The Pace of home sales at California new-home communities was extraordinarily slow in October, primarily due to the global credit crisis, according to a recent California Building Industry Association report.
The monthly CBIA/Hanley Wood Market Intelligence (HWMI) New Home Sales and Pricing Report showed that new home sales in October were 63 percent below October 2007. [...]

Over the last few months, the Federal Reserve has reduced its key interest rate, the overnight LIBOR, to as low as 1 percent.  However, mortgage rates have not declined as dramatically.  One of the most commonly-followed indicators to determine where mortgage rates are headed is the yield on the 10-year United States Treasury [...]

Foreclosure filings — default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions — were reported on 279,561 U.S. properties in October, a 5 percent increase compared with the previous month and a 25 percent increase compared with October 2007, according to recent report from RealtyTrac®. One in every 452 U.S. housing units received a foreclosure filing [...]

Employment figures fell 0.8 percent in September to 108.4, a 10 percent decline from where they were one year ago, according to the latest Conference Board Employment Trends Index from The Conference Board, which is predicting the trend in job losses to continue well into the first quarter of 2009.
“The deterioration in the Employment Trends [...]

The federal government on Tuesday announced the launch of a new program designed to assist with ongoing efforts to help stabilize the U.S. banking system and restore confidence in the country’s financial markets, as well as those abroad. So far, nine of the nation’s largest banks have agreed to participate in the program, which will [...]

Builder confidence climbed two points to 18 in September, the first increase in seven months, according to the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB). NAHB attributes the increase to recently enacted federal tax credits for homebuyers and lower mortgage rates in the wake of the takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
“Builders have several reasons [...]

Home prices in California are expected to stabilize next year, but the state’s economic woes will continue, due to rising unemployment, declining consumer spending, and other factors, according to the latest UCLA Anderson Forecast released Wednesday. In addition, the forecast says that, while the national economy is still not technically in a recession, several converging [...]

U.S. home prices declined by an annualized 0.4 percent during the second quarter of 2008, following a 10.8 percent annualized drop in the first quarter, according to the latest Conventional Mortgage Home Price Index Purchase-Only Series from Freddie Mac, which excludes refinanced transactions in its calculations.
“While U.S. home value indexes continued to decline, an encouraging [...]

Fannie Mae announced a management restructuring last Wednesday, resulting in Fannie’s chief financial officer and two other top executives leaving the company, and three current executives being promoted in their places. The new management team is effective immediately, and will oversee and implement the company’s capital management and credit-loss reduction plan.
News stories that Fannie Mae [...]

California consumers’ outlook on current and future economic conditions and their plans for future spending fell sharply during the second quarter on concerns over mounting gasoline prices, job security, and the broader economy, according to the A. Gary Anderson Center’s California Composite Index of Consumer Sentiment.
“Continued housing market woes, high gasoline prices, concerns about the [...]