It's the time of year when all economists worth a grain of salt (feel free to exclude me from that category) give their "forecast." Well, economic forecasters are about as correct as the local weatherman, unless you happen to be the weatherman in Southern California!
Read More ›
We've posted the November First American Loan Application Defect Index, which estimates the frequency of defects, fraudulence and misrepresentation in the information submitted in mortgage loan applications. Overall, the index fell 1.3 percent in November as compared with October and decreased by 8.2 percent as compared with November 2014.
Read More ›
How much does a cow weigh? Penelope the cow, to be specific. A seemingly simple question, with an answer that gives credit to the notion that aggregation of information in groups results in more accurate information than independent prediction. This particular question was posed by Planet Money to over 17,000 people of diverse ages and ...
Read More ›
For the month of November, First American’s proprietary Potential Home Sales model (previously called the Existing-Home Sales Capacity model) showed that the market potential for existing-home sales decreased by 2.1 percent compared to October and decreased by 8.0 percent compared to a year ago. The Potential Home Sales model provides a gauge on ...
Read More ›
Will Janet Yellen’s Christmas gift to the housing market be a rate increase on December 16? According to the CME Group FedWatch tool, the probability that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates for the first time since 2006 is now over 80 percent. For perspective, let’s think about 2006: the iPhone did not exist, MySpace was the leading ...
Read More ›
This week, Representative Loretta Sanchez (D-Ca) spoke on the floor of the US House of Representatives about the leadership forum, “Achieving the American Dream,” that was held on the Hill in late October. Her short speech highlighted the importance of homeownership as a source of wealth creation for middle-class Americans and its role in ...
Read More ›