House prices in the UK fell by 1.1 percent year-on-year in February, the biggest annual decline for more than a decade, according to new figures from the Nationwide Building Society. It was the biggest annual house price fall since November 2012, and the first annual decline of UK house prices since June 2020, when the…

The U.S. housing market showed a sign of early recovery, as pending home sales of rose for the first time in 14 months. Pending home sales rose 2.9 percent in December, the first month-over-month increase since October 2021, according to data from Redfin on Jan. 25. The decline in pending sales also eased for the…

Roughly a quarter of Redfin homebuyers looked to move to a different metropolitan area in the fourth quarter of 2022 owing to home affordability issues, with places like Sacramento, Las Vegas, and Phoenix topping the list of destinations. In fourth quarter 2022, 24.6 percent of Refin users wanted to shift to a new metro area,…

U.S. mortgage rates for 30-year fixed-rate loans have fallen to their lowest in four months amid a slowdown in the pace of interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve and a decrease in home sales last year, with some experts predicting the easing down of mortgage rates to be the trend for 2023. The average…

Commentary With the Federal Reserve (Fed) committed to raising interest rates still further, the future of the housing market remains problematic. The higher mortgage rates rise, the less affordable housing will become for the average American. Buying and building will accordingly fall even farther than they already have. In time, however, a counter-trend will likely…

Mortgage demand has fallen in the past two weeks to its lowest level since the 1990s as elevated mortgage rates and fears of a recession take a toll on the market, according to latest data from the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA). The Market Composite Index, which measures the volume of mortgage loan applications, fell 13.2…

U.S. pending home sales tumbled 4 percent in November, according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR). This is up from the 4.6 percent drop in October, but the reading was worse than the market estimate of a 0.8 percent dip. On a year-over-year basis, pending home sales plummeted 37.8 percent, down from the 37…

Monthly construction of new single-family homes and building permits fell to a two and a half year low in November. This was caused by higher mortgage rates combined with inflation, which further weakened housing market activity, according to a report from the U.S. Census Bureau, on Dec. 20. The single-family housing market once boomed during…

Canada’s Superintendent of Financial Institutions announced Thursday that the stress test rate for mortgage applications will remain the same after his annual review. The minimum qualifying rate (MQR), also known as the stress test, will remain at whichever is greater—the mortgage contract rate plus a 2 percent buffer, or 5.25 percent. So, if a mortgage contract…

Existing home sales in the United States will likely drop in 2023 to an 11-year low. Sales of previously owned homes will fall for a second year in 2023 to their lowest annual total since 2012, when the housing market was still recovering from the subprime mortgage crisis of 2008–09, according to the National Association of…