze differences in the performance of each market segment.  more…

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Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Alphonso Jackson announced today he will step down next month in the face of investigations involving allegations of favoritism and calls from Democrats for his resignation.

Jackson’s resignation, effective April 18, leaves open the possibility that HUD will be led by an interim chief in the final months of a lame-duck administration, even as the department implements a major expansion of FHA loan programs and pushes for an overhaul of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, or RESPA.  more…

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Long-term mortgage interest rates were unchanged Friday, and the
benchmark 10-year Treasury bond yield fell to 3.44 percent.

The 30-year fixed-rate average stayed at 5.75 percent, and the
15-year fixed rate held at 5.27 percent. The 1-year adjustable rate, however, gained to 5.32 percent.

The 30-year Treasury bond yield was down at 4.32 percent.

Rates and bonds are current as of 7:15 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.  more…

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I left my old corporate job, with its lovely 401(k) that offered cushy matching funds, in 2005.

The year after was such a financial disaster — I piled on credit-card debt like, well, a sailor on shore leave with a fistful of credit cards — that I didn’t make any retirement contributions at all.

But now, I am doing my 2007 taxes, and (huzzah!) I get to be responsible again. That means I’m making a contribution to my retirement funds.  more…

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Sales of vacation properties fell 30.6 percent in 2007 compared to the prior year, with investment-property purchases down 18.1 percent, according to an Investment and Vacation Home Buyers Survey report released by the National Association of Realtors.

Total sales of new and resale homes used as primary residences, by comparison, dropped 10 percent from 2006 to 2007, survey results revealed.  more…

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In a reversal of past policy, federal regulators say they won’t lower the $417,000 conforming loan limit to keep it in line with falling home prices.

Adopting a stance taken by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac during the housing downturn of the early 1990s, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight has ruled that the conforming loan limit will move in only one direction: up.  more…

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Mortgage rates rose slightly this week, the lowest-fee 30-year from just below 6 percent to a hair above. Spreads still gape versus Treasurys, at 2.5 percent above the 10-year defying all of the Fed’s latest efforts. Five-year ARMs, both conforming and jumbo, are better in availability and rate, but both are scarcer and higher than in January.

The economy itself is in a curious place. This morning’s report of a half-percent gain in February personal income was head-scratching good news, not squaring with consumer confidence measures at 16-year lows, some components at 41-year all-time lows.  more…

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A report from The Conference Board this week suggests that improvement in the U.S. job market is unlikely before the third or fourth quarter of this year.

The organization’s Help-Wanted Advertising Index, a key economic indicator measuring the volume of job ads in major U.S. newspapers, dipped one point in February to 21, and is down nine points from the same time last year.

The Conference Board reported that just 31 percent of labor markets surveyed last month reported rising want-ad volume, down from 43 percent in January.  more…

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Radian Guaranty Inc. is the latest private mortgage insurer to tighten underwriting standards, with a moratorium on loans with down payments of less than 3 percent kicking in March 31, and a ban on stated-income and stated-asset loans scheduled to begin April 30.

Like competitors including PMI and MGIC, Radian has also adopted more stringent standards in declining markets where prices are falling.  more…

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Single-family housing starts, as measured by building permits issued, plunged 59.8 percent in February compared to the same month last year, the California Building Industry Association trade group reported this week, and total housing starts dropped 27.9 percent.  more…

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Long-term mortgage interest rates were up Thursday, and the
benchmark 10-year Treasury bond yield climbed to 3.53 percent.

The 30-year fixed-rate average rose to 5.75 percent, and the
15-year fixed rate gained to 5.27 percent. The 1-year adjustable rate, however, dropped to 5.3 percent.

The 30-year Treasury bond yield was up at 4.39 percent.

Rates and bonds are current as of 7:15 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.  more…

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The Federal Reserve will hold public hearings next month in Los Angeles and Chicago before ruling on Bank of America Corp.’s planned acquisition of Countrywide Financial Corp.

The meetings will be held on April 22 in Chicago and April 28 and 29 in Los Angeles (see announcement).  more…

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(This is Part 2 of a three-part series. Read Part 1, “Top questions to ask sellers at listing appointment.”)

Are buyers really liars? Not usually — the challenge is you just haven’t asked them the right questions.  more…

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The National Association of Realtors has plans to call nine witnesses to testify in court if an antitrust lawsuit filed by the U.S. Justice Department proceeds to trial, and may call upon an additional list of 14 witnesses.

A preliminary live trial witness list, produced by the National Association of Realtors in a Feb. 14 court document, includes a list of "will call" witnesses and a separate category of "may call" witnesses.  more…

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Long-term mortgage rates this week were mixed, with the 30-year fixed rate falling and the 15-year rate rising, Freddie Mac reported today.

The average rate on 30-year fixed loans dipped from 5.87 percent to 5.85 percent, while the 15-year average rose from 5.27 percent to 5.34 percent. By contrast, a year ago the 30-year averaged 6.16 percent and the 15-year averaged 5.86 percent.  more…

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IHOUSE Web Solutions, a real estate technology company, has announced the launch of an online real estate game that allows users to guess at the sale price of for-sale homes. The game features photos and listing descriptions of actual for-sale homes, and awards points based on how a player’s guesses stack up against those of other players.  more…

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A longtime real estate investor is launching a set of subscription-based research tools that offer market statistics and forecasts at the national and micro level — down to the size of a Census block — as well as some free real estate tools at the company’s Web site.  more…

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