Eye On Housing
For the week ending September 18, 2020, the Mortgage Bankers Association’s latest Weekly Application Survey showed a jump in application activity, both in purchasing and refinancing, as its Market Composite Index increased 6.8% from the previous week on a seasonally adjusted basis. Most notably, the Purchasing Activity reached its highest level since January 2009, when it was only 5.3% higher…. Read More ›
The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rate has been known to follow, albeit loosely, the 10-year Treasury yield. The latter is a widely tracked economic indicator and serves not only as a sign for the pulse of the U.S. economy, but also as a premium for pricing myriad financial instruments, upon which characteristics specific to the financial instrument are added. As 10-year… Read More ›
As the Mortgage Bankers Association’s 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rate reached a new historic low of 3.3%, sliding down by 8 basis points from the previous week, its benchmark Market Composite Index increased by 8% from the previous week, on a seasonally adjusted basis. Purchase applications increased to the highest level in over 11 years and for the ninth consecutive week…. Read More ›
In the last analysis of NAHB’s Home Building Geography Index (HBGI), single-family construction was shown to be expanding faster in regions of lower population density. The COVID-19-induced public health crisis has added momentum to this trend. Moreover, multifamily residential construction has been on a similar trajectory of growth that intensified in 2019, regardless of the virus impact. Indeed, over the… Read More ›
According to the latest provisional birth report from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the US birth rate fell to its lowest level in 32 years with only 3,788,235 births recorded in 2018. This is 2% down from 2017 and the fourth consecutive annual decline. Birth rates declined for all age groups of women under 35 and only… Read More ›
According to the Federal Reserve Board’s second quarter of 2016 release of its Financial Accounts of the United States report, household holdings of real estate, measured on a not seasonally adjusted basis, totaled $22.290 trillion in the second quarter of 2016, $1.388 trillion higher than its level in the second quarter of 2015, $20.902 trillion. At the same time, home mortgage debt… Read More ›
According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s latest Household Debt and Credit Report, total household debt outstanding rose by $306 billion, 2.7%, between the fourth quarter of 2013 and the fourth quarter of 2014. At the end of 2014 there was $11.8 trillion in household debt outstanding. By virtue of its size, the increase in mortgage debt outstanding… Read More ›
A new research paper from NAHB Economics investigates how immigrants affect US housing demand. The study analyzes recent data from the American Community Survey (ACS) that has detailed information on the country of origin, age, family status and housing choices of newly arrived immigrants. The data show that new immigrants are a young and diverse group of people. More than… Read More ›
With the end of 2011 approaching, the contributors of NAHB’s Eye on Housing thought it would be useful to take a look at the updates that attracted the most readers over the last year. One of the most important stories of 2011 (and 2012) is the growning phenomenom of pent-up housing demand. In February, an NAHB research paper quantified this… Read More ›