The Great Recession and Attitudes Toward Home Buying

Here's another study to read over the upcoming three-day weekend: the MBA and the Research Institute for Housing America (RIHA) released a new exclusive report: "The Great Recession and Attitudes Toward Home Buying."

The report finds that almost 80 percent of American households believe that now is a good time to buy a home, despite high unemployment, slow economic growth and problems plaguing the economy. This positive attitude is attributable to low house prices and low mortgage interest rates. The data shows that the pattern of home-buying sentiment during the current recession looks similar to that of past recessions and is consistent with the long-run average level."

This is good to know, and it is good to know that it is free and available for download at www.housingamerica.org.

Sales of newly built, single-family homes edged up 1.6 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 315,000 units in November — the third consecutive monthly gain in new-home sales and the fastest pace of such activity since April and The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) reported that the number of new foreclosures increased by 21.1 percent during Q3, as servicers lifted voluntary moratoria implemented in late 2010 and exhausted alternatives to foreclosure for the large inventory of seriously delinquent mortgages working through the loss mitigation process.

The increase in new foreclosures and the increase in average time required to complete foreclosures sales has resulted in the number of foreclosures in process increasing to 4.1% of the overall portfolio, or 1,327,077 loans, at the end of the third quarter of 2011. 

And rates are certainly good! Yesterday the yield on the 10-yr shot down through 2.00 percent and closed at 1.91 percent on thin holiday volume and a lack of economic news. Numerous investors had price improvements, certainly helped by continued Fed MBS buying. Thomson Reuters noted, "When volume is as low as it is, fewer people (and fewer dollars) are required to move market levels such as stock indexes, bond yields or MBS prices."