Category: US Housing
The analysis published under this category are as follows.
Friday, June 03, 2011
How to Fix the U.S. Housing Market / Housing-Market / US Housing
By: Money_Morning
Shah Gilani writes:
If this week's economic reports showed us anything, it's the fact that two years into what's supposed to be an economic recovery, the U.S. housing market remains on life support.
But here's what those reports didn't tell you: If the housing market isn't fixed soon, it's going to drag the rest of the economy down into a hellish bottom that will take years, if not decades, to crawl out of.
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Wednesday, June 01, 2011
Case Shiller Home Price Index Confirms U.S. Housing Market Concern / Housing-Market / US Housing
By: Asha_Bangalore
The seasonally adjusted Case-Shiller Home Price Index of 20 metro areas slipped 0.2% in March. This is the ninth consecutive monthly decline after the index posted gains in the second-half of 2009 and first-half of 2010. The temporary gain of the Case-Shiller Home Price Index was largely due to the first-time home buyer program which expired in April 2010.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Rebound of New U.S. Home Sales is Impressive, But Level Remains Close to Record Low / Housing-Market / US Housing
By: Asha_Bangalore
Sales of new single-family homes rose 7.3% to an annual rate of 323,000 in April after an 8.3% increase in March. The record low sales mark of new single-family homes is 278,000 seen in August 2010 (see Chart 1). Essentially, sales of new homes continue to bounce around the record low reading after seven quarters of economic growth.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
U.S. Housing Market Starts Continue to Hover Around Cycle Low / Housing-Market / US Housing
By: Asha_Bangalore
Housing starts fell 10.6% to an annual rate of 523,000 in April. Construction of single-family homes (-5.1%) and multi-family homes (-24.1%) declined in April. Starts of both total and single-family units (394,000) in April are little different from the cycle low (see Chart 1). Starts of new homes fell in the Northeast (-4.8%) and South (-23%) but advanced in the Midwest (+15.7%) and the West (+3.7%). The large supply of unsold homes and distressed properties continues to hold down construction of new homes.
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Tuesday, May 17, 2011
US and UK Housing Market Outlook / Housing-Market / US Housing
By: John_Hampson
House prices globally tend to follow cycles lasting around 16 years: patterns of 12 years of rises followed by 4 years of declines (at a steeper rate than the rises). With US house prices having peaked in 2006 and UK house prices 2007, cycles suggest a new bull market should now emerge. So do historical measures support this?
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
U.S. Housing Market is Still Sick / Housing-Market / US Housing
By: John_Mauldin
Everyone is curious about the state of housing in the US. My friend Gary Shilling recently did a lengthy issue on housing as it is today. I asked him to give us a shorter version for Outside the Box, and he graciously did. And you want to know what Gary thinks, because he is one of the guys who really got it right early, from subprime to the bubble and the price collapse, and has been right all along. No one is better. This very readable edition is full of charts and fast reasoning.
Friday, May 13, 2011
US Housing Market Final Stage (REO) Foreclosures Target Six Million By 2014 / Housing-Market / US Housing
By: Andrew_Butter
A Bank Repossession (REO) is the final stage of the foreclosure process that typically requires three foreclosure notices in USA. The REO is the point at which the bank throws you out on the street; but when the media report “X” many foreclosure filings in a month, that’s a mix of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd (final) stages.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
U.S. Housing Market and GDP Economic Growth / Housing-Market / US Housing
By: Tony_Pallotta
Housing as a percent of GDP peaked in 1980 at 19%. In 2005 as the housing bubble was set to pop it represented 18.5%. Today it stands at 15%, still a large piece of the economy.
The part that is not measured (not sure it can be) is housing's impact on overall economic demand through the wealth affect. If someone is confident in the value of their home for example they are willing to invest in an addition or a remodel for example.
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Wednesday, April 27, 2011
U.S. Housing Market Crisis Crazy Statistics / Housing-Market / US Housing
By: Chris_Kitze
End of the American Dream writes: Has the U.S. housing market reached a "bottom" yet? Are home prices going to start recovering? Is the housing crisis going to end at some point? Today there are millions of American families that would like to buy homes but they are not sure what to do. After all, nobody wants to end up like all the suckers that bought at the top of the market and now owe far more on their mortgages then their homes are worth. A lot of people are really afraid to take out home loans right now. So should you buy a home in 2011? That is a very good question.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
The Inside Out World of U.S. Home Mortgages / Housing-Market / US Housing
By: Douglas_French
Nothing perks up the spirits like the coming of spring. Flowers are blooming and the birds are singing. The winter thaw is finally complete for most of the nation. But while yards are starting to bloom, home values are still dormant. The median sales price of a home in the United States has dropped to just over $159,000, the lowest level since 2002.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
U.S. Home Sales Climb, But Level Remains Close to Record Low Mark / Housing-Market / US Housing
By: Asha_Bangalore
Sales of existing single-family homes increased 11.1% to an annual rate of 300,000 units in March after an upwardly revised reading for February (270,000 vs. 250,000 in earlier report). The largest gain in sales of single-family homes was registered in the Northeast (+66.7%) followed by the West (+25.9%) and Midwest (+12.9%) and a virtually unchanged level in the South.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
U.S. Existing Homes Sales Data Continues to Suggest Soft Conditions in Housing Market / Housing-Market / US Housing
By: Paul_L_Kasriel
Much like housing starts, existing home sales also posted a small gain in March. But, the bottom line is that housing starts and existing home sales are hovering close to cycle lows and sustained gains to push readings noticeably above cycle lows have not occurred, as yet. New home sales numbers for March will be published on April 25, 2011.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
U.S. Housing Market Foreclosure Chinese Water Torture / Housing-Market / US Housing
By: Douglas_French
The real-estate bust continues at a pace akin to Chinese water torture. Home prices peaked five years ago, but a mountain of foreclosures still looms. RealtyTrac reports that filings rose 7 percent in March from the previous month but are down 35 percent from March of last year, when RealtyTrac recorded the highest number of default filings since the company started in boom-time 2005. Foreclosure filings for the entire first quarter fell to a three-year low.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
U.S. Housing Market Starts, Small Gain, But is Step in Right Direction / Housing-Market / US Housing
By: Asha_Bangalore
Housing starts rose 7.2% to an annual rate of 549,000 in March following an 18.5% drop in the prior month. In the first quarter, total housing starts have risen at an annualized pace of 23.2%. Single-family starts moved up 7.7% to an annual rate of 422,000 in March. However, on a quarterly basis, starts of single-family units have dropped nearly 18%, which indicates that the entire gain in the first quarter came from multi-family starts. These numbers suggest that residential investment expenditure most likely made a small positive contribution to real GDP in the first quarter. The current level of housing starts is still down nearly 77% from the peak reading in January 2006 (1.823 million units).
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Friday, April 08, 2011
Falling U.S. House Prices Could Restrain Economic Recovery / Housing-Market / US Housing
By: Money_Morning
David Zeiler writes:
With the latest data pointing to a double-dip in home prices, it has become increasingly clear that the wobbly economic recovery won't be getting any help from the housing sector.
Existing home sales in February sank 9.6% from the previous month, while prices fell 5.2% to a median of $156,000, the lowest since April 2002. Existing homes comprise 90% of the housing market.
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Saturday, April 02, 2011
U.S. Housing Market Will Remain a Government Program / Housing-Market / US Housing
By: Neeraj_Chaudhary
Recently, the Obama Administration seemed to flash a rare sign of laissez-faire thinking when it issued a report calling for the "winding down" of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two taxpayer-guaranteed institutions now responsible for backing at least 90% of the US mortgage market. In its press release, the Administration acknowledged that the private sector should be the "primary source of mortgage credit," and that their goal is to "bring private capital back to the mortgage market."
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Thursday, March 31, 2011
U.S. Housing Market Continues to Bleed / Housing-Market / US Housing
By: Mike_Whitney
The collapse in housing prices is gaining pace proving that the Fed's bond purchasing program (QE2) has been an utter failure. While liquidity sloshes around in the equities markets, the distress on Main Street is more excruciating than ever. The release of the Case-Shiller index of property values on Tuesday, confirmed analysts worst fears, that the decline in prices is accelerating on the downside further weakening household balance sheets, wiping out precious home equity, and thrusting working class families back into the red.Read full article... Read full article...
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Economic Depression in America: U.S. Housing Markets Double Dip / Housing-Market / US Housing
By: Mike_Whitney
The housing market is now in full retreat. This week, the Commerce Department reported that sales of new homes plunged nearly 17 percent in February to a 250,000 annual pace. That's a record low. At the same time, the median price fell 8.9 percent from February of last year. The news comes on the heels of Monday's equally-dismal report that showed existing home sales dropped 9.6 percent in February. These are Depression era stats and builders know it which is why they're unloading homes as cheaply as possible. It's been 5 years since housing prices peaked in July 2006, and the market is still nowhere near the bottom. In fact, the rate of decline is accelerating. This is shaping up to be the worst spring in history.
Friday, March 25, 2011
Housing Market Double Dip and Economic Growth / Housing-Market / US Housing
By: Tony_Pallotta
Economic data continues to reinforce the reality that a housing double dip has in fact begun. Were it not for the 2010 tax credits there would likely have just been one dip and we would be further along the process of clearing supply than we are today. Regardless, it is here and the question then becomes what, if any impact will it have on economic growth.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
U.S. New Home Sales Plunge, Gains From First-Time Home Buyer Program Nearly Erased / Housing-Market / US Housing
By: Asha_Bangalore
Sales of new single-family homes fell 16.9% to an annual rate of 250,000 in February, a new historical low for home sales. Sales of new single family homes have plunged 82% since the peak in July 2005 (1.389 million homes, see Chart 1). Sales of new single-family homes declined in all four regions of the nation, with the Northeast recording the largest drop (-57%).