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!
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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 ...
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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 ...
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We’ve posted the fourth quarter 2015 First American Real Estate Sentiment Index, which measures title agent sentiment on a variety of key market metrics and industry issues. It’s based on a quarterly survey of title agents that do business with First American. More than 3,000 title agents from 50 states have participated in the first two editions ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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