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• Purchase Loans on the Rise

  Purchase Loans on the Rise

  The post Purchase Loans on the Rise appeared first on National Real Estate Post.

• Mortgage Apps Gaining Ground Despite Higher Rates

  Labor Day typically marks the end of summer and the resumption of business as usual.  Hopefully it also marked the beginning of a turnaround for mortgage applications, which increased across the board for the first time since mid-June. The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) said its Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage application volume, was up 1.6 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis during the week ended September 14.  On an unadjusted basis the volume increased 12 percent from the previous week which was shortened by the Labor Day holiday.

   

• Home Starts Improve, but There's a Catch

  Both permits and starts were expected to pick up in August, at least holding on to their slight gains in July.  Housing starts did deliver, posting a strong increase, but permits, a leading indicator, were down sharply. The U.S. Census Bureau and Department of Housing and Urban Development report that permits fell by 5.7 percent in August to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,229,000 compared to the July rate of 1,303,000.  The July number was a downward revision from the 1,311,000 units originally reported.  This knocks the rate of permitting below the August 2017 level of 1,300,000 units by 5.5 percent.