The count of open, unfilled jobs for the overall economy increased in September, rising from 10.3 million open positions to 10.71 million. This represents a small increase from a year ago (10.67 million). This increase occurs despite signs of a slowing economy amidst aggressive monetary policy tightening by the Fed. The hotter than expected labor…
Rising mortgage rates approaching 7% along with declining builder sentiment stemming from stubbornly high construction costs and weakening consumer demand pushed new-home sales down at a double-digit rate in September. Following a brief uptick in August, sales of newly built, single-family homes in September fell 10.9% to a 603,000 seasonally adjusted annual rate, according to…
Single-family housing starts declined further in September as high mortgage rates, ongoing building material production disruptions and flagging demand stemming from rising affordability challenges continue to put a damper on new home production. Overall housing starts decreased 8.1% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.44 million units in September, according to a report from…
In a further signal that rising interest rates, building material bottlenecks and elevated home prices continue to weaken the housing market, builder sentiment fell for the 10th straight month in October and traffic of prospective buyers fell to its lowest level since 2012, with the exception of two months during the Spring of 2020. Builder…
The count of open, unfilled jobs for the overall economy fell 10% in August, declining from almost 11.2 million to 10.05 million. The decline for open jobs reflects the beginnings of a labor market retreat as the economy slows due to aggressive tightening of monetary policy by the Fed. While the economy continues to face…
A brief decline in mortgage rates helped to boost new home sales in August but sales are expected to move lower in the months ahead as rates have since moved higher and builder sentiment continues to fall due to declining housing affordability and ongoing supply chain bottlenecks. Sales of newly built, single-family homes in August…
Continuing its tightening of financial conditions to bring the rate of inflation lower, the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy committee raised the federal funds target rate by 75 basis points, increasing that target to an upper bound of 3.25%. This marks the third consecutive meeting with an increase of 75 basis points. These supersized hikes are…
