In a move it said would boost lower-income Americans’ ability to buy homes, Freddie Mac said it would start including a review of a prospective homebuyer’s bank account as part of its review of whether or not to purchase a loan from a lender.
It’s not just ability to pay that helps knock less-well-off buyers out of the housing market as prices and mortgage interest rates climb through the roof.
Millennials who move far from childhood homes are a distinct minority among others who reached adulthood in the 21st century, according to a new study by the U.S. Census Bureau and Harvard University researchers released Monday.
Massachusetts’ South Coast will not see MBTA commuter rail service until the end of next year, but the train is already making waves in the region’s housing market.
With many buyers pushed out of the market or further afield from their jobs in recent months, sellers are losing some of their clout, real estate agents and brokers say.
The income needed to buy the median home in every major Massachusetts metro is significantly greater than the median income, a new study found.
After briefly rallying in the face of rising interest rates earlier this spring, the number of prospective homebuyers seeking home loans dwindled over the course of May.
The U.S. housing market is slowing as would-be buyers struggle with rising borrowing costs and a persistent shortage of properties for sale.
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu appeared at the Massachusetts Affordable Housing Alliance’s office in Dorchester yesterday to tout her proposal to spend $60 million in federal COVID aid on affordable home ownership programs.
The Build Back Better legislative package championed by President Joe Biden contains billions for down payment assistance. But rookie buyers don’t have to wait for Congress to act – if it ever does.
As we head into the spring market, predictions that 2022 would see home prices continue on their record tear, posting another year of double-digit increases, no longer looks like a sure bet.
Massachusetts’ Black households appear to have been left behind by a record jump in the nation’s homeownership rate, a new study by the National Association of Realtors has found, and the soaring price of homes is likely to blame.
A record low 25 percent of respondents in Fannie Mae’s latest monthly Home Purchase Sentiment Index survey said it was a good time to buy a home.
State lawmakers pitched a new tax exemption Tuesday that they say could address both the crushing levels of student loan debt carried by many residents and the perennial concerns that businesses have around being able to find and keep the types of workers they are looking for.
Boosting first-generation and first-time homebuyers has become popular among banks and politicians looking to boost their communities. But without commensurate effort to boost home building, these efforts will come to naught in the face of plenty of all-cash offers.
From Boston’s mayoral race to the Biden administration’s Build Back Better agenda, boosting homeownership rates is being held up as the most important solution to reducing the wealth gap between white households and people of color.
Sales of homes and condominiums in these mid-sized, older industrial hubs are rising as buyers, many of them first-timers, search for more affordable alternatives after being priced out of Boston and its ever more expensive suburbs.
The benefits of home ownership to an individual and to a community are numerous and expansive, and the Massachusetts Association of Realtors is proud to support a state bill to help first-time buyers.
Real estate professionals who do not make their clients aware of non-FHA options are doing them a great disservice. In this hot housing market, LMI buyers need more buying power, not less.
Paul Katz is leading an initiative at Promontory MortgagePath to support CDFIs and minority depository institutions in their efforts to expand homeownership in underserved communities.
