Mortgage & Financing, Real Estate Market Reports
Housing Market Update – The Economic Calendar
February 15, 2011 by Monica McNamara · Leave a Comment
The Housing Market Update – The Economic Calendar
Market Summary
With Egypt dominating the news, some significant items of interest to the housing market might have escaped notice. Unfortunately, some of them were on the unpleasant side. Mortgage rates took an upward move across the board with the 30-year breaking the 5% barrier for the first time since the week of May 6th of last year. According to Frank Nothaft, Freddie Mac’s chief economist, a jump in long-term bond yields was the culprit and came about as a result of “positive economic data reports.” Among the positive news was an unexpected drop in the unemployment rate from 9.4% to 9.0%. Several analysts cast some doubt on those figures, claiming they were misleading because many who were unemployed had simply given up looking thus skewing the figure lower. In fact, jobless claims did fall considerably below the forecast level. This week might see a slight fall back in rates (maybe) since long-term bond yields
Date Release Previous
Feb 15 Retail Sales (Jan) +0.6%
Feb 16 Building Permits (Jan) 635K
Feb 16 Housing Starts (Jan) 529K
Feb 16 Producer Prices (Jan) +1.1%
Feb 16 Industrial Production (Jan) +0.8%
Feb 17 Consumer Prices (Jan) +0.5%
Feb 17 Leading Econ. Indicators (Jan) +0.1%
Feb 22 C-S Home Prices (Dec) -1.59%
Feb 23 Existing Home Sales (Jan) 5.280M
Feb 24 New Home Sales (Jan) 329K
Feb 24 Durable Goods Orders (Jan) -2.5%
Freddie Mac Survey Rates*
Wk/End 30YR 15YR 5/1ARM 1YR
Feb 10 5.05% 4.29% 3.92% 3.35%
Feb 3 4.81% 4.08% 3.69% 3.26%
Jan 27 4.80% 4.09% 3.70% 3.26%
Yr. Ago 4.97% 4.34% 4.19% 4.33%
* Does not include points
did ease a bit at the end of last week. Any drop would be slight. On a more positive note, consumer sentiment rose a bit in January and folks charged a lot more than expected in December. It was the third straight month in which consumer debt rose. Consumer spending accounts for about 70% of the economy, so an increase is looked upon as positive. There were two other positives. The service industry rose in January at the fastest pace in almost six years. That spells jobs. Finally, productivity was up by 3.6% for last year, the best since 2002. That helps keeps costs and prices down and lowers the probability of inflation.
Market Analysis
The much-awaited White House plan for Fannie and Freddie was released last Friday and drew very mixed reactions. One news outlet called the two GSEs “toast” while other analysts see any major changes taking quite a while to become reality. Taking a politically cautious route, the Obama Administration wants to “responsibly wind down”
Housing Market Trends
Category Dec 10 Nov 10 Yr.Ago
Housing Starts .529 .553 .576
Building Permits .635 .544 .681
New Home Sales .329 .280 .356
Existing Home Sales 5.280 4.700 5.440
Pvt. Resid. Const.($B) - 235.7 249.0
(In millions annualized)
the two GSEs in order not to “too dramatically” limit access to or increase the cost of mortgage money for most Americans but at the same time not crowd out private capital. One message is clear; Fannie and Freddie’s days are numbered. It’s a question of how many. Over on Capitol Hill, the Chairman of the House GSE Subcommittee, Rep. Scott Garrett, is looking for “immediate steps” Congress can take to reign in Fannie and Freddie. Garrett did seem to imply he wasn’t planning to push for a dramatic demise of the two companies. A five-year phase out seems to have some support.
Go Figure, if You Can
Two economists, two views. NAR’s Lawrence Yun sees banks more willing to lend now that they’ve built up cash reserves. The WSJ looked at a 5.05% rate and says it threatens a fragile housing market.
Thank you to Paul Soule of Coldwell Banker Home Loans for providing this information.
