Investors, downsizing baby boomers and millennials with parental assistance are helping to drive surge in all cash deals.

Interesting story – read it here: https://www.wsj.com/articles/want-that-house-youd-better-pay-in-cash-1512469800.

October new home sales came in at a seasonally adjusted annualized pace of 685,000. That’s up 6.2% from September’s( revised lower) 645,000 pace, and 18.7% above October one year ago. Economists had predicted a decline from September to 620,000.

Taken together, the average of 665,000 for September and October is up markedly from the 600,000 pace of the first eight months of the year. Home builders are up a hair following the news.

Source: Seeking Alpha, Stephen Alpher, SA News Editor, November 27, 2017.

However, the typical mortgage payment has increased 10% year over year because of the increase in mortgage rates over the past year.

Read the short article here: https://www.corelogic.com/blog/authors/andrew-lepage/2017/11/homebuyers-typical-mortgage-payment-up-10-percent-year-over-year.aspx#.Wh22vEq…

U.S. Housing starts rose last month to the highest level in a year, a sign that builders are getting back on track after hurricanes lashed the Southeast and damped residential construction activity in September.

Housing starts increased 13.7% in October from the previous month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.29 million.

Residential building permits, which can signal how much construction is in the pipeline, jumped 5.9% to an annual pace of 1.297 million last month.

Source: Commerce Department, November 17, 2017.

Home-equity wealth reached a new nominal high this year: $13.9 trillion at mid-2017, $0.5 trillion above the 2006 peak and more than double the $6.0 trillion amount at the trough of the Great Recession. While several factors will affect aggregate home equity, it’s clear that much of the recovery in home-equity wealth is due to the rebound in home values.

Home-value growth has also restored net worth to many homeowners who had negative equity. At the end of 2009, 12.2 million homeowners had negative equity, or 26% of all owners with a mortgage. Price appreciation, along with amortization and lower curtailments, has helped pull “underwater” owners above water.

We are forecasting a 5% rise in the CoreLogic Home Price Index over the next year. If all homes rise in value by this amount, about 500,000 homeowners will regain a positive net housing wealth position.

Source: Dr. Frank Nothaft, Chief Economist, CoreLogic, The MarketPulse, November 2017

Recently I received a phone call from a note holder. She introduced herself then said, “I just have one question, and depending on your answer, this could be a quick conversation. What is your interest rate?”

I was taken aback for a second and  then asked “I am sorry, what do you mean?”

She said “If I sell my note to you, what rate will you now charge my buyer?”

This note holder’s belief was that selling her note would harm her buyer, because we would change the terms she agreed to with him and charge a higher interest rate. She wanted nothing to do with that.

I explained that a note buyer buying a note is like a home buyer buying a home “as is.” Whatever warts the home may have, the home buyer accepts those warts. After the buyer takes possession, he can fix those warts. However, in the note business, when we buy “as is” – we buy the warts – and the warts stay.

We had a nice conversation and she felt better, but was not ready to to sell her note.

Since we are a small niche in the real estate industry, many people don’t know we exist or don’t understand our business. This lady’s question illustrates the point.

Real Estate agents seek to retain deductions for mortgage interest and property taxes.

Read about it here: https://www.wsj.com/articles/realtors-launch-blitz-to block-gop-tax-proposals-1509570103.

U.S. new-home sales in September recorded the largest single month increase since 1992, a sign the market remains resilient despite two major hurricanes and a continuing inventory shortage.

Purchases of newly built single family homes – a narrow slice of all U.S. home sales – increased 18.9% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 667,000 in September from the previous month, the Commerce Department said Wednesday. That put new home sales at the highest level since October 2007.

Reported by Laura Kusisto, Wall Street Journal, October 26,2017.

Across the six-county region of Southern California, the median price increased to $500,000 from $465,000 a year earlier. In Los Angeles County, the median price surged 9.4% to a record $580,000 in August 2017.

Source: CoreLogic

The California Department of Real Estate makes available a guide for all of us to learn the laws/rules of foreclosure.

You can get it at: www.dre.ca.gov/files/pdf/foreclosure_guide2010_REIS.pdf

Two of the country’s largest rental-home owners have agreed to merge, one of the clearest signs that Wall Street is betting home ownership rates will remain low and that a growing number of U.S. families will rent.

Blackstone Group and Starwood Waypoint Homes plan to combine in a bid for scale and operating efficiencies. The combined company would own about 82,000 homes in 17 metro areas, including Atlanta, Miami and Southern California.

Is this good for our housing market?

Read about it here: www.wsj.com/articles/with-merger-deal-blackstone-starwood-bet-on-being-americas-biggest-home-landlord-1502361000.