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March Jobs Report Leaves Much to Be Desired

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When the March jobs report was released on Friday, the news wasn’t very good.

With economists expecting nonfarm payrolls to rise by 245,000, they got a huge shock when that number was announced at just 126,000 – the worst report since December 2013.

“We were due a clunker,” John Canally, chief economic strategist at LPL Financial, told CNBC. “It’s probably the same things that are going to be impacting the earnings season in a couple weeks. It’s the strong dollar hitting manufacturing, the port strike hitting manufacturing, it’s the really awful weather…But across all sectors, it was just pretty soft.”

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News

JPMorgan Chase on Track to Pay $4 Billion Settlement

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JPMorgan Chase is on track to pay the $4 million it owes to homeowners as part of a settlement it reached in 2013, independent monitor Joseph Smith confirmed on Thursday.

According to Smith, Chase has already shelled out $2.2 billion, with two years remaining to pay back the final $1.8 billion.

“We are seeing steady progress from Chase,” Smith told Reuters, noting that the bank may even meet its goal ahead of schedule.

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News

Inventory Shortage Keeping Detroit Housing Market Down

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The financial situation in Detroit is finally showing signs of improvement. Home values in the metropolitan area are on the rise, and the city itself is out of bankruptcy.

Still, the housing market remains slow to recover, thanks to one very basic issue.

“We have a shortage of inventory still,” Jenilynn Estereicher, a Detroit-area real estate agent, told CNBC. “We don’t have enough used properties for the buyers that are here. We are seeing a lot of multiple offers in the suburbs.”

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All About Insurance

Mortgage Applications on the Rise for Second Straight Week

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CNBC’s Diana Olick released a video report on Wednesday revealing that the number of mortgage applications submitted to lenders – both to the big banks and non-bank lenders – is on the rise for the second straight week.

According to Olick, the total number of applications was up 4.6 percent this week, and that includes a 6 percent increase in the number of applications to buy (as opposed to 4 percent to refinance) a home.

With these new numbers, Olick also revealed that the number of applications sent to non-bank lenders has more than doubled over the past four years.

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News

Pending Home Sales Signal Strong Spring Housing Market

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The National Association of Realtors (NAR) confirmed on Monday that its Pending Home Sales Index (PHSI) is climbing toward record highs as contract signings in the Midwest and the south in February drove pending home sales to their highest level in nearly two years.

According to Mortgage News Daily, which combed through numbers, the PHSI rose 3.1 percent in February to 106.9, which is the second-highest number we’ve seen since it reached 109.4 in June 2013.

So what does it all mean?

“Pending sales showed solid gains last month, driven by a steadily-improving labor market, mortgage rates hovering around 4 percent and the likelihood of more renters looking to hedge against increasing rents,” Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, told MND. “These factors bode well for the prospect of an uptick in sales in coming months. However, the underlying obstacle – especially for first-time buyers – continues to be the depressed level of homes available for sale.”

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News

Janet Yellen Warns: Higher Interest Rates May Be Warranted Later This Year

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Although consumers continue to enjoy record low interest rates, Janet Yellen warned during her speech at the San Francisco Federal Reserve on Friday that higher rates may be necessary at some point in the not-too-distant future.

“Like most of my [Fed] colleagues, I believe that the appropriate time has not yet arrived, but I expect that conditions may warrant an increase in the federal funds rate target sometime this year,” she said. “If conditions do evolve in the manner that most of my [Fed] colleagues and I anticipate, I would expect the level of the federal funds rate to be normalized only gradually, reflecting the gradual diminution of headwinds from the financial crisis and the balance of risks I have enumerated of moving either too slowly or too quickly.”

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News

U.S. Jobless Rate Falls to Five-Year Low

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Reuters reported some good news on Thursday, revealing that the number of Americans filing new claims for jobless benefits fell more than expected last week.

Going hand-in-hand with that news, job growth in the services sector hit a six-month high in March, which, as the news source reports, “underscores the economy’s solid fundamentals.”

“The good news is that claims and the services sector data suggest the economy has gained some momentum heading into the second quarter,” Ryan Sweet, a senior economist at Moody’s Analytics in West Chester, Pennsylvania, confirmed.

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All About Insurance

House Flippers New Tactic: Crowdfunding

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Now that housing prices are on the rise once more, house flippers are making their way back into the housing market in record numbers, hoping to snatch up distressed homes, renovate them swiftly and efficiently, and then put them back on the market for a quick profit.

The one problem many of them are facing, however, is that they’re unable to secure the mortgages they need.

Instead, they’ve found an innovative loophole in securing cash through crowdfunding.

“This gap has been left by banks that now crowdfunding platforms, like RealtyShares, are able to fill,” said Nav Athwal, CEO of RealtyShares. “They are able to provide quicker, more efficient capital that helps meet the needs of these investors who are looking for speed of execution and the ability to be flexible with their terms as well as with the underwriting standards. Banks just aren’t meeting that need.”

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Tips & Advice

Home Still on the Market? Your Listing Could Be to Blame

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As CNBC points out, location and price aren’t everything when trying to sell your home.

If you’ve been trying to sell and haven’t had any luck, the problem could be in the words you use in your listing – especially if you use the word “unique.”

“Basically what you’re saying is, ‘I like the home, but few others will like the home,'” Stan Humphries, chief economist at Zillow, told CNBC.

Still, you’re better off using more words than less.

“The longer the description, the more the home sold for, up to about 250 words,” Humphries said. “If you’ve got it, flaunt it.”

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All About Insurance

Zillow Economist: Low Interest Could Pose Future Problems to Homebuyers

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Zillow Chief Economist Stan Humphries warned on Tuesday that the extremely low mortgage rates we’re seeing right now could pose a problem for would-be homebuyers once they’re ready to turn around and sell.

“In a lot of markets, homebuyers are looking at home prices through this artificially distorted lens of very low rates,” Humphries told CNBC, explaining that they’re willing to pay more because rates are so cheap.

Then, somewhere down the line when those same buyers are ready to sell, they could have a hard time getting the return they were expecting because the house did not appreciate much beyond their original purchase price.

“It’s important for us to get back to a bit more normal rate regime where homeowners are actually looking at the true price of housing … [without] looking at it through 3.5 percent mortgage rates,” Humphries said.

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