The latest noises out of both Fannie and Freddie are for increasing intrusion into housing, which is a sharp departure from where this was all heading (and where it should). The previous GSE administration (Ed DeMarco left in January, replaced by Mel Watts) had left the impression of winding down the troubled firms that have been in conservatorship since the [...]
March household spending in Japan surged by 7.2% Y/Y, the highest spending growth rate since 1975. That level even beat out March 1997, the month before the previous and similar tax hike. Extrapolating from that one number, there is now more hope that the Japanese economy may be able to withstand April’s tax intrusion without an economic disaster like that [...]
The two common themes that have emerged from this morning’s memorably rotten GDP report are weather and Obamacare. You know it is bad when mandatory health insurance purchases coupled with a surge in premiums gets PCE to only 1% below what might be considered weak growth. Beyond that, nearly all of the orthodoxy has declared first quarter GDP to be [...]
Economists blaming weather for the real estate/housing “pause” were cautiously optimistic for March ahead of this week’s housing data windfall. Economists expect that sales rose 2.3 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 450,000 last month, according to a survey by FactSet. New-home buying dipped 3.3 percent in February. Harsh winter storms that month curtailed purchases in the Northeast, [...]
Not much new commentary is needed with the new home sales data from the Census Bureau since analysis of the NAR home sale data last week also applies in full part here. It does bear repeating, however, that the turn in housing is obvious and coincides with the dawn of 2013. No doubt the rapid appreciation in prices played a [...]
The economic hopes for 2014 have been largely concentrated in a few sectors. Monetary authorities have been counting on the historical channel of housing to be one of the continued “bright spots” that would transition finally, after almost five years, into an unambiguous recovery. You always have to be cautious about reading too much into one data point, so it [...]
Joe Calhoun passed along the data for residential remodeling permits (according to the BuildFax Remodeling Index) for November 2013 (latest data available) and it was ugly. Total permits issued were 2,542,000 (seasonally-adjusted annual rate), 20% below October and 18% lower than November 2012. As usual, this "unexpected" decline, actually collapse, had a convenient though not-convincing excuse. "We saw a lower-than-expected [...]
Finally, after several months of delays, the Census Bureau has obtained enough survey information to publish the full picture of real estate construction. And it is historic. Coming on the day when mortgage applications drop to a fifteen year low, the data presented does not disappoint the buildup in suspense. First, though, the pace of the collapse in mortgages is [...]
The housing construction data was delayed purportedly by the government shutdown in October. The expectation was that the September data would be released concurrent with the October data; which itself would be delayed by a few weeks. Given the state of housing uncertainty driven by financial parameters and recent trajectories, these are relatively important statistical updates. Rather than get the [...]
There has been quite a bit of buying interest in the treasury markets the past few days, bringing the 10-year yield back down toward 2.60%. This trend since September 4-5 has only partially retraced the dramatic selloff since early May, but has at least moved the benchmark significantly away from the 3% psychological level. It’s a move that has been [...]
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