Latest news with #HomeBuyerIndex
Yahoo
28-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Hundreds of student visas revoked and Greenlanders' anti-American sentiment: Morning Rundown
The White House is targeting foreign-born students for deportation. Donald Trump privately vents his frustration about Mike Waltz. And NBC News' Home Buyer Index shows a thawing market with looming uncertainties. Here's what to know today. The State Department has revoked 300 or more student visas, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, as the White House increasingly targets foreign-born students whose main transgression seems to be activism. Around the country, scholars have been picked up and held in detention centers, sometimes far from their homes with little warning and often with few details about why they are being detained. The State Department has used an immigration provision that dates to the Cold War to justify some of the detentions. Federal officials can also revoke a student visa if they deem the student a threat.'It might be more than 300 at this point,' Rubio said of the number of students whose visas have been revoked. 'We do it every day. Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visas.' This week, Tufts University doctoral student Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish national who was in the country with a valid student visa was pulled off the street. Ozturk co-authored an opinion essay in the Tufts student newspaper last year criticizing the university for how it responds to student demands. And the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, a green card holder and Columbia University graduate student who was detained over his pro-Palestinian activism on campus, has sparked protests nationwide. They're just a couple of many whose detainments in recent weeks have made national headlines. Read the full story here. A 7.7-magnitude earthquake centered in Myanmar reverberated across Southeast Asia, killing at least three people in neighboring Thailand and leaving scores of others trapped under a collapsed high-rise in the country's capital, Bangkok. The earthquake occurred at a depth of 6 miles near Mandalay, the second-largest city in Myanmar, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It was followed minutes later by a 6.4-magnitude aftershock. In Bangkok, where many of its 17 million residents live in high-rise apartments, the quake sent buildings swaying and forced hundreds of thousands of people to evacuate their homes and workplaces. The governor of Bangkok declared the city a disaster zone after a 33-story building under construction collapsed near the popular Chatuchak market, killing at least three people. More than 40 others remained trapped in the rubble, he said. Read more here. Despite publicly expressing support for Mike Waltz, President Donald Trump privately fumed about his national security adviser during conversations he had about his decision to withdraw Rep. Elise Stefanik's nomination to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, according to two Republican sources with knowledge of the conversation. Trump's frustration is two-fold. First, Waltz created the Signal group chat that included an editor of The Atlantic, prompting calls from his allies for him to be the fall guy. The president is also frustrated because the race to replace Waltz in the House is shaping up to be more competitive than it should be. While GOP leaders are confident that Randy Fine, the Republican candidate in the Florida special election, will pull off a win, Trump is worried that the optics of the last few days are fueling a negative narrative and making the party look bad. But as Trump and his allies take a critical look at Waltz, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who shared details of military plans over a commercial rather than traditional government channels, has gotten full-throated backing. A career Department of Homeland Security employee who inadvertently sent unclassified details of an ICE operation to a journalist earlier this year faces serious punishment, drawing questions about unequal punishment in light of the Signal group chat breach. Trump is pulling the nomination of Rep. Elise Stefanik to be U.S. ambassador to the U.N., citing concerns about Republicans' slim majority in the House. A consequential decision is expected next week that will shape whether Republican senators can make Trump's expiring tax cuts permanent. The Department of Health and Human Services said it plans to cut 10,000 full-time jobs, which will effectively shutter multiple departments at the CDC and other health agencies. Trump took aim at the Smithsonian Institution in an executive order directing Vice President JD Vance to eliminate 'improper, divisive, or anti-American' ideology from its programs. More than 200 'Tesla Takedown' protests are scheduled to take place tomorrow as people around the world voice their disagreement with Elon Musk's role in politics. Buying a house in the U.S. is getting easier — slightly — according to new data from the NBC News Home Buyer Index, thanks to improving supply and less competition. However, prices remain high, and experts said any improvement could ride on policy decisions — tariffs and trade wars chief among them. February's Home Buyer Index value came in at 80.1, down from pandemic highs in the upper 80s. The index is a scale of 0 to 100 that measures the difficulty a buyer would have trying to purchase a house, taking into account factors such as cost, competition, scarcity and economic instability. Data reporter Jasmine Cui explains that inventory is improving and homes are staying on the market for longer — 40 days or more on average. But economic uncertainty registered at 91 on the Economic Instability sub-index, higher than this time last year. And any rapid policy changes could shake up the market. King Charles III was briefly in the hospital after he experienced side effects of his cancer treatment. Yolanda Saldívar, the woman sentenced to life in prison for killing Tejano music icon Selena in 1995, was denied parole, and her next review will be in 2030. A Las Vegas man faces state and federal charges after his arrest in connection with an arson attack on a Tesla location. The Sundance Film Festival is moving to a new city after more than 40 years in Park City, Utah. Greenland has been placed in the middle of a tug of war between Trump and Denmark — and ahead of a visit by JD Vance and his wife, NBC News correspondent Molly Hunter and producer Charlotte Gardiner travelled to Nuuk to hear from the Greenlanders who find themselves in the limelight. How do they feel about Trump's escalating rhetoric about taking over their home? Angry and over it. 'This can't be happening, this is not the America we knew,' one local businessman said. — , platforms editor Amazon's Big Spring Sale is here, and we found the best tech deals worth shopping so far, including discounts on Bose noise-cancelling headphones, Apple iPads, speakers and more. And are you curious about using beef tallow as a moisturizer? The NBC Select team investigates the skincare trend, which has people slathering beef fat on their faces. newsletter for hands-on product reviews, expert shopping tips and a look at the best deals and sales each week. Thanks for reading today's Morning Rundown. Today's newsletter was curated for you by Elizabeth Robinson. If you're a fan, please send a link to your family and friends. They can sign up here. This article was originally published on
NBC News
28-03-2025
- Politics
- NBC News
Hundreds of student visas revoked and Greenlanders' anti-American sentiment: Morning Rundown
The White House is targeting foreign-born students for deportation. Donald Trump privately vents his frustration about Mike Waltz. And NBC News' Home Buyer Index shows a thawing market with looming uncertainties. Here's what to know today. Trump admin takes aim at foreign-born college students The State Department has revoked 300 or more student visas, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, as the White House increasingly targets foreign-born students whose main transgression seems to be activism. Around the country, scholars have been picked up and held in detention centers, sometimes far from their homes with little warning and often with few details about why they are being detained. The State Department has used an immigration provision that dates to the Cold War to justify some of the detentions. Federal officials can also revoke a student visa if they deem the student a threat. This is Morning Rundown, a weekday newsletter to start your day. Sign up here to get it in your inbox. 'It might be more than 300 at this point,' Rubio said of the number of students whose visas have been revoked. 'We do it every day. Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visas.' This week, Tufts University doctoral student Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish national who was in the country with a valid student visa was pulled off the street. Ozturk co-authored an opinion essay in the Tufts student newspaper last year criticizing the university for how it responds to student demands. And the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, a green card holder and Columbia University graduate student who was detained over his pro-Palestinian activism on campus, has sparked protests nationwide. They're just a couple of many whose detainments in recent weeks have made national headlines. A 7.7-magnitude earthquake centered in Myanmar reverberated across Southeast Asia, killing at least three people in neighboring Thailand and leaving scores of others trapped under a collapsed high-rise in the country's capital, Bangkok. The earthquake occurred at a depth of 6 miles near Mandalay, the second-largest city in Myanmar, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It was followed minutes later by a 6.4-magnitude aftershock. In Bangkok, where many of its 17 million residents live in high-rise apartments, the quake sent buildings swaying and forced hundreds of thousands of people to evacuate their homes and workplaces. The governor of Bangkok declared the city a disaster zone after a 33-story building under construction collapsed near the popular Chatuchak market, killing at least three people. More than 40 others remained trapped in the rubble, he said. Read more here. Despite publicly expressing support for Mike Waltz, President Donald Trump privately fumed about his national security adviser during conversations he had about his decision to withdraw Rep. Elise Stefanik's nomination to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, according to two Republican sources with knowledge of the conversation. Trump's frustration is two-fold. First, Waltz created the Signal group chat that included an editor of The Atlantic, prompting calls from his allies for him to be the fall guy. The president is also frustrated because the race to replace Waltz in the House is shaping up to be more competitive than it should be. While GOP leaders are confident that Randy Fine, the Republican candidate in the Florida special election, will pull off a win, Trump is worried that the optics of the last few days are fueling a negative narrative and making the party look bad. But as Trump and his allies take a critical look at Waltz, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who shared details of military plans over a commercial rather than traditional government channels, has gotten full-throated backing. A career Department of Homeland Security employee who inadvertently sent unclassified details of an ICE operation to a journalist earlier this year faces serious punishment, drawing questions about unequal punishment in light of the Signal group chat breach. Trump is pulling the nomination of Rep. Elise Stefanik to be U.S. ambassador to the U.N., citing concerns about Republicans' slim majority in the House. A consequential decision is expected next week that will shape whether Republican senators can make Trump's expiring tax cuts permanent. The Department of Health and Human Services said it plans to cut 10,000 full-time jobs, which will effectively shutter multiple departments at the CDC and other health agencies. Trump took aim at the Smithsonian Institution in an executive order directing Vice President JD Vance to eliminate 'improper, divisive, or anti-American' ideology from its programs. More than 200 'Tesla Takedown' protests are scheduled to take place tomorrow as people around the world voice their disagreement with Elon Musk's role in politics. Simultaneous signs of ease and uncertainty in the housing market Buying a house in the U.S. is getting easier — slightly — according to new data from the NBC News Home Buyer Index, thanks to improving supply and less competition. However, prices remain high, and experts said any improvement could ride on policy decisions — tariffs and trade wars chief among them. February's Home Buyer Index value came in at 80.1, down from pandemic highs in the upper 80s. The index is a scale of 0 to 100 that measures the difficulty a buyer would have trying to purchase a house, taking into account factors such as cost, competition, scarcity and economic instability. Data reporter Jasmine Cui explains that inventory is improving and homes are staying on the market for longer — 40 days or more on average. But economic uncertainty registered at 91 on the Economic Instability sub-index, higher than this time last year. And any rapid policy changes could shake up the market. Read All About It King Charles III was briefly in the hospital after he experienced side effects of his cancer treatment. Yolanda Saldívar, the woman sentenced to life in prison for killing Tejano music icon Selena in 1995, was denied parole, and her next review will be in 2030. A Las Vegas man faces state and federal charges after his arrest in connection with an arson attack on a Tesla location. The Sundance Film Festival is moving to a new city after more than 40 years in Park City, Utah. Staff Pick: Greenland's residents give the 'Arctic cold shoulder' Greenland has been placed in the middle of a tug of war between Trump and Denmark — and ahead of a visit by JD Vance and his wife, NBC News correspondent Molly Hunter and producer Charlotte Gardiner travelled to Nuuk to hear from the Greenlanders who find themselves in the limelight. How do they feel about Trump's escalating rhetoric about taking over their home? Angry and over it. 'This can't be happening, this is not the America we knew,' one local businessman said. — Annie Hill, platforms editor NBC Select: Online Shopping, Simplified Amazon's Big Spring Sale is here, and we found the best tech deals worth shopping so far, including discounts on Bose noise-cancelling headphones, Apple iPads, speakers and more. And are you curious about using beef tallow as a moisturizer? The NBC Select team investigates the skincare trend, which has people slathering beef fat on their faces. here.
Yahoo
27-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
The housing search is easing, but a prolonged trade war could derail progress
Housing's yearslong winter might be showing the first hints of thaw, according to new data from the NBC News Home Buyer Index. Buyer difficulty is easing, owing to improving supply and less competition. However, prices remain high, and experts say any improvement could ride on policy decisions — tariffs and trade wars chief among them. The Home Buyer Index is a scale from 0 to 100 that measures the difficulty a buyer would have trying to purchase a house in a given month. The February index value came in at 80.1 — down from pandemic highs in the upper 80s, but still a figure that represents extreme difficulty. Several factors point to easing difficulty. Inventory is improving, with more homes coming onto the market and higher than expected starts. And mortgage rates are declining slightly, especially those benefiting first-time buyers using Federal Housing Administration are also spending more time on the market: 40 days or more on average — a sharp contrast to 2021's hottest stretch, when homes flew from the market in under half that. Those dynamics are reflected across the Home Buyer Index's sub-indexes. The Home Buyer Competition Index came in at 63.4, a decline to its prepandemic levels, and the Home Buyer Scarcity Index followed a similar path at economic uncertainty stands out, as the Home Buyer Economic Instability Index registered at 91 — higher than this time last year. 'Buyers who are ready and qualified have more opportunity now than they did a year ago,' said Vinny Rodriguez, a senior loan officer at Fulcrum Home Loans, an Idaho company with customers in much of the said he's seeing more of his clients come out of waiting. Nationally, there's also been an uptick in mortgage demand, which is at its strongest in months. While affordability remains a high hurdle, many of these buyers, Rodriguez said, are beginning to accept current market conditions. Still, he cautioned, economic policy remains a major question mark and the modest relief could be short-lived. Much of that uncertainty, Rodriguez said, comes from trade talk.'Every headline is like, 'Do I go left, do I go right?'' Rodriguez said. 'When the market is uncertain in the ways it has been, that could slow the development of building and also homes being sold.' On the industry side, homebuilders are feeling glum amid tariff talk. Builder sentiment is dropping as everything from lumber to appliances is expected to grow pricier. That could offset progress on inventory shortages and affordability — with some building contractors already hiking prices as much as 20%. Rodriguez described the keys to stabilizing the market: slow home value appreciation and steady declines in interest rates. In a market that's been shakier on the supply side, he noted, rapid changes ratchet up prices, and therefore buyer difficulty. 'I would prefer if we stayed the course,' Rodriguez said. 'Any sudden movements are going to have people reacting fast.' See what the housing market looks like in your area. This article was originally published on
NBC News
27-03-2025
- Business
- NBC News
The housing search is easing, but a prolonged trade war could derail progress
Housing's yearslong winter might be showing the first hints of thaw, according to new data from the NBC News Home Buyer Index. Buyer difficulty is easing, owing to improving supply and less competition. However, prices remain high, and experts say any improvement could ride on policy decisions — tariffs and trade wars chief among them. The Home Buyer Index is a scale from 0 to 100 that measures the difficulty a buyer would have trying to purchase a house in a given month. The February index value came in at 80.1 — down from pandemic highs in the upper 80s, but still a figure that represents extreme difficulty. higher than expected starts. And mortgage rates are declining slightly, especially those benefiting first-time buyers using Federal Housing Administration loans.
Yahoo
22-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
The housing market's long winter faces a slow thaw and many unknowns
A slew of new data shows that the housing market remains largely frozen at the start of the year, posing steep challenges to President Donald Trump's promise to thaw it. Sales of existing homes fell 4.9% from December to January, the National Association of Realtors reported Friday, a steeper drop than expected. Though the rate improved 2% last month on an annual basis, the sales pace continues to hover around 15-year lows. The situation isn't much rosier for new builds: Construction permits declined 1.7% in January from 12 months earlier, while housing starts were mostly flat, federal data showed Wednesday. And homebuilders' confidence slipped to a five-month low this month, the National Association of Home Builders' latest survey found. Meanwhile, homebuying remained very difficult at the end of 2024, driven by economic instability, rising costs and shortages of homes on the market, according to NBC News' Home Buyer Index, which measures the challenges potential buyers face county by county. The current outlook reflects the collision of long-running trends — tight, if improving, inventories; steep prices; high interest rates — with fresh uncertainties posed by Trump's economic agenda, including tariffs and mass deportations that threaten to drive up costs. 'It's been a very unusual start to 2025. A lot of buyers and sellers were thinking this was going to be their year,' said Lisa Sturtevant, chief economist at Bright MLS housing group. Instead, she said, many listings are staying on the market longer as buyers wait for stubborn mortgage rates to fall. 'It's going to be a slower spring than we hoped it would be,' Sturtevant predicted. On the campaign trail, Trump promised mass deportations of undocumented people to free up existing properties, deregulation to spur more development and tax incentives to help first-time home buyers. He also pledged to slash mortgage rates 'very fast.' 'We will drive down the rates so you will be able to pay 2% again and we will be able to finance or refinance your homes drastically at much lower costs,' Trump told Arizona rallygoers in September, estimating he would save families in the state $800 to $1,000 in monthly mortgage payments. But nationwide, rates for 30-year fixed mortgages — the most popular type — have hovered from 6% to 8% for the last two years, and demand for mortgage applications recently fell to its lowest level in six months. Since the election, several major builders have warned Trump's proposals could crimp their business. The higher tariffs he's already unveiled on steel and aluminum, set to take effect next month, and new ones on Chinese goods that are already in force could add thousands of dollars to home prices, industry executives say. 'Whether it's steel or any of the other tariffs relative to our friends to the north or to the south, we do expect some cost pressure from some of that,' said Curt VanHyfte, CFO of the homebuilding firm Taylor Morrison, on a Feb. 12 earnings call. But he added that those wouldn't affect the company until late 2025 if fully implemented. Lennar, another major homebuilder, said it made a 'major shift' eight years ago away from materials manufactured in Asia during Trump's first-term trade war with China. Levies on Chinese electronics components used in residential construction could make the average property $5,000 to $7,000 more expensive, Lennar co-CEO Jon Jaffe told investors in December. The potential impact of immigration policy changes would be 'much more difficult to assess,' he said. Some economists argue that tighter immigration enforcement slows construction, drives up home prices and even fuels job losses among the industry's American-born workers. Home builders who spoke to NBC News in the final leg of the presidential race said that any dent to their heavily foreign-born workforce, which is already facing shortages, would be detrimental. But many weren't sure at the time how far Trump might go. So far, his new administration has seen an early frenzy of arrests and deportations that are now running up against resource limits, much to the president's frustration. In a statement, White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers said the president had 'cut red tape' and taken executive action calling for lower housing costs and expanded supply. 'Americans trust President Trump to fix the housing crisis left behind by Joe Biden,' Rogers said. Despite the unknowns weighing on the housing market, Redfin Chief Economist Daryl Fairweather advised buyers wary of high prices to consider new builds, adding that many developers are offering incentives. While inventories are picking up, there's still only about 3.5 months' supply relative to current sales levels, far off the six-month level reflective of a balanced market. Nearly 73,000 homes were delisted in December, a 64% increase from the previous year, a recent Wall Street Journal analysis of CoreLogic data found. Still, JPMorgan analysts said last week that new homes for sale hit 481,000 — the most since 2007 — and speculative properties built without buyers lined up reached 385,000, the most since 2008. There are about 20% more existing single-family homes for sale now than a year ago, the researchers said, 'but the numbers remain near record lows, around 20-30% below prior troughs.' With supply at least trending in the right direction, Fairweather said buyers who stay flexible can put themselves in a good position to act this year. She advised monitoring mortgage rates, in order to move fast if they drop, and getting preapproved for a home loan. 'You have more negotiating power now compared to last year, and there are more homes to choose from,' she said, 'so there is no need to accept the terms of a stubborn seller.' Real estate agents in some high-demand areas are voicing measured optimism. When NBC News spoke in October with Bob Clarkson, a Century 21 agent in Atlanta, he was seeing competition for homes plunge in much of the metro area. Now, he said, interest is rising again, but 'buyers are just picky.' 'I have six to 10 buyers that have been looking, some of them even six months,' he said. 'We've looked at 30 houses, and it just hasn't been the right fit.' He chalked that up to broad 'uncertainty in the market' as well as the costs of fixes and renovations, which have many buyers balking even at properties they like. 'To move into an $800,000 house and still need to update the bathrooms, and still need to update the kitchen, that doesn't even include stuff like windows or HVAC or roof,' Clarkson said. 'The affordability factor is long gone.' Even so, he expects the spring buying season to be 'more productive, barring something dramatic happening in the White House.' There's frustration on the other side of the equation, too, said Makeba Evans, an Atlanta real estate agent who's recently begun focusing on sellers: 'The price that they want for their home is not rational, so it's taking a lot longer.' Chicky Johnson, a Re/max agent who's served the Chicago suburbs for more than three decades, urged patience. 'What I see is a shifting, but at the same time somewhat of a stabilization coming,' she said, adding tariffs remained a wild card in her ability to put clients in new homes this year. Johnson said she saw a slight dip in sales late last year, partly due to a historic settlement that shook up commission rules and raised incentives for buyers to forgo brokers. More recently, though, she said buyers and sellers are both getting tired of waiting for mortgage rates to fall and are beginning to come out of their holding patterns. 'Instead of it being so lopsided and having not enough inventory and too many buyers, which was creating this multiple-offer overbidding,' she said, 'I think we have kind of a coming-to-grips.' This article was originally published on
