Howard Sobel's (howardsf) Blog

Wiki HistoryJasper O'Farrell established Market Street as the widest street in town, he envisioned a grand boulevard, an arrow straight to the heart of Twin Peaks. The Better Market Steet Project is designed to recapture his vision all these years later.Market street has been a blight for a long...

Gen Y They passed boomers to become America’s largest generation, Gen-Yers, now 15 to 32 years old will dominate and define residential demand for real estate as did the Boomers before them.The Urban Land Institute commissioned an online survey to discover their preferences  because this next wa...

Mortgage Bankers Weekly Survey: Mortgage Applications Increase  Mortgage Bankers Association for the week of 6/15/2010 Fixed rate mortgages are changed little this week, the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage inching up to 4.5% from last week’s 4.49% average rate. The MBAA reports their  Market Compos...

30-year fixed-rate mortgage:averaged 4.50 percent with an average 0.7 point for the week ending June 16, 2011, up from last week when it averaged 4.49 percent. Last year at this time, the 30-year FRM averaged 4.75 percent.  The 15-year fixed-rate mortgage: t his week averaged 3.67 percent with a...

  Mortgage Bankers Association for the week of 6/1/2010 Fixed rate mortgages continue to decline this week, with the 30-year loan averaging 4.55% its lowest average this year. The MBAA reports their  Market Composite Index: ( Loan application volume) Decreased 4%. Their Refinance Index:  Decrease...

  30-year fixed-rate mortgage:averaged 4.55 percent with an average 0.6 point for the week ending June 2, 2011, down  from last week when it averaged 4.60 percent. Last year at this time, the 30-year FRM averaged 4.79 percent.  The 15-year fixed-rate mortgage: this week averaged 3.74 percent with...

    Case Shiller and us U.S. home prices dropped to a newlow in March. Case-Shiller home price index reports the lowest prices in five years, confirming those fears of a double dip. National home prices declined 34% from the 2006 peak, down 5% in just the last year Excesses of the Bubble Years We...

30-year fixed-rate mortgage: averaged 4.61 percent with an average 0.7 point for the week ending May 19, 2011, down  from last week when it averaged 4.63 percent. Last year at this time, the 30-year FRM averaged 4.84 percent The 15-year fixed-rate mortgage: this week  averaged 3.80 percent with ...

Mortgage Bankers Association for the week of  5/18/2010 Fixed rate mortgages continue to decline this week, with the 30-year loan averaging 4.61% its lowest average this year. The MBAA reports their  Market Composite Index: (loan application volume) increased 7.8 percent. Their Refinance Index: ...

Market Composite Index: (loan application volume) decreased 5.6 percent from one week earlierRefinance Index:  increased 6.0 percent from the previous weekPurchase Index:  increased 1.1 percent compared with the previous week and was 36.9 percent lower than the same week one year ago.Refinance S...