Mortgage News for the Week of July 19, 2019

Read the Latest Market Conditions Report for the Philadelphia Region

What Qualifies as a ‘Dream Neighborhood’?

Seventy percent of homeowners say they’re not currently living in their dream neighborhood, according to a new survey of more than 2,000 respondents from Improvenet, a website focused on home improvement. The other 30% says that their dream neighborhood is located in a different town; 20% of that group say it’s three to 10 miles away, and 27% say it’s in a different part of the state or a neighboring state. So what qualifies as a “dream neighborhood?” Survey respondents ranked the following as their top criteria. Read more at NAR's Realtor Magazine.

One in 10 Millennial Home Buyers Say They’ll Rely on Parents for Mortgage Help, Down From 17% Last Year

Millennial home buyers in 2019 are less likely to take extraordinary measures to afford their mortgage payments, such as getting help from their parents or co-ownership with someone other than a spouse or partner, than they were last summer. Fifty-one percent of millennial home buyers indicated plans to use one or more of these strategies to cover their mortgage payments, down from 60 percent last year.

This is according to a Redfin-commissioned March survey of over 2,000 U.S. residents who planned to buy or sell a primary residence in the next 12 months. Read more at Redfin.

Almost 40% of U.S. Homes Are ‘Free and Clear’ of a Mortgage

More Americans are living mortgage free.

About 37% of U.S. households are “free and clear,” meaning they no longer have a home mortgage to pay, according to a Zillow data analysis. This number ticked upward after the Great Recession and over the past 10 years the share of homeowners paying off their mortgages has risen 5.5 percentage points. Read more at Bloomberg.

Home Prices Have Shot Up Way More Than You Thought Since the Recession

Quite a bit has changed since the housing bubble burst and the world plunged into a bleak recession. Rampant layoffs have been replaced by a booming economy and hiring sprees. A housing market pocked by foreclosures and abandoned construction sites is now on fire.

But the postcrash price growth might actually be higher than most thought. Home prices shot up a cumulative 50% over the past decade, from June 2009 through May 2019, according to a recent report from real estate information provider CoreLogic. Meanwhile, the cost to rent a single-family home surged 33% over the same period. Read more from at Realtor.com.

Slight Gain in Homebuilding Isn’t Enough

More construction for single-family homes was underway last month, possibly offering a small relief to markets experiencing an ongoing housing shortage. Most economists, however, say it’s not nearly enough to keep up with buyer demand.

An increase in single-family housing starts in June helped to offset some of the drop in multifamily production, but total housing starts still edged 0.9% lower in June to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.25 million units, the U.S. Commerce Department reported Wednesday. This marks the second consecutive month for a decrease in U.S. homebuilding, even though this is traditionally the busiest time of year for housing. Read more at NAR's Realtor Magazine.

Mortgage Rate Update

Mortgage Rates Head Up

Mortgage rates moved higher after remaining at around the same level for about three weeks. The rise in rates was driven by continued improvement in consumer spending and partly due to optimism around a forthcoming cut in short term interest rates, which should provide support for business and investor sentiment. Despite this slight increase in rates, home buyers are taking advantage of the multi-year low rates in droves, which is evident in the consistently higher refinance and purchase application volumes. The improvement in housing demand should provide sufficient momentum for the housing market and economy during the rest of the year.

We hope you enjoyed this week's Market News. For more information about how PMA can help you, please contact us.

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Information and analysis is obtained through third parties and is deemed accurate but not guaranteed. Philadelphia Mortgage Advisors is a licensed mortgage lender by the PA Dept. of Banking and Securities, NJ Dept. of Banking & Insurance, the state of DE, the Florida Office of Financial Regulation, MD Mortgage Lender #23004 and VA State Corporation Commission #MC - 6797. NMLS #128570.