Declining Columbia SC home sales doesn't seem to be worrying the Federal Reserve any these days. Fed Chair Janet Yellen indicated recently, the government is keen to continue its support of the economy via purchases of Treasurys and mortgage-backed securities. However, the amount of which it invests is being gradually phased out.
After the recent Federal Open Market Committee meeting, Yellen said that the Fed could start raising short-term rates "about six months" after it completed its ongoing tapering of Treasury and bond purchases, which most expect to be completed by the fourth quarter of 2014.
Columbia SC Home Sales Dependent on Jobs
With Columbia SC home sales largely dependent on good employment numbers, and with Yellen seemingly changing her tune on where the economy is as far as employment numbers are concerned, she gave four reasons why she thinks the employment numbers are still soft.
1 – The large number of part timers working who would prefer full time jobs, but just can't find them.
2 – Stagnant wages where compensation has increased an average of only a little more than 2% per year since the recession.
3 – The large number of long-term unemployed who have been out of work for six months or more.
4 – The historic low rate of labor market participation–the proportion of working-age adults that hold or are seeking jobs. This number now stands aat 63%, about the same as it was in 1978.
New home sales of single-family houses in February dropped 3.3% to 440,000, reaching a 5-month low, according to the latest report from the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
The Fed often cites improving economic benchmarks, such as the nation adding more jobs, as necessary to justify the reduction of monetary support.
With spring comes new homebuyers into the market, and declining Columbia SC home sales should turn around. But Yellen's comments about the nation needing to add more jobs as necessary to reduce the monetary support, seems to suggest that declining Columbia SC home sales is actually one negative the Fed is willing to live with and is likely to continue on its path of pulling support for secondary markets.
We'll keep you posted on any further news coming from the Fed that may, or may not, affect not only Columbia SC home sales numbers, but the nation as a whole.
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Columbia SC home sales are beginning to look like the start of a perfect storm for real estate. A combination of frustrated buyers from a lack of inventory, and sellers starting to put their homes on the market may mean the spring selling season could poised for a surge… one for the record books.
Typically, the spring selling season (March through June) is when more than half of all homes in the U.S. are sold. The market is getting a later start than usual this spring due to the bad weather all over the country.
Columbia SC home sales declined in February to the lowest level since mid-2012, with the number of contracts signed with the intention of buying falling to the lowest level since 2011.
Applications for mortgages to purchase homes dropped in February to the lowest since 1995, according to an index from the Mortgage Bankers Association that is seasonally adjusted. By mid-March, the gauge regained about 12 percent from that low, while remaining about 17 percent below the level it was during the same week in 2013.
Nationwide, U.S. home prices rose 12.2 percent in February compared to February 2013, up slightly from January's year-over-year pace of 12 percent. The number of available homes remains below the level typical of a healthy market.
Columbia SC Home Sales May See Exaggerated Bounce
Fannie Mae and the Mortgage Bankers Association are predicting 2014 Columbia SC home sales to see a bit of an exaggerated seasonal bounce due to so many eager buyers wanting to purchase homes.
Lenders expect Columbia SC home sales to pick up because so many potential home buyers want to lock in a mortgage ahead of any possible uptick in mortgage rates.
Borrowing costs have risen as the Federal Reserve continues tapering stimulus efforts that have kept interest rates low. Policy makers cut monthly bond purchases to $55 billion this month, from $85 billion last year. Fed Chair Janet Yellen said the program could end this fall and that the benchmark interest rate, which has been close to zero since 2008, may rise six months after that.
Nationally, the supply of homes for sale is bigger than last year, according to the National Association of Realtors. At the current sales pace, it would take 5.2 months to sell the properties on the market in February, compared with 4.6 months a year earlier.
Columbia SC home sales are expected to pick up momentum as we head into the second half of April and into May and June. Watch for the housing market, like the rest of the economy, come to live in the next couple of months.
For more on Columbia SC home sales, including other news relating to Columbia SC real estate, visit our Columbia SC Real Estate News section of articles under our Columbia SC Real Estate Categories to the right.
Think your Columbia SC mortgage data is secure? Think again!
If the ease with which hackers cracked into the financial information of millions of Target and Neiman Marcus customers has you worried about how easily your private data can be lifted from your mortgage company, wait until you hear what a major cyber security firm found out about lenders.
According to HALOCK Security Labs, mortgage companies big and small allow information-sharing practices that put your personal and financial data at grave risk. This goes for your Columbia SC mortgage data as well.
In its investigation of 63 lenders, the firm discovered that seven out of 10 allowed applicants to send their info over un-encrypted email as attachments. Moreover, nearly the same percentage encouraged faxing sensitive data, which is somewhat less dangerous but still not as secure as encryption.
Only 40 percent of the lenders studied offered a postal mail option, and just 12 percent provided a secure email portal.
So how can you be sure your most personal financial information like your Columbia SC mortgage data won't be snatched from your lender? Here are a few tips:
Making Sure Your Columbia SC Mortgage Data Is Secure
Brand awareness. If you are sending anything online, be sure you are dealing with brand names. Hackers follow the path of least resistance, and the big-name lenders tend to have the strongest security measures.
Also, the lender's security systems are only as good as those of its weakest contractor. And the big lenders tend to work with only the strongest vendors.
Look for e-signatures. If a company offers an electronic signature process, it shows a heightened level of security awareness and sophistication.
Avoid un-encrypted email. Sending anything over the Internet invites trouble. But since regular emails can be hacked by anyone, use only password-encrypted email to send your information to your lender. Common sense goes a long way. People are too comfortable with regular email.
Says security blogger Graham Cluley: "If (email) was invented today, no one would use it. It's worth the extra effort to go through the paces of using a secure portal."
Stay away from drop-boxes. Drop-box technologies are fine for most data exchanges, but you have no clue who has access. Keep your private stuff private using encrypted email.
Watch for secure sites. When applying online or sending anything over the Internet, make sure the website itself is secure. Look to see if the URL begins with "https". And as you go from page to page, make sure the frame and URL have not changed. In other words, make sure the "s" is still there. Otherwise, you could become a victim of a phisher looking to steal your data.
Finally, there's this warning from Terry Kurzynski, a senior partner at HALOCK: "Any type of weak link in a system involving sensitive information exposes people to unnecessary risk. It takes months to recover from identify theft and only seconds to log into a secure portal. Do the math."
For other mortgage related tips, click the Columbia SC Real Estate News link to your right under Columbia SC Real Estate Categories.
Columbia SC homebuyers think credit access is about where it was two months ago. Perceptions remained largely unchanged with slightly more consumers thinking it will be either somewhat or much easier to get a loan a year from now. At the same time, more consumers said they think it will be much harder to obtain a mortgage, a possible reflection of more stringent lending requirements implemented in January.
The latest poll from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York shows Columbia SC homebuyers and generally, overall consumer expectations, stayed mostly flat in February. According to responses in the New York Fed's most recent Survey of Consumer Expectations, Americans last month indicated a median home price change expectation of 4 percent, reversing an increase to 4.6 percent in January.
Keep up with trends that affect Columbia SC homebuyers, both on the home price side, and on the mortgage side, by checking out our updated articles and tips concerning Columbia SC Real Estate News by clicking the link to your right under Columbia SC Real Estate Categories.
There have been all kinds of bad Columbia SC housing news reports in recent weeks, from slower home price increases, to rising mortgage rates and harder rules to qualify for a loan.
On top of that, national new reports on real estate have been chilly, mainly due to a cold winter and low consumer confidence. But there are a few things to be optimistic about when it comes to Columbia SC housing this year…CNN's Christine Romans reports…
Check out our other articles and tips pertaining to Columbia SC housing news by clicking on the Columbia SC Real Estate News link to your right under Columbia SC Real Estate Categories.