Eye On Housing
Author Archives
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Nonrevolving Debt Surges
The Federal Reserve’s latest G.19 Consumer Credit Report shows rising trends in consumer credit, excluding loans secured by real estate, through August 2019. In August, consumer credit increased at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.3 percent from the previous month, with revolving debt1 decreasing by 2.2% and nonrevolving debt2 increasing by 7.8%. Consumer credit totaled $4.1 trillion on a… Read More ›
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Mortgage Activity Posts Solid Year-over-Year Gains
The Mortgage Bankers’ Association’s latest Weekly Application Survey, for the week ending September 27, 2019, showed sharp increases in the year-over-year gains in purchasing and refinancing activity of all mortgages, of 9.6% and 132.9%, respectively (seasonally adjusted). Throughout most of the current year since mid-March, refinancing activity on a year-over-year basis has been particularly strong this year, holding steady from… Read More ›
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Outlying Areas Show Most Home Building per Capita
When NAHB’s Home Building Geography Index (HBGI) was introduced, it allocated county single- and multifamily permits into seven regions based on population densities. These regions are representative of different types of housing markets in the United States. New work in this post offers a per capita analysis of the HBGI regionals, which corroborates earlier findings of market share and growth… Read More ›
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Real Estate’s Market Value Shows Minimal Growth in Q2 2019
The recently released Federal Reserve’s Z.1 Financial Accounts of the United States report (formerly known as the Flow of Funds report) shows the latest transactions in households’ balance sheets as they occurred in the second quarter of 2019. The growth in the market values of homes in the U.S. grew less proportionately to the growth in mortgages taken on them… Read More ›
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Exurbs Lead Apartment Construction Gains in the Second Quarter
The second quarter of 2019’s recent permit data shed new light on NAHB’s Home Building Geography Index (HBGI), not only in manufacturing, which is its newest cut, but also in its first vein of analysis, a population density-based delineation of all the counties in the U.S., known as regions. New permits for multifamily dwellings have historically been the highest in… Read More ›
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Mortgage Refinancing Activity Dips But Still Strong
In the most recent wave of mortgage activity for the week ending September 6, 2019, the Mortgage Bankers Association’s latest Weekly Application Survey showed a continuing decline in interest rates, notably, the 30-year fixed rate mortgage to 3.49% on a non-seasonally adjusted basis. The Market Composite Index, which measures mortgage loan application volume, increased 2% on a seasonally adjusted basis… Read More ›
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Revolving Debt Increases Significantly in Latest Consumer Credit Report
The Federal Reserve’s latest G.19 Consumer Credit Report shows rising trends in consumer credit, excluding loans secured by real estate, through July 2019. In July, consumer credit increased at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 7 percent, the largest monthly percentage gain in its category in a year. Consumer credit totaled $4.1 trillion on a seasonally adjusted basis, with $1.1… Read More ›
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Multifamily Regional Market Shares Show Variation from First Quarter
The National Association of Home Builders’ Home Building Geography Index (HBGI) tracks the markets of single-family and multifamily residential construction and their recovery following the Great Recession. In the first quarter of 2019, the first “cut” of the HBGI was introduced, which was an urban density-based delineation of the housing market into seven geographical “regions”. The first quarter HBGI analysis… Read More ›
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Single-Family Gains Limited to Rural Areas and Exurbs: 2Q19 HBGI
When NAHB’s Home Building Geography Index (HBGI) was unveiled, it examined construction along a population density-based delineation of U.S. counties into such geographies as suburbs, exurbs, rural areas, etc. The second quarter release introduces a new geography, manufacturing areas, while updating the first regional tracking, as described here. Of the seven “regions” of the HBGI, only exurbs and rural areas… Read More ›
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Home Construction in Manufacturing Areas Weakened after 2017 Strength
The second quarter 2019 edition of the NAHB Home Building Geography Index (HBGI) introduces a new analysis of residential construction in manufacturing-intensive areas, in addition to updating trends for previously-defined areas of the exurbs, suburbs and rural markets. The HBGI data find that manufacturing areas experienced above-trend growth for single-family construction in 2017, followed by declines in 2019 as the… Read More ›