Mortgage Rates Move Lower

Fixed mortgage rates declined, with the average conforming 30-year fixed mortgage rate falling to 6.42 percent. According to Bankrate.com's weekly national survey of large lenders, the average 30-year fixed mortgage has an average of 0.36 discount and origination points.

The average 15-year fixed rate mortgage popular for refinancing fell by a similar amount to 6.10 percent. The average jumbo 30-year fixed rate pulled back to 7.28 percent. Adjustable mortgage rates were lower as well, with the average one-year ARM slipping to 6.13 percent, and the average 5/1 ARM sliding to 6.26 percent.

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August Existing-Home Sales Fall on Temporary Mortgage Problems

Existing-home sales fell in August when mortgage availability problems were peaking, according to the National Association of Realtors(R).

Total existing-home sales -- including single-family, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops -- were down 4.3 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate (1) of 5.50 million units in August from a level of 5.75 million in July, and are 12.8 percent below the 6.31 million-unit pace in August 2006.

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Mortgage Rates Inch Upward

Fixed mortgage rates were slightly higher this week, with the average conforming 30-year fixed mortgage rate rising to 6.32 percent. According to Bankrate.com's weekly national survey of large lenders, the average 30-year fixed mortgage has an average of 0.34 discount and origination points.

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Fed Rate Cut Makes Homebuyers Winners

The Federal Reserve's decision to ease its monetary policies will boost a housing market beginning to rebound, help restore consumer confidence in the real estate market, and could give a helping hand to borrowers with adjustable-rate mortgages(ARMs), according to the National Association of Realtors(R) .

"We believe that the Federal Reserve Board made the right move today in lowering the interest rate," said Pat V. Combs, president of the National Association of Realtors(R) and vice president of Coldwell Banker-AJS-Schmidt in Grand Rapids, Mich. "Making borrowing more affordable will make money more available and this could go a long way in helping turn around the sluggish housing market."

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Foreclosure Activity Increases 36 Percent in August

Foreclosure Filings Up 115 Percent From August 2006

RealtyTrac(R) (www.realtytrac.com), the leading online marketplace for foreclosure properties, today released its August 2007 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report, which shows a total of 243,947 foreclosure filings - default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions - were reported during the month, up 36 percent from the previous month and up 115 percent from August 2006. This is the highest number of foreclosure filings in a single month that RealtyTrac has reported since it began issuing the monthly report in January 2005. The national foreclosure rate of one foreclosure filing for every 510 households for the month is also the highest figure ever issued in the report.

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Mortgage Problems to Dampen Home Sales in the Short Term

Tighter credit for home mortgages will measurably dampen home sales in the short term and postpone an expected recovery for existing-home sales until 2008, according to the latest forecast by the National Association of Realtors(R).

Lawrence Yun, NAR senior economist, said unusual disruptions in the mortgage market are dampening the outlook for home sales, notably for August and September. "There's been an unusual hit to home sales, starting in March when subprime problems emerged and more recently when problems spread to jumbo loans, with many potential buyers on the sidelines.

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Home Prices Weakest in Decade

Some Markets Remain Stubbornly Overvalued

Global Insight, the world's leading company for economic and financial analysis and forecasting, today released the 2007 second-quarter update of House Prices in America, the U.S. housing-valuation analysis, which shows the incidence of overvaluation in the nation's housing market continues to decline, the result of falling home prices. Nationally, home prices are up year-over-year just 2.6%, the weakest gain since 1995.

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