Category Archives: Lewisboro

Citi surpasses $8 billion lending goal | Katonah Real Estate

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As part of a three-year commitment to U.S. small businesses, Citi today announced that the bank surpassed its $8 billion lending goal in 2012 by more than $1.6 billion.

Citi loaned a total of $9.6 billion to small businesses in 2012, a 21 percent increase from 2011, when Citi loaned $7.9 billion. Citi has substantially increased its small business lending in recent years, from $4.5 billion in 2009 and $6.0 billion in 2010.

via housingwire.com

Freddie Mac: Mortgage rates decline | Cross River Real Estate

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After showing little change, fixed-mortgage rates recently started to decline, Freddie Mac said in its Primary Mortgage Market Survey. 

Falling from 3.56% a week ago, the 30-year, fixed-mortgage rate reached 3.51% for the week ending Feb. 28, a decline from 3.90% a year ago.

The 15-year, FRM averaged 2.76%, down just a little from 2.77%, but significantly down from 3.17% a year earlier.

Also decreasing, the 5-year Treasury-indexed ARM averaged 2.61%, down from 2.64% last week and from 2.83% a year earlier.

Following suit, the 1-year Treasury-indexed ARM averaged 2.64%, down 1% from 2.65% a week ago, but down 2.72% from a year ago.

“Mortgage rates eased somewhat as the consumer price index in February held steady for the second month in a row. House price indicators, however, showed gains in 2012. The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller national home price index rose 7.3% last year, reflecting the largest four-quarter growth since the third quarter of 2006,” said Frank Nothaft, vice president and chief economist for Freddie Mac.

Nothaft added, “This, in part, was a driving force that pushed up the number of existing and new home sales in February to the highest levels since July 2007 and July 2008, respectively.”

via housingwire.com

New-home sales continue upward swing | Katonah NY Real Estate

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Sales of new single-family homes rose 28.9 percent on an annual basis in January to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 437,000, the U.S. Census Bureau reported today.

That represents a 15.6 percent increase from December, and was the fastest pace of new-home sales for a January since 2008, blogger Bill McBride pointed out on Calculated Risk.

It was, however, the ninth weakest January in records going back to 1973, McBride noted. Nearly three times as many new homes sold in January 2005. 

The median sales price of new homes sold in January was $226,400, up 2.1 percent from a year ago, but down 9.4 percent from December.

The Census Bureau estimated that 150,000 new homes were on the market at the end of December, representing a 4.1-month supply. Less than six months’ supply is considered normal, McBride said.

via inman.com