US homebuilders haven’t been this happy since the dot-com era. Not even the housing mania of the mid-2000’s had builders feeling this good about things. According to the National Association of Homebuilders (NAHB), the trade group that represents firms in the industry, their sentiment index registered a blistering 74 in December 2017. Predictably, that’s got a lot of people excited [...]
New home sales rose almost 20% in September 2017 from August 2017. In just the one month, the pace of sales surged from a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 561k to 667k. The latter monthly estimate was the highest since 2007, therefore much is being made of that comparison. As usual, it’s a false one. Given the scale of the housing [...]
Housing construction continues to slow in 2017, dragged down by fewer multi-family projects. Total permits and starts have essentially flatlined since 2015, a further slowdown from one already slowdown. The single-family market is still growing but at a historically tepid pace, leaving the pace of construction overall to be dictated by weakness in apartment development. In September 2017, new permits [...]
For the second consecutive month, the Census Bureau estimates that sales of newly constructed homes fell year-over-year as well as month-over-month. The data provided by the National Association of Realtors (NAR) for the resale market suggests there isn’t nearly enough supply of homes for sale. Other estimates also published by Census Bureau (permits/starts) declare again that builders aren’t building new [...]
The National Association of Realtor (NAR) reports today that sales of existing homes in the US were down 1.7% in August 2017 from July. At a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 5.35 million, that’s the lowest pace for resales since July 2016. It is yet another data point reflecting the almost certain end of “reflation” in the economic sense. The NAR [...]
Housing construction has cooled off again after a small rebound in activity late last year. Total permits filed in April 2017 was estimated to have been 1.23 million (SAAR), down from 1.26 million in March. Unadjusted, permits were flat year-over-year and remain on average in the low single digits for growth. Despite a reported as well as estimated shortage of [...]
Housing starts unexpectedly fell sharply, for once justifying the use of the description without quotation marks. The decline was concentrated in the multi-family segment. Though apartment construction statistics are highly volatile, this is far beyond the usual wide variation. The seasonally-adjusted annual rate had been above 400k each of the prior three months, so to suddenly tank to just 250k [...]
In yet another data point that identifies depression rather than a Great Recession, the Wall Street Journal reported last week what most people outside the economics profession had realized a long time ago. Janet Yellen likes to say that the housing market is recovering, highlighting the economic sector as one of the few bright spots left. The FOMC regularly and [...]
The June 2016 FOMC statement included an admission that the labor market might not have been quite as unassailable as had been thought dating back to 2014. That was likely the reason for the assumed change in stance, as even KC Fed President Esther George was unable to bring herself (LINK HERE) to vote against sticking with the 25 – [...]
Home construction estimates continue to suggest the same kinds of economic imbalances unchanged from last year. While construction of single family homes had been rising, that increase was not nearly as widespread and voluminous to indicate that the real estate market had been restored by full economic restoration (jobs, jobs, jobs). Apartment construction, on the other hand, has been scaled [...]
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