Filtered by Subscriptions: US Housing Use setting US Housing
News that the $25bn robo-signing settlement has been finalised is good for those homeowners who will benefit from the principal reductions and refinancing schemes that form part of the deal. But the bigger picture is that the settlement is not large …
9th February 2012
The latest weakness of mortgage applications for home purchase may suggest that the recent improvement in home sales is not built on solid foundations. While strict credit scoring and widespread negative equity are still significant limitations, some …
8th February 2012
Among the myriad of programmes rolled out to help the housing market, the proposal to sell the government’s stock of real estate owned homes to rental investors could just be the most effective yet. … REO to rental programme could be the best housing …
6th February 2012
Signs of a modest housing market recovery are noticeable everywhere but in the house price data. Today’s CoreLogic release shows that prices were still falling at a reasonable clip in the final month of last year. But we are encouraged by the fact that …
2nd February 2012
The share of Americans who are willing and able to own their own home is still falling. The flipside is more households in the rented sector and fewer properties lacking tenants. This is helping to drive rents, and therefore landlords’ returns, higher. …
31st January 2012
There are still no signs that house prices are on the verge of turning around, with the Case-Shiller measure falling for the seventh month in a row in November. But things should be different in six months’ time, when the recent rises in home sales will …
With the downturn in the housing market drawing to a close, housing should soon start to boost economic growth. But as housing now makes up only a small share of the economy, the sector is unlikely to add much more than 0.2 percentage points to annual GDP …
30th January 2012
The fledgling recovery in housing market activity has yet to encompass the new homes market, where sales fell in December. The bottom line is that new home sales are unlikely to rise significantly from their current ultra-low level while they are having …
26th January 2012
The publication today of the first set of interest rate projections by the FOMC heralded a historic change in the way that the Fed conducts monetary policy, but had little practical impact on market rate expectations. … Fed's anticipates that rates are …
25th January 2012
President Obama’s latest proposal to help more households refinance to a lower mortgage rate is another policy that tinkers at the margins rather than striking at the heart of the problems that are holding back housing and the wider economy. Moreover, as …
Whether or not President Obama uses tonight’s State of the Union Address to announce a final resolution to the robo-signing fiasco, it would appear that an agreement is close at hand. The good news is that the likely size of the settlement won’t force …
24th January 2012
If house prices and rents evolve as we expect then, over a normal holding period, it will be better to own rather than rent the average home. This should go some way to reviving Americans’ appetite for homeownership. But tight credit conditions and …
23rd January 2012
There’s no denying that home sales are still very low and will remain low for a few years. But after having risen in each of the last three months, including a 5.0% m/m gain in December, it is clear that a housing recovery is now well underway. … Existing …
20th January 2012
Credit conditions in the US have stopped tightening and there are signs that they are now loosening. We expect this to continue, supporting home sales and putting a floor under house prices. But any improvement in credit conditions won’t be significant …
19th January 2012
The fall in housing starts in December was driven by a steep decline in the often volatile multi-family sector, while starts of single-family homes actually rose slightly. In any case, December’s fall reversed only half of the rise in starts in the …
The magnitude of the decline in existing home sales since the start of the housing market crash has been revised up significantly, but sales now appear to be rebounding as banks begin to lend more freely again. For example, lenders are now willing to …
13th January 2012
Policymakers just can’t decide what to do with housing. While the Fed thinks that government funds should be used to support housing, Congress appears to believe that housing should be used to support the government’s finances. It is not clear which side …
11th January 2012
Weekly data show that the bulk of the gain in mortgage applications for home purchase in the two months to early-December has now been eroded. Nevertheless, looser credit conditions should see applications for home purchase rise this year. … Mortgage …
The acceleration in the rate at which house prices were falling at the tail end of last year will provide more support to those Fed officials who recently have championed more action to revive the housing market. Despite the clear downward momentum, we …
9th January 2012
2012 may well be the year in which the five-year-long decline in US house prices ends. But that doesn’t mean it will also be the year in which prices start to rise consistently. Tough credit conditions and rising foreclosures will prevent significant and …
4th January 2012
The housing market is on the verge of finding a floor. After sliding for five years, in 2012 house prices may finally stop falling. But this doesn’t mean that significant and sustained rises are on the way. Lingering credit constraints and many more …
21st December 2011
The 14% downward revision to the number of existing home sales since 2007 confirms that the housing crash has been deeper than originally thought. But this is old news. Much more important is that the increase in sales in more recent months, including a …
Housing starts rose strongly in November, building on the gains seen since the start of the year. By historical standards, homebuilding activity is still very depressed, but at least it appears to be on an established upward trend. … Housing Starts …
20th December 2011
The Fed put off making changes to its communications strategy and potentially announcing a third round of quantitative easing until the new year. … Fed stands pat for …
13th December 2011
Housing market activity has improved in recent months, with both new and existing home sales rising in October and homebuilding activity holding on to its previous gains. This has yet to translate into better news on prices, however. In fact, the fall in …
8th December 2011
November’s rise in mortgage applications for home purchase are a glimmer of hope that record low mortgage rates and the improving labour market are finally having some positive effect on housing market activity. But demand will remain constrained by …
7th December 2011
After having stabilised during the summer, in the three months to October prices on the CoreLogic index fell at an annualised rate of 7.5%. This is clearly disappointing when the domestic economy needs to be strong to cope with any fallout from Europe. …
6th December 2011
House prices were still falling in the third quarter and we don’t think that they’ve stabilised in this quarter either. Even when prices do reach their trough, which could be next year, a continued influx of foreclosed and vacant properties onto the …
29th November 2011
The 1.3% m/m rise in new home sales in October was not especially encouraging given that it came at the expense of a 3.3% downward revision to the previous month’s numbers. More generally, new home sales are not going to return to normal levels while new …
28th November 2011
The modest rise in existing home sales in October may reflect the recent improvements in economic activity and the labour market. But a sustained and significant recovery in home sales is just not on the cards when large numbers of potential buyers are …
21st November 2011
The further fall in the share of households behind on their mortgage in the third quarter is another piece of good news for the housing market. But the delinquency rate remains high and the large number of homes still in the shadow inventory will cast a …
17th November 2011
Housing starts held broadly steady in October, leaving the modest upward trend of recent months intact. But the bigger picture is that starts are on course to total just 600,000 or so in 2011 as a whole and only slightly more next year. That would leave …
The latest evidence suggests that the stabilisation in house prices seen over the summer is giving way to further price falls. In September, our seasonally adjusted measure of the CoreLogic index fell by 1.1% m/m. That was the largest drop in a year. …
9th November 2011
Estimates of the shadow inventory vary, but by our calculations more than four million homes are waiting in the wings and will eventually add to the supply of properties for sale. That will prevent a normalisation in the visible inventory for several …
8th November 2011
The acceleration in the rate at which the CoreLogic house price index is falling reflects the slowing in the pace of job creation and wider economic growth earlier this year. Prices may well fall further in the closing months of the year and, despite …
7th November 2011
The Fed opted to stay on the sidelines today. Most probably because FOMC members want more time to judge how effective the Operation Twist programme announced at the last meeting in September has been, but also because the improved tone of the incoming …
2nd November 2011
The modest increase in the rental vacancy rate in the third quarter does little to alter our view that rental yields will soon rise above 5.5%, comfortably beating the yields available on Treasuries and equities. Meanwhile, the homeownership rate remains …
The fact that mortgage applications for home purchase fell again in October, despite 30-year fixed mortgage rates touching fresh lows, underlines our long held position that the demand for housing will remain weak for the foreseeable future. … Mortgage …
Even after the 5.7% m/m rebound in new home sales to 313,000 annualised in September, from 296,000 the month before, purchases are still close to a record low and only a quarter of what they were during the boom years in the mid-2000s. … New Home Sales …
27th October 2011
The latest report on house prices from Case-Shiller suggest that the housing market has been a little bit softer than previously thought. In seasonally adjusted terms, the Case-Shiller 20-City house price index was broadly unchanged in August and prices …
26th October 2011
The modest fall in existing home sales in September shows that the housing market is struggling to gain any traction in this poor economic climate. In fact, it is hard to see home sales rising at all when mortgage applications are at a 15-year low and …
21st October 2011
The 15% m/m rise in housing starts in September comes hot on the heels of the rise in the NAHB homebuilders' index to a 17-month high in October and suggests that housing may finally be helping the wider economy. But we would warn against getting too …
20th October 2011
Recent suggestions that home sales are being held back by a lack of inventory are misguided as the excess inventory may still amount to one million homes. Moreover, the "shadow inventory" may consist of another four million homes. The problem is therefore …
18th October 2011
The previous declines in house prices and the more recent drop in mortgage rates to record lows have created an unusual situation in which the median monthly mortgage payment is more or less the same as the median rental payment. But we don't expect this …
13th October 2011
The 0.4% m/m decline in CoreLogic's measure of house prices in August may be the start of the renewed modest acceleration in price declines that we have been warning about. Prices may still stabilise next year, but consistent rises are a long way off. … …
7th October 2011
September's mortgage applications figures suggest that the decrease in conforming mortgage loan limits at the start of this week won't significantly reduce mortgage demand. Nevertheless, the weak economy and the legacy of the housing crash, which has left …
6th October 2011
Recent evidence showing that fewer Americans see owning a home as a central part of the American Dream and that fewer have a credit score high enough to make that dream a reality supports our long-held view that structural constraints will prevent a …
5th October 2011
A persistent deficit in demand means that even when house prices finally find a floor, which could happen next year, they won't rebound rapidly. Sustained price gains are unlikely until 2014 at the earliest. … No real recovery in …
29th September 2011
The 0.1% m/m rise in Case-Shiller 20-City house prices in July is unlikely to mark the start of a sustained and significant recovery in prices. We still expect prices to fall back a bit later this year. And even when they do eventually stabilise, a …
28th September 2011
In a month when both equity prices and confidence plunged and fears of another recession soared, the 2.3% m/m decline in new home sales in August could have been much worse. Nonetheless, in the current climate a new home is a luxury that many Americans …
27th September 2011
