CoreLogic reported this morning that home prices rose 0.8 percent last month, with annual growth of 12.2 percent, the fastest pace since Feb., 2006. The Home Price Index (HPI) also includes distressed sales and is the 24th consecutive month of home price increases.
Last week’s Case-Shiller Home Price Index rose 13.2 percent in January, which is further good news on the housing front.
On the labor front, last week’s Jobless Claims report fell to just 311,000 first-time claims, the lowest since last September.
Bottom Line for Mortgages:
Last week’s lackluster New Home and Pending Home Sales reports helped to ease the upward trend in mortgage rates. The Fed will be watching several “big ticket” reports over the coming weeks – including the Jobs Report, which comes out on Friday.
(Statue of Liberty seen from Europe. (1934) The Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung ran a photo of the Statue of Liberty. The photo was supposedly taken from Europe by means of “infrared remote photography”. The rocky islands visible in the foreground were England and Ireland.)
LK Marketing and Real Estate 
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