Author: Brad Beckett

According Black Knight’s latest Mortgage Monitor, April saw the largest single-month increase in delinquencies on record, coming in at nearly 3 times the previous record in November, 2008.  Black Knight’s delinquency numbers include both homeowners past due on mortgage payments who are not in forbearance, as well as those who are in forbearance plans and did not make an April mortgage payment. Black Knight’s monthly monitor reviews some of the high-level mortgage performance statistics reported in their most recent First Look report, as well as an update on delinquency, foreclosure and prepayment trends. They then drill further down into April’s…

Real Estate News for Investors is reporting that some of America’s biggest SFR landlords are betting on a surge in demand for single-family rentals in our nation’s suburbs.  Kathy Fettke says that several big players (including JPMorgan Asset Management and American Homes 4 Rent) recently announced a joint venture to build 2,500 new single-family rentals in western and southwestern high-growth markets.  They say the deal will capitalize on a post-pandemic desire to move away from apartments in crowded cities and help address a lack of existing home inventory.  Indeed…. “…a move towards more a spread-out living in the wake of…

According to the latest CoreLogic Home Price Insights (HPI) report, home prices nationwide, including distressed sales, increased 5.4% (year over year) in April 2020 compared with April 2019 and increased month over month by 1.4% in April 2020 compared with March 2020.  However, they also caution that 2021 will mark the first year home prices are expected to decline in more than nine years, due to the lingering impact of the Coronavirus pandemic.  Indeed… “The very low inventory of homes for sale, coupled with homebuyers’ spur of record-low mortgage rates, will likely continue to support home price growth during the…

According to recently released U.S. government data, May saw the biggest ever increase in jobs coming in at 2.5 million, as the U.S. economy roars back to life as it heads into a post-pandemic environment.  As reported by CNBC, the May jobs report “stunned Wall Street with the largest number of payrolls gained on record and a drop in the unemployment rate during a month when most expected grim comparisons to the Great Depression.”  Highlighting the numbers were the leisure and hospitality industries posting a rebound in May with a net addition of more than 1.2 million jobs, by far…

How have consumer spending patterns changed during the Coronavirus pandemic? The folks over at the Visual Capitalist put together a deep dive into the credit & debit spending of American consumers over the past few months.  They point out that  in 2019, nearly 70% of U.S. GDP was driven by personal consumption, however a transformation of sorts has taken place as the pandemic put the brakes on the economy.  As always, stay safe and have a Happy Friday!!! Hat tip to the Visual Capitalist.

The economists at Realtor.com recently revised their 2020 Housing Market Predictions to take the Coronavirus Pandemic into account. They issued their update in in Mid-May as a way to gauge the “ups and downs” of the housing markets as it finds its footing in response to the Coronavirus.  Among their predictions; Home price growth will flatten, with a forecasted increase of 1.1% Inventory will remain low, but the rate of decline steadies and the mix of homes for sale shifts toward greater availability of lower-priced homes Mortgage rates remain low and may slide under 3% by the end of the…

Around three percent of all homes in the process of foreclosure are Zombies (sitting empty), according to ATTOM Data’s latest Vacant Property and Zombie Foreclosure Report.  According to the report, there were just over 1.5 million residential properties in the U.S. are vacant, representing 1.5% of all homes.  Of these, there were 258k homes are in the process of foreclosure, with about 7,650, or 3%, classified as “zombie foreclosures” in Q2 of 2020. “The foreclosure and zombie-property picture hasn’t changed much in the second quarter of this year as most lenders are barred from taking action against homeowners who are…

National apartment listing site ABODO recently reported that the median nationwide rent price for one-bedroom units in June was $1,097 with two-bedroom units coming in at $1,344.  They remind readers that pandemic’s effect on nationwide rental prices is still a moving target: “The long-term effects of COVID-19 are still to be seen. If the current recession clears quickly, we anticipate that both apartment construction and demand will resume their recent increases. If the economy enters a prolonged phase of malaise, we could see new construction financing evaporate, and that could eventually put upward pressure on rents because of basic supply…

Rental information site Zumper recently released their National Rent Report for June, 2020 showing that the median national rent for 1-bedroom apartment was $1,217 (down 0.2%) and the median two-bedroom rent was $1,473.   Year to date, both one- and two-bedroom rents were down 0.5%.  Indeed… “…It seems the pandemic has shifted the demand for apartments away from the most expensive cities, since usually demand picks up as we head into summer but now the opposite is true. As more and more companies move into remote work, many renters don’t want to pay the big city price tag when they are…

The U.S. government is reporting that total construction spending in April was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $1,346.2 billion, which is 2.9% higher than March’s revised estimate.  However, April’s figure was 3% higher than April, 2019.  Residential construction was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $536.8 billion in April, which is 4.5% lower than March’s revised estimate. Click here to read the full report at the U.S. Census Bureau.