Northwest Housing Prices Are On Fire

The December 2016 S&P Case Shiller home price index shows a seasonally adjusted 5.6% price increase from a year ago for the 20 metropolitan housing markets and a 4.9% yearly price increase in the top 10 housing markets. Both Seattle and Portland's annual home price gain exceeded 10%.

Case-Shiller Shows Housing Unaffordable

The October 2016 S&P Case Shiller home price index shows a seasonally adjusted 5.6% price increase from a year ago for the 20 metropolitan housing markets and a 4.3% yearly price increase in the top 10 housing markets. Last month the annual gain was 5.4%.

Case-Shiller Shows Still Strong Annual Housing Price Gains

The February 2016 S&P Case Shiller home price index shows a seasonally adjusted 5.4% price increase from a year ago for the 20 metropolitan housing markets and a 4.6% yearly price increase in the top 10 housing markets. Home prices are still climbing over double the rate of inflation, although this is a slower pace than last month.

Case-Shiller Shows Housing Price Gains Continue

The October 2015 S&P Case Shiller home price index shows a seasonally adjusted 5.6% price increase from a year ago for the 20 metropolitan housing markets and a 5.1% yearly price increase in the top 10 housing markets. Home prices are still climbing over double the rate of inflation.

Delinquencies and Foreclosures Up Again; Time in Foreclosure at 1056 Days

The Mortgage Monitor for September (pdf) from Black Knight Financial Services (BKFS, formerly LPS) reported that there were 737,254 home mortgages, or 1.46% of all mortgages outstanding, remaining in the foreclosure process at the end of September, which was down from 747,930, or 1.48% of all active loans that were in foreclosure at the end of August, and down from 1.89% of all mortgages that were in foreclosure in September of last year.

Pending Home Sales Decline, -1.4% for June 2012

Pending Home Sales declined in June by -1.4%, annualized according to the National Association of Realtors. This is 9.5% higher than a year ago. May pending home sales was revised down to 5.4% from the originally reported 5.9% increase.

Pending Home Sales Increase 5.9% for May 2012

NAR reports pending home sales showed a 5.9% annualized monthly increase for May 2012.

pending home sales historical chart

Foreclosure Starts Jump 28%, Sales Up 29% in January 2012

Lender Processing Services has released their January 2012 mortgage statistics. Foreclosure starts increased 27.9% and foreclosure sales surged 29% in January 2012. We predicted foreclosures would massively increase due to the 50 state mortgage fraud settlement.

NAR Existing Home Sales Down -3.5% for July 2011

The National Association of Realtors released their existing home sales figures and give a July decrease of -3.5%, annualized rate, from June.

The More Things Change The More They Remain the Same

While we think something is going to be done about illegal foreclosures and robo-signing of documents, Reuters exposes it's still going on:

Reuters reviewed records of individual county clerk offices in five states -- Florida, Massachusetts, New York, and North and South Carolina -- with searchable online databases. Reuters also examined hundreds of documents from court case files, some obtained online and others provided by attorneys.

The searches found more than 1,000 mortgage assignments that for multiple reasons appear questionable: promissory notes missing required endorsements or bearing faulty ones; and "complaints" (the legal documents that launch foreclosure suits) that appear to contain multiple incorrect facts.

These are practices that the 14 banks and other loan servicers said had occurred only on a small scale and were halted more than six months ago.

Reuters doesn't go into a financial analysis, but while the settlement originally reported was $20 billion for robo-signing, the reality is the final deal isn't done. Bottom line, when fines are so weak they are about the cost of the toll token for traveling down the screwing over homeowners road, you can bet banks will continue to forge documents to foreclose. Robo-signing is illegal.

mortgages