By Matt Grossman

A merger between two of the country’s most active debt-advisory shops is set to create the largest commercial real estate debt practice in the country.

By Michael Tucker

Three themes anchor the U.S. commercial real estate investment outlook: U.S. economic performance, cycle maturity and the monetary policy outlook, said Cushman & Wakefield, New York.

By Kerry Curry

With late 2018 jitters gone and investor optimism returning, the commercial real estate market should experience mostly steady cap rates through the first half of 2019, although there are particular market segments and geographies that could experience some bumps.

By Jessica Guerin

Private investors are buying non-conforming mortgage loans – which are usually the domain of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – at a growing rate.

By Robert Dietz

Continuing a multiyear trend, new single-family home size decreased during the final quarter of 2018.

By David Bodamer

Although it has not been the star of this extended commercial real estate cycle, the office sector has delivered its fair share of strong performance and solid returns. Occupancy rates and rents rose, cap rates fell and development has been kept in check.

By Tim Wang and Julia Laumont

A major and unprecedented structural shift has occurred in the real estate market due to a variety of demographic and socioeconomic factors. Occupied U.S. rental apartment units rose by 20 percent above the prior 10-year period. Real estate investment managers’ allocations to institutional-quality multifamily product have risen on the ongoing strength in property fundamentals.

By Laurie Goodman and Jun Zhu

Historically, purchase mortgages have performed better than refinance mortgages, or “refis,” defaulting less often. But changes made in response to widespread appraisal bias during the crisis have improved the industry’s risk assessment and management abilities overall and, accordingly, have decreased the expected default rate on all mortgages.

The Appraisal Institute designated 29 members in February, including; and 12 who received MAI designations; 7 who received SRA designations; 9 who received AI-GRS designations; 1 who received AI-RRS designations.

View the list here.

Freddie Mac(OTCQB: FMCC) today released the results of its Primary Mortgage Market Survey® (PMMS®), showing that mortgage rates held steady after declining for three consecutive weeks.

Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s chief economist, says, “Mortgage rates remained mostly unchanged this week, while mortgage applications rose 5.3 percent from the previous week. The general decline in rates we have seen recently, combined with rebounding pending home sales, hint at a strong spring homebuying season.”

The NCAI Scholarship Application for the second quarter offering is now available. Deadline is April 1, 2019.

Click Here for the Application Requirements and Eligibility.

APPLY NOW

NCAI is pleased to offer Parking and Its Impact on Value of North Carolina Properties to it's members while also supporting the 2019 Leadership Development & Advisory Council (LDAC) Participants. This event is on April 2, 2019 at the Harris Campus Central Piedmont Community College in Charlotte, NC. Instructor Ted Anglyn is donating his time to instruct this course as an effort to raise funds for this cause.

ALL PROFITS from this course and any additional donations will go toward support for NCAI’s LDAC participants.

On March 6, the Appraisal Institute and Freddie Mac announced a partnership targeted to help real estate appraisers when valuing manufactured housing, meeting an important need for homebuyers, lenders, appraisers and homebuilders.

The Appraisal Institute’s partnership with Freddie Mac will provide practical appraisal training to all appraisers, as well as specifically-targeted training and case studies to address manufactured housing valuation assignments for Freddie Mac’s CHOICEHome^SM. CHOICEHome brings conventional mortgage financing to factory-built homes to help increase the availability of quality affordable homes that borrowers want while providing lenders with the innovative financing options they need.  

Freddie Mac(OTCQB: FMCC) today released the results of its Primary Mortgage Market Survey® (PMMS®), showing that fixed-rate mortgages fell to the lowest levels since early 2018.

Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s chief economist, says, “The combination of cooling inflation and slower global economic growth led mortgage rates to drift down to the lowest levels in a year. While housing activity has clearly softened over the last nine months and the lingering effects of higher rates from last year are still being felt, lower mortgage rates and a strong job market should rekindle demand for the spring homebuying season.”

Read more here.

On Monday, February 26, 2019, the North Carolina Appraisal Board voted to summarily suspend the registration of CoesterVMS. Coester has failed to respond to seven complaints filed against it and has failed to maintain a surety bond after its surety bond was cancelled. Effective March 1, 2019, Coester’s registration is suspended and they shall cease all activities which constitute appraisal management services in North Carolina. The suspension shall remain in effect until the Board issues a Final Decision in this matter or until the parties enter into a Consent Order that is a final determination in this matter.

By Adam Descanctis

Steady commercial real estate markets, along with equity and debt availability, are expected to keep commercial and multifamily mortgage originations roughly on par with the volumes seen the past two years, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association's 2019 Commercial/Multifamily Real Estate Finance Forecast, released here today at the 2019 Commercial Real Estate Finance/Multifamily Housing Convention & Expo.

By Nat Levy

A federal appeals court sided with Zillow in a long-running lawsuit over the accuracy and marketing of the real estate giant’s controversial Zestimate tool.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Feb. 12 released its 2019 list of rural and underserved counties, which those entities can use to determine if they are exempt from certain appraisal and ability-to-pay rules.

Click here to view the list.

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