Tag Archives: Trulia

On a national level, several economic conditions influence today’s market such as home price growth outpacing rent growth since 2012 (favoring the rent side of the equation) and interest rates returning to historic lows after reaching 4 percent of higher in 2013 and 2014.

Ask the Economist is an ongoing series in which DS News talks with an economist about the most pressing issues facing the nation's housing industry and the economy. This installment features Selma Hepp, Chief Economist with Trulia.

Hepp currently collaborates with the University of Southern California's Lusk Center and the REALTOR University Center for Real Estate Studies. She previously served as a senior economist with the California Association of Realtors and as an economist and manager of public policy and homeownership with the National Association of Realtors.

Days after getting the nod from the Federal Trade Commission, Zillow has finally completed its $2.5 billion acquisition of Trulia, the companies announced jointly Tuesday afternoon.

Seattle-based real estate and home-related marketplace Zillow announced Friday that it expects to close the acquisition of San Francisco-based online real estate site Trulia by February 17, following the announcement of the conclusion of a Federal Trade Commission investigation.

While percentages of homes being flipped nationwide are nowhere near their peak reached in 2005 and 2006, in some areas such as California they remain near their historic levels consistent with home price gains in those areas, according to a report released by Trulia on Thursday.

Aside from a brief reference to his announcement two weeks ago that the Federal Housing Agency (FHA) would be lowering its mortgage insurance premiums, President Barack Obama did not mention housing policy Tuesday night during his hour-long State of the Union Address.

While housing recovery has generally been uneven for the last few years, the housing market experienced substantial growth in the fourth quarter of 2014 for all five indicators of Trulia's Q4 2014 Housing Barometer, which was released on Thursday. Three of the five indicators – existing home sales, excluding distressed sales; home price level; and delinquency plus foreclosure rate – are all more than three-quarters of the way "back to normal" as of the end of 2014, according to the barometer.

The level of optimism for the housing market in the U.S. for the fourth quarter of 2014 is at its highest point as it has been at any point during the recovery, according to a recent survey conducted by Trulia.

The labor market is helping to boost housing recovery despite a weak virtuous cycle between the jobs and housing recently, according to research released by Trulia earlier this week.