Filtered by Subscriptions: US Housing Use setting US Housing
March’s decline in existing home sales probably reflects the normal month by month volatility rather than renewed underlying weakness. The increase in households’ confidence in the outlook for the housing market, coupled with a gradual improvement in the …
19th April 2012
The UK has now experienced about four years of below-average productivity growth. We remain sceptical that this means that productivity growth has been permanently damaged. So we still think that a significant rebound is likely at some point. But in the …
17th April 2012
The lack of a significant rise in lumber prices does not suggest that the nascent improvement in housing starts will soon fizzle out. The volume of lumber being transported by railroad has a much stronger relationship with homebuilding and it’s consistent …
13th April 2012
The $20,000 increase in the average loan size that mortgage applicants are seeking from lenders over the past three months may be an early sign that buyer confidence is improving. This should provide further support to home sales. Taken together with the …
11th April 2012
There’s no doubt that mortgage lending standards remain tight. But there are some tentative signs that banks might be becoming a bit more willing to lend. This is a crucial development that will support the budding housing market recovery. … Are …
5th April 2012
Coming hot on the heels of the slightly more encouraging mortgage applications numbers released this morning, the small rise in the CoreLogic measure of house prices in February is another sign that the housing market is starting to pull itself out of the …
4th April 2012
It’s too early to conclude that March’s increase in mortgage applications for home purchase is the start of an upward trend. But the sharp rise in average loan size certainly seems consistent with an increasing appetite for mortgage credit. … Mortgage …
Principal reductions on mortgages held by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would herald a policy initiative that directly addresses one of the biggest problems facing the housing market. It won’t solve the foreclosure problem in one fell swoop, but it certainly …
30th March 2012
The stabilisation in Case-Shiller house prices in January adds to other evidence that the housing market is on the mend. We expect that 2012 will go down in history as the year that the most severe house price crash on record ended. … Case-Shiller House …
27th March 2012
The further fall in new home sales in February was probably driven by the unwinding of the boost to sales activity from the recent unseasonably warm weather. We expect continued employment growth and a slight easing in credit conditions to re-establish a …
23rd March 2012
The 0.9% m/m fall in existing home sales in February suggests that the boost from the good weather has started to fade. But strong demand from investors and a growing willingness of banks to lend means that sales will edge higher throughout the year. … …
21st March 2012
The slight fall in housing starts in February leaves the recent upward trend broadly intact. Housing starts should rise further later this year on the back of continued employment growth and an improvement in housing demand. … Housing Starts …
20th March 2012
There are two reasons why a rise in mortgage rates won’t threaten the housing recovery. First, mortgage rates can rise only so far when tighter monetary policy is still years away. Second, even if rates were to rise back towards more normal levels, …
19th March 2012
Concerns that a housing market recovery is not possible when prices are falling misses the crucial point that prices lag changes in demand and supply by up to six months. Make no mistake; a housing recovery is well underway. The only question is how …
15th March 2012
The latest data brought tentative signs that the stabilisation in house prices that we have been expecting may now be happening. In January, our seasonally adjusted measure of the CoreLogic index rose by 0.9% m/m. Admittedly, an earlier rise in April 2011 …
14th March 2012
The statement released after today's FOMC meeting included a slightly more upbeat assessment of the economic outlook, but the Fed can hardly be accused of acting as a cheerleader for the recovery. Nevertheless, we suspect that the improvement evident in …
13th March 2012
We’ve been expecting house prices to stop falling soon and January’s CoreLogic index provided the first tentative sign that this is happening. But the continued weakness of mortgage applications highlights that there is little chance of significant and …
7th March 2012
Lingering constraints on demand and the overhang of foreclosures mean that the healing of the housing market will be a long and gradual process, but it does at least appear to be underway. Home sales and homebuilding will continue to edge higher, while …
6th March 2012
Although the rate at which house prices are falling accelerated at the end of last year, it may only be a few more months before the decline seen over the last five years comes to an end. We expect prices will be broadly unchanged this year and next. … …
28th February 2012
The Administration’s housing policies are still not adequately addressing the fact that housing supply is too high and that demand is too low. The new details of the plan to sell REOs to investors to rent out suggest the scheme might not be as effective …
The new homes market is finally benefitting from the recent improvement in housing demand. But with new homes only available at an extremely high premium relative to existing homes, the recovery in new sales will be more muted than for existing sales. … …
24th February 2012
The 4.3% m/m rise in existing home sales in January is not quite as encouraging as it first appears given that it comes at the expense of a 5.0% downward revision to the previous month’s figures. The upshot is that the number of sales in January was …
22nd February 2012
The decline in mortgage delinquencies in the fourth quarter is another positive development for the housing market, but the foreclosure pipeline remains full to bursting. If the robo-signing settlement revives the foreclosure machine and results in more …
16th February 2012
January’s housing starts data support our view that homebuilders are shaking off the shackles of the last five years and are beginning to contribute to GDP growth. That said, the housing sector is currently not big enough to set the economy alight. … …
The latest rise in the NAHB homebuilder activity index suggests that housing starts began the year on the front foot. We think that growing investment demand will prompt homebuilders to increase significantly construction of multi-family units in 2012. …
15th February 2012
The rise in home sales in each of the three months to December is the clearest sign yet that a modest housing market recovery is underway. The fact that mortgage approvals are still subdued, however, is a bit of a puzzle, especially when jobs growth is …
9th February 2012
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 …
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
