Filtered by Subscriptions: US Housing Use setting US Housing
Given the number of existing homes for sale recently dropped to a record low, it is no surprise that the homeowner vacancy rate fell to 1.5% in the first-quarter, the joint-lowest rate for 24 years. That has put a stop to what had been a gradual rise in …
26th April 2018
Substantial upward revisions to new home sales in January and February, coupled with a 4.0% m/m rise in March, means new sales now look to have made a decent start to the year. The relatively healthy inventory of new homes for sale explains why new sales …
24th April 2018
Annual house price growth on both the Case-Shiller and FHFA measures has been fairly stable since the start of the year. After dropping for the first time in 18-months in January, growth on the national Case-Shiller index returned to 6.3% in February. A …
Existing home sales increased for the second month in a row in March. But, at 1.1% m/m, the rise was modest and sales are still lower than at this time last year. A lack of inventory explains that lacklustre performance. Despite a small improvement over …
23rd April 2018
At first glance the 1.9% m/m rise in housing starts, and 2.5% m/m increase in building permits, suggests the gradual recovery in home construction continued into March. But, in fact, growth in both measures was entirely driven by the notoriously volatile …
17th April 2018
Fannie Mae’s announcement last August that it would accept mortgages with debt-to-income (DTI) ratios as high as 50% triggered a sharp rise in the share of high DTI mortgages. But we doubt that change poses a risk to the housing market. Other lending …
16th April 2018
A divergence in rental vacancy rates over the past year, with single-family vacancies reaching a 21-year low as multifamily vacancies have risen, has meant rental growth for single-family homes has outpaced apartments for the past year. That reflects …
12th April 2018
Mortgage interest rates have risen to seven-year highs, which has pushed refinancing activity down to 10-year lows. Demand for home purchase mortgages is faring better, but even so buyers are still being put-off by the lack of inventory. Those tight …
10th April 2018
Mortgage interest rates reached a seven-year high in March, which in turn helped push refinancing activity to close to a 10-year low. Mortgage applications for home purchase performed better, rising by 6.6% m/m. But that only reversed a drop of a similar …
4th April 2018
One factor shared by states with particularly low levels of single-family permits is a high level of negative equity. Those states will have experienced the biggest housing market booms and busts, with many homebuilders put out of business, or concerned …
3rd April 2018
Our forecast that earnings growth will rise to a nine-year high of 3.5% by the middle of 2019 might be expected to give house prices a boost, particularly given the lack of inventory. However, the concurrent rise in mortgage interest rates will more than …
28th March 2018
Case-Shiller reported that annual house price growth edged back to 6.2% in January, from 6.3% in December. That is the first time annual growth has fallen since June 2016, and supports our view that house price gains peaked at the end of last year. We …
27th March 2018
The 0.6% m/m drop in new home sales was marginal, but it marks the third month in a row of falling sales. However, given the relatively healthy inventory of new homes and reports from homebuilders of strong demand, we doubt the weakness seen over the …
23rd March 2018
After two months of slowing house price gains, the sharp 0.8% m/m rise in January reported by the FHFA might be a sign that price growth is accelerating. But, given how volatile the monthly data are, we would caution against such an interpretation. With …
22nd March 2018
The 3% m/m gain in existing home sales in February was better than expected. Even so, that rise just reversed January’s drop, and left sales essentially unchanged from their level a year ago. With the months’ supply of homes for sale so depressed, it is …
21st March 2018
This quarter sees the launch of a redesigned US Housing Market Analyst. The aim of the Analyst, to provide our views on the outlook for the US housing market, remains the same. However, there is now a clearer distinction between homeowner and rental …
20th March 2018
The 7.0% m/m drop in housing starts in February was not a surprise. It was driven by the multifamily sector, where a 26.1% m/m drop fully reversed a similar surge in January. More of a concern is the apparent loss of momentum in the single-family sector, …
16th March 2018
Mortgage interest rates have continued to rise, averaging 4.63% in February; their highest level since the end of 2013. But more of an issue for sales is the chronic shortage of homes for sale, which has pushed buying sentiment down to nine-year lows. …
12th March 2018
The jump in mortgage applications seen in January has been quickly reversed, with total applications posting a 6.2% m/m drop in February. The rise in mortgage interest rates, which reached their highest level since the end of 2013, is weighing on …
7th March 2018
Single-family rental yields have been declining in most states over the past six years, with strong house price gains in the West leading to relatively large yield drops there. With interest rates on the rise, that may put house prices in states where …
5th March 2018
The Case-Shiller and FHFA house price indices painted contrasting pictures in December. Annual growth on the Case-Shiller index rose to 6.3%, the highest level since May 2014. But the FHFA reported a drop to 6.5%, the lowest reading in almost a year. …
27th February 2018
The 7.8% m/m drop in new home sales in January looks, at least partly, to reflect cold weather in the South and Northeast. With inventory levels at nine-year highs, and demand supported by rising household incomes, new homes sales are set for a decent …
26th February 2018
The impact of higher Treasury yields on mortgage rates has been softened by a narrowing of the spread between the two. That reflects a fall in the option cost of prepayment risk, as higher mortgage rates will cut the number of refinances. But, with …
23rd February 2018
Existing home sales fell for a second consecutive month in January, leaving them 5% lower than at the start of last year. The good news is that there was a marginal pick up in the number of existing homes available for sale. But with that improvement …
21st February 2018
At first glance it appears that housing starts had a very strong start to the year. The 9.7% m/m jump in January more than reversed December’s decline. But the volatile multifamily sector was responsible for most of that gain, and single-family starts …
16th February 2018
The decline in the first-time buyer share, to a two-year low, over the second half of last year reflected a lack of starter homes for sale, rather than a demand deficiency. With the lumber price at 14-year highs, and construction workers hard to find, the …
15th February 2018
In contrast to 2005, the recent surge and subsequent retreat in homebuilder share prices is not a signal that the housing market is set for a damaging correction. Back then, homebuilder share prices were boosted by a rapid easing in mortgage lending …
14th February 2018
By the end of January mortgage interest rates had risen to close to four-year highs, and the expectation of that rise briefly boosted mortgage applications for home purchase to eight-year highs. But demand has since edged back, and single-family activity …
8th February 2018
Concerns that mortgage rates are set to rise gave both refinancing and home purchase mortgage activity a significant boost in January. But, with mortgage rates now at four-year highs, and no improvement in the inventory of homes for sale, that surge is …
7th February 2018
A decline in the stock of rental homes may simply be noise. But it may also be an early sign that rental investors are taking advantage of high prices and low inventory to sell up. If so, and if it continues, that will provide a boost to the extremely low …
1st February 2018
A homeowner vacancy rate close to a 17-year low didn’t prevent a welcome rise in the homeownership rate to 64% in the final quarter of 2017. But the lack of homes for sale has driven more households to the rental sector. The rental vacancy rate dropped to …
30th January 2018
According to Case-Shiller, annual house price growth in November edged up slightly to 6.2%, but we doubt it will rise much further. Buyers are staying away due to the lack of homes for sale and, with mortgage interest rates set to hit four-year highs over …
The 9.3% m/m drop in new home sales in December reversed some, but not all, of November’s surge and left sales up by 14% over 2017 as a whole. A strong labour market, and the shortage of existing homes for sale, is supporting the demand for new homes. …
25th January 2018
Existing home sales dropped by 3.6% m/m in December, reversing much of November’s surprise jump. That left sales up a marginal 1.1% over 2017, and just 2.6% over the past two years. The lack of inventory is the prime cause of that lacklustre performance …
24th January 2018
The FHFA reported a moderate 0.4%m/m rise in house prices in November, and the annual growth rate is now at a 10-month low. Despite tight market conditions, active housing demand is being constrained by the lack of choice on the market and tight mortgage …
We are making a change to our regular coverage of house prices, and will now provide a data response on the FHFA house price index, rather than the CoreLogic index. That change reflects both practical concerns with some aspects of the CoreLogic data, and …
23rd January 2018
A proposed change to the Dodd-Frank Act will make it easier for small banks to originate mortgages that meet the Qualified Mortgage standard. In theory, that could lead to the return of mortgages which combine a high debt-to-income ratio and a low credit …
19th January 2018
Housing starts had a poor end to 2017. An 8.2% m/m drop in December meant starts finished the year 6% down compared to a year ago. The single-family sector drove the contraction in starts. But, at the same time, single-family permits reached a 10-year …
18th January 2018
A multifamily construction boom during 2015 and 2016 has boosted apartment vacancy rates, and pushed rental growth to a six-year low. But developers are already scaling back multifamily construction, and absorption rates have stabilised. With rental …
11th January 2018
Home sales enjoyed a strong end to the year, with both new and existing sales now close to 11-year highs. But that boost to sales was not accompanied by any rise in mortgage applications for home purchase, which have made no upward progress over 2017. …
9th January 2018
Mortgage applications for home purchase were flat in December, and have made no upward progress for two years. While there have been signs of life in the home sales data in recent months, the absence of any recovery in mortgage demand suggests housing …
3rd January 2018
House prices continued to rise steadily in November, in both monthly and annual terms. That seems consistent with the exceptionally low levels of inventory, as well as the continued strength of the labour market. Yet despite a strong economic backdrop, …
2nd January 2018
Housing activity is finally showing some signs of life. New home sales and single-family housing starts have both reached 10-year highs, as builders have started to respond to very tight market conditions. However, inventory levels are set to remain very …
22nd December 2017
Existing home sales enjoyed a strong rise in November, with the 5.6% m/m gain taking sales to their highest level in almost 11-years. But that rise has cut inventory levels even further, and it is telling that the first-time buyer share is once again …
20th December 2017
Housing starts rose for the second month in a row in November, with a 3.3% m/m gain pushing them to their highest level since October 2016. Encouragingly, it was the single-family sector which drove the increase, suggesting builders are finally responding …
19th December 2017
Based on the current tax environment, our forecasts for house prices and rents show that buying a median-priced home is better than renting one for any holding period of six years or longer. By making the standard deduction more valuable, the tax bill …
14th December 2017
Home sales are showing signs of life, with both new and existing home sales rising for the second month in a row in October. However, the inventory of homes for sale has continued to decline, and that is hurting buyer sentiment. Mortgage applications for …
12th December 2017
The 2.4% m/m increase in mortgage applications for home purchase in November more than reversed the previous month’s drop. But the bigger picture is that home purchase demand has made no sustained upward progress since the start of 2016. And with …
6th December 2017
Annual house price growth on the CoreLogic measure reached 7.0% in October, marking four consecutive months of gains over 6%. But even as inventory levels have seen further falls, active housing demand has been constrained by the lack of choice on the …
5th December 2017
A boom in apartment construction has helped push the share of 18-24 year olds living with their parents to a six-year low. But, with no corresponding rise in the inventory of affordable homes for sale, there has been no reduction in the share of older …
1st December 2017
