Home equity is back, baby! And, perhaps more importantly, consumers are beginning to take notice. After 13 consecutive quarters of year-over-year house price growth, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s (FHFA) house price index (HPI), and with the Great Recession squarely in the rear view mirror, borrowers are more frequently tapping ... Read More ›

Every day, title agents play a critical role in residential, commercial and industrial real estate transactions across the U.S. They work hand-in-hand with real estate agents, lenders, and homebuyers and sellers. They are real estate experts. But, how do they (collectively) feel about key real estate market metrics and industry issues? What’s ... Read More ›

Today, we’re releasing our third iteration of the monthly First American Loan Application Defect Index, which estimates the frequency of defects in the information submitted in mortgage loan applications. Read More ›

Market capacity for existing-home sales has remained close to six million sales on an annualized basis for more than a year First American’s proprietary Existing-Home Sales Capacity (EHS-C) model provides a gauge on whether existing-home sales are under capacity or over capacity based on current market fundamentals. For the month of August, the ... Read More ›

This week, the Federal Reserve has its September meeting where it could potentially decide to increase interest rates for the first time since 2008. The CME FedWatch Tool measures the market’s expectation of Fed target rates.Currently, the market-estimated probability of a 0.25 percent rate increase on September 17 is significantly higher than ... Read More ›

The summer is officially over. Pools are closed, children are back in school, and Congress is back in session. It seems like an ideal time to catch everyone up on housing events in August, as well as look ahead to some important events in housing in the coming weeks. Read More ›