The Labor Department announced on Thursday that jobless claims are up 12,000 this week, bringing the total number to 294,000.
“Continuing claims dropped just a bit from 2.31 to 2.268, where they currently stand,” CNBC’s Rick Santelli added.
Although these numbers are not alarming to many experts, Reuters did say that experts had forecasted a drop in initial claims to 280,000 for the week.
Image via flickr/Andreas Klinke Johannsen
Now that Tax Day has come and gone, CNBC has released a new report outlining the difficulties small business face each year when filing their taxes.
According to the news source, Americans invested an extra $234 billion last year alone in making sure they complied with the tax code. And for small businesses, the hit is considerably bad because of the tax code’s sheer complexity, costing the average family-run biz about $5,000 in preparation fees.
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Although home rent costs are expected to rise by more than three percent this year – marking a 14-percent overall increase since 2010 – and mortgage interest rates have remained low, many young Americans are still choosing to rent over buying.
“Millennials are getting married later in life than previous generations and a sense of urgency to purchase comes with stability, marriage and growing families,” Joan Kamens, a real estate agent for Coldwell Banker Hearthside told CNBC.
Another factor to take into consideration as well is that the attitude toward long-term commitments is also in flux.
“Many millennials have been burned or felt trapped by contracts (cell phones, cable, even student loans) and are shying away from long term commitment,” Neeta Mulgaokar, a real estate agent with Mirador, added. “They will pay more to avoid it all together.”
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New Day Financial LLC has agreed to pay a $5.28 million administrative penalty for allegedly helping their employees cheat on a series of critical professional licensing exams.
The Multi-State Mortgage Committee of the Conference of State Bank Supervisors announced the consent order on Monday, revealing that the fine encompasses mortgage regulators in 43 states.
“The MMC coordinated the investigation of this matter, identifying a pattern of inappropriate conduct, and negotiated, on behalf of the participating state regulators, a resolution that will permit the company to continue to operate while ensuring compliance with all state and federal laws,” said Karyn Tierney, MMC Chairman and Deputy Commissioner of the Arkansas Securities Department. “This case demonstrates the manner by which state mortgage regulators cooperate to more efficiently and effectively supervise mortgage companies, including resolving compliance issues through a coordinated enforcement action.”
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Reuters is suggesting that – when the big banks begin reporting their earnings for the first quarter of the year next week – the mortgage sector is expected to be a particularly bright spot in the report.
“The numbers are very strong,” said Paul Miller, an equity research analyst at FBR Capital Markets. “Mortgage banking revenue will probably be greater than people are reporting.”
Historically low interest rates – coming in as low as 3.63 percent in the first quarter of 2015 – have played a huge part in the increased number of mortgage applications seen so far this year.
Image via flickr/401(K) 2012
While it’s true that Baby Boomers in their 50s and 60s are currently carrying much more mortgage debt than their parents did at their age, some experts says that’s OK.
As Greg McBride, chief financial analyst at Bankrate.com, tells CNBC, these boomers don’t necessarily need to rush to get rid of their mortgage debt in order to afford retirement.
“Money tied up in the home is illiquid, and prepaying a mortgage makes no sense if you’re not maximizing your tax-advantaged retirement savings options, including catch-up contributions,” he said. “Money in the bank will pay the bills, home equity will not.”
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For the 25th month in a row, all-cash home sale transactions have declined, falling to a 38.9 percent share of the market for January (the most recent month for which we have data).
For reference, cash sales peaked in January 2011 at a 46.5 share, though that number is close to double what we were used to seeing prior to the housing crisis.
According to CoreLogic, if cash sales continue to fall at the same rate they did in January, they will reach the “normal” rate of 25 percent in mid-2018.
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According to a new report by CNBC, consumer debt in the United States is currently at an all-time high.
“The Federal Reserve says consumer credit climbed to a record high in February with a more than $15 billion gain that month, pushing the nation’s overall borrowing to a fresh overall high of $3.3 trillion,” Morgan Brennan reported on Wednesday.
Although credit card debt was on decline for February – for the second straight month – it was a big jump in auto and student loans that contributed to the higher numbers.
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According to the latest CNBC All-America Economic survey, a record 27 percent of those surveyed said they currently view the economy as good or excellent. That number is the highest level we’ve seen in eight years.
In comparison, just last year, only 16 percent of respondents gave the economy good marks.
“The latest numbers show how far the public’s attitudes on the economy have come since the economic bottom but also how far there is to go,” CNBC’s Steve Liesman explains. “The level of optimism remains about 10 points below where it routinely stood before the recession.”
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The National Association of Realtors hosted a meeting of real estate and mortgage industry experts recently and found that many in attendance were in favor of a complete overhaul of the current credit scoring system, arguing that it’s essential for the future of the housing industry.
“[It] needs to change to reflect how people live their lives today, or millions of people will continue to fall outside traditional calculation models and not be able to become home owners,” Housing and Urban Development (HUD) secretary Julian Castro told the group.
The most important shift that needs to take place, the group suggested, is taking into account “new ways of analyzing data to reflect the responsibility people show in their lives that is predictive of future behavior and paying down a mortgage.”
“It’s such a critical topic,” NAR president Chris Polychron said in closing the meeting. “We’d like to see these scoring models that rely on non-traditional histories. We just have a lot to do.”
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