Mortgage Market Update - Nov 28, 2011

Mortgage Market Update for November 28, 2011 - provided by Julie Whalen of Guild Mortgage

Last week, October Existing Home Sales inched up to an annual rate just under 5 million units. And although things appear to be improving only slowly, existing home sales are actually UP 13.5% from a year ago.

Even better, the months' supply of existing homes fell to 8.0 and inventory is now down 13.8% versus a year ago. The naysayers jumped on the fact that the median price was also down. But a large portion of October sales came from distressed properties whose prices are heavily discounted. Although some see this as a negative, it's what's needed for inventories to be worked down and for the housing market to recover.

This Week’s Mortgage Forecast

NEW HOME SALES, PENDING HOME SALES, JOBS... Of great interest this week will be more housing market reports and the jobs numbers that are key to the real estate recovery. October New Home Sales are expected to hold steady, above the 300,000 level. September Pending Home Sales, indicating Existing Home Sales a few months out, look to be up a tad.

Friday, we get the November Employment Report. Although payrolls should rise, the number of new jobs is still not enough to bring down the unemployment rate.