Filtered by Subscriptions: US Housing Use setting US Housing
After rising strongly in the early part of October, mortgage applications have since dropped steadily despite the very low level of mortgage interest rates. This suggests that tight lending criteria are continuing to act as a brake on the level of active …
7th November 2012
All of the small month-on-month fall in the CoreLogic house price index in September was down to predictable seasonal factors. After accounting for the usual slowdown at this time of year, house prices posted another gain. … CoreLogic House Prices …
6th November 2012
Having fallen briefly following the announcement of QE3, MBS yields and mortgage interest rates were rising again in the final weeks of October. Of course, the bigger picture remains that mortgage interest rates are extremely low. Moreover, last month …
5th November 2012
At face value, the decline in the spread of jumbo mortgage interest rates over the rates on conforming loans is one of a number of signs that restrictions on the availability of jumbo mortgages have loosened somewhat. Digging a little deeper, however, at …
1st November 2012
Even with the housing recovery well underway, the share of Americans who own their own home remains more or less at a 16-year low. This fact is a reminder that, to date, the recovery still owes a lot to investor demand. … Homeownership & Vacancy Rates & …
30th October 2012
The continued drop in the supply of distressed homes on the market is encouraging homebuilders to break ground on more sites. Admittedly, with a substantial overhang of properties still in the shadow inventory, distressed sellers are not about to become a …
25th October 2012
After the fireworks at the last FOMC meeting in mid-September, when the Fed launched an open-ended QE3 and strengthened its forward-looking guidance on leaving its policy rate at near-zero, the two-day meeting that ended today was a damp squib in …
24th October 2012
September’s rise in new home sales is another sign that homebuyers are becoming more willing and more able to splash out on a new home. … New Home Sales (Sep. …
Following August’s very strong rise, existing home sales predictably gave up a little ground in September. Nevertheless, the bigger picture remains that, driven by extremely favourable valuation and affordability metrics, existing home sales are on a …
19th October 2012
The election campaign has been frustratingly light on detail with regards to housing policy. Piecing together what we have, however, it looks like anyone expecting either candidates’ housing plan to make a dramatic difference to the course of the housing …
18th October 2012
In another sign that the improvement in the housing market is gathering pace, housing starts smashed the consensus expectation for a small gain and rose by a very strong 15% m/m. … Housing Starts …
17th October 2012
The price premium attached to new-builds has fallen over the past six months. Moreover, continued strong investor demand, which is bidding up prices among the lowest tier of existing homes, should see the new-build premium fall further over the …
10th October 2012
The announcement of the third round of quantitative easing, during which the Fed will buy $40bn of mortgage-backed securities per month until the outlook for the labour market improves ‘substantially’, initially led to a sharp drop in agency MBS yields. …
9th October 2012
Mortgage interest rates have fallen further in response to the third round of quantitative easing. This translated into stronger demand for mortgages in the closing weeks of September, both from refinancers and prospective homebuyers. … Mortgage …
3rd October 2012
The latest rise in house prices provides further evidence that the housing market is staging an encouraging, if still quite modest, recovery. Improving sales volumes and tight supply suggest that prices will continue rising into next year. … CoreLogic …
2nd October 2012
The housing crash has created the ideal conditions for institutions to invest in single-family rented housing. But this looks like a one-time opportunity. As house prices recover, so investor interest in single-family homes will fade. The upshot is that, …
1st October 2012
New home sales declined fractionally in August. However, with the new-build premium sharply lower and mortgage rates falling to record lows, we expect them to resume their upward trend before too long. … New Home Sales …
26th September 2012
The sixth successive monthly rise in house prices in July supports our view that, even with the broader economic recovery struggling to gain traction, the housing recovery is sustainable. … Case-Shiller House Prices …
25th September 2012
The homebuilding sector is recovering and we expect housing starts to post a decent year-on-year gain both this year and next. Nevertheless, a surge in starts on the scale implied by the NAHB homebuilder activity index seems unlikely. … NAHB index …
21st September 2012
Consistent with our view that the housing market is experiencing a sustainable recovery, today’s data releases showed a further improvement in housing activity. … Housing Starts & Existing Home Sales …
19th September 2012
Further MBS purchases by the Fed won’t engineer the same drop in mortgage interest rates that earlier rounds did, and with mortgage-dependent buyers playing a relatively marginal role in the housing recovery, any drop in rates won’t have a great effect …
14th September 2012
The Fed today announced an open-ended QE3 focused on MBS purchases and extended its conditional commitment to leave its policy rate at near-zero through mid-2015. There were numerous other tweaks to its communications strategy, most of which involved …
It’s obviously not good that 15% or more of all contracted home sales aren’t making it through to closing. But to the extent that the increase in the cancellation rate reflects would-be buyers’ desire to transact running ahead of banks’ willingness to …
13th September 2012
The combination of rising sales volumes and a dwindling inventory of homes for sale saw house prices rise again in the latest data. Depending on which of the major house price indices we look at, seasonally-adjusted prices have only failed to rise in at …
12th September 2012
The softer pace of economic growth in the second half of the year may lead to a slight moderation in the pace of house price gains. But the bigger picture is that growing buyer interest and a tight supply of homes for sale mean that the housing recovery …
6th September 2012
Mortgage applications for home purchase fell sharply in August, providing further evidence that mortgage-dependent buyers are barely contributing to the recovery in housing market activity. Without a significant easing in credit conditions, it’s hard to …
5th September 2012
Despite the slowdown in the pace of wider economic growth, house prices are growing strongly. Moreover, the recovery looks broad based, encompassing both distressed and non-distressed homes. … CoreLogic House Prices …
4th September 2012
The moderation in the pace of economic growth does not appear to have had a significant detrimental impact on the recovery in US house prices. At the end of the second quarter, prices on the National, as well as the 10-City and 20-City Composite indices …
28th August 2012
July’s rise in new home sales was clearly welcome news. And it does little to dissuade us from the view that the housing market has shifted from being a clear drag on the wider economy to offering some modest support. … New Home Sales …
23rd August 2012
For now, our view that the recent dip in existing home sales was not the start of a weaker trend seems to be on track. But the combination of a subdued outlook for US economic growth and tight mortgage credit conditions suggests that a normalisation in …
22nd August 2012
The recent rise in residential land values is unlikely to be a one-off. Admittedly, with the level of new home sales still low and house prices gains to remain fairly modest, the pace of the initial recovery will be subdued. But the bottom line is that we …
16th August 2012
Housing starts fell slightly in July, but the forward-looking indicators rose once again. The upshot is that homebuilding will continue to support the wider economic recovery. … Housing Starts …
The sharp slowdown in jobs growth seems to have fed through rapidly to the mortgage delinquency rate, which rose for the first time in a year in the second quarter. There was better news on the foreclosure inventory, which declined in Q2. … Mortgage …
9th August 2012
June’s sharp drop in home sales has lead to concerns that the recovery in housing market demand is already stalling. However, while job creation and GDP growth will remain lacklustre, the signs are that housing market activity will improve again in the …
8th August 2012
CoreLogic’s measure of house prices posted another strong gain in June. But unlike in recent months, the latest rise was marginally weaker than we would expect in a typical June, meaning that seasonally-adjusted house prices actually eased a touch. … …
7th August 2012
Home sales fell by 5.6% m/m in June, the largest monthly decline for 16 months. But this is unlikely to signal that the recovery in housing demand has run out of steam already. For one, pending home sales are still running at a level that looks consistent …
6th August 2012
Despite acknowledging the evident slowdown in US economic growth, the Fed declined to take any additional action at the conclusion of the two-day FOMC meeting today. It did, however, offer a hint that it might be prepared to do more at the next meeting in …
1st August 2012
The latest mortgage applications data provide further evidence that record low mortgage rates are doing little to boost demand among mortgage-dependent buyers. Meanwhile, the FHFA has reaffirmed its opposition to principal forgiveness on mortgages held by …
The fourth successive rise in the Case-Shiller measure of seasonally-adjusted house prices means that prices are experiencing more than just their usual seasonal lift. Moreover, tight supply conditions and an underlying improvement in demand suggest that …
31st July 2012
The very modest increase in the homeownership rate in Q2 does not persuade us to alter our view that the share of the population who own their home will fall further over the next couple of years. Meanwhile, supply conditions in the rental market are …
27th July 2012
News of mortgage rates falling to fresh lows may have become an almost weekly occurrence, but there’s relatively little evidence that this is translating into stronger housing demand among mortgage dependent buyers. The underlying improvement in sales …
26th July 2012
The 8.4% m/m fall in new home sales in June was further evidence that the recovery in housing demand has lost a little momentum. But with supply conditions in the market for new homes still tight, today’s release does not materially change the outlook for …
25th July 2012
The steep drop in existing home sales in June is clearly disappointing, but we always expected the housing recovery to be choppy and today’s release is consistent with that. In any case, given that the number of homes for sale also fell sharply, the …
19th July 2012
The improvement in housing starts in June was further evidence that the housing recovery is holding up even as the wider economic recovery has lost a considerable amount of momentum. … Housing Starts …
18th July 2012
Over the next few years, it’s plausible that tight credit, subdued confidence and many more foreclosures will drive the homeownership rate down to 64%, from 65.4% now. Over a longer horizon, the case for further falls in the homeownership rate hinges on …
The reluctance of homeowners who are in negative equity to sell their home and realise a loss is one explanation for the sharp fall in the visible inventory over the past few years. Nevertheless, because it is also acting, broadly speaking, as an equal …
16th July 2012
Annualised growth on the Case-Shiller and CoreLogic house price indices over the past three months stands at 6.2% and 9% respectively. However, price growth may moderate in the second half of the year. For one, the slowdown in the economy is likely to …
12th July 2012
While another fall in mortgage rates saw remortgaging applications surge higher in June as a whole, applications for home purchase remained stuck in the doldrums. Nevertheless, this isn’t preventing a modest housing recovery from taking shape. … …
5th July 2012
May’s 0.4% m/m rise in our seasonally-adjusted measure of CoreLogic house prices marks the fifth successive month in which prices have increased. While the recent strong pace of monthly house price gains may now be moderating, 2012 as a whole is on track …
2nd July 2012
Problems with the seasonal adjustment process, caused by the unusually high share of distressed sales in recent years, may be giving a misleading impression of the strength of house prices over the past few months. Nevertheless, extracting from these …
28th June 2012
