Morris County Single Family Homes for March Key Metrics   2019   2020   Change New Listings  913     657    – 28.0% Closed Sales 329     309     +  1.4% DOM*              71       72     + 1.4% Median PX $411K  $445K  + 8.1% % of PX      97.1%  97.6%  + 0.5%...

Monmouth County   Single Family Homes for March Key Metrics      2019    2020   Change New Listings   1,115   ...

As COVID-19’s impact spread across the country in March, the stock market declines started in February accelerated downward before recovering a bit in the last week of the month. With volatility across all the financial markets, lenders began...

The recent Fannie Mae report projects that home sales may possibly fall by up to 15% in 2020. [That is the number of homes sold, not the price of homes.] The housing projection published by Fannie Mae indicates that total housing starts are expected to fall from 1.5...

Change. That is what we are preparing for in the coming months. One big change is JPMorgan Chase's decision to suspend offering HELOC to new customers. Also, Fannie Mae is projecting a decrease in the number of homes sold in 2020, but they are expecting a rebound in...

On an annual comparative basis, March’s sales of existing homes increased by 0.8%, which considering the impact of the COVID pandemic, is positive. March’s seasonally adjusted annual rate increased from 5.23 million to 5.27...

The average national rent rose to $1,468 in February, representing a 3.2% increase from the same time last year. Areas that have seen the highest increases in rent also reflect movements concomitant with the average price of a home sale. As expected, Seattle's growth...

Initially, JPMorgan Chase announced that they were increasing their lending standards for home mortgage borrowers. The new threshold would require at least a 20% down payment and a FICO score of minimum 700. This might appear to be severe but the average FICO score in...

First of all, not all debt is calculated equally.  There is standard credit card debt, and then student debt, auto loans and home mortgages. They aren’t viewed the same way by the credit agencies. A recent article reported that the...

Seeing a Buying Slow-Down  According to Realtor.com's March 2020 Monthly Housing Market Trends Report, the nation’s available real estate inventory declined by 191,000 listings, or 15.7%, in March 2020 on an annual comparative basis...

Last month, some economists were predicting a likely recession by 2021. But it was all a guessing game. The economy was white-hot, and then Corona came to town. Consumer spending, business closings, furloughs and social distancing are all pointing to a recession. This...

When JPMorgan Chase announced that it is raising borrowing standards this week for most new home loans as the bank moves to mitigate lending risk stemming from the novel coronavirus disruption, the initial reaction might be concern. Hold on and take a deep breath....