MARKET UPDATE

Pending Home Sales (an index of contracts signed on existing homes) went up 0.5% in September. This indicates a modest boost in existing home sales come October.

But September New Home Sales skidded down 5.5%, to a 553,000 annual rate. Yet the trend stays upward ...

MARKET UPDATE

Hurricane Florence blew September Housing Starts down 13.7% in the South, though they were up 3.8% in the rest of the country. So, starts overall slipped 5.3%, to a 1.201 million annual rate.

The National Association of Home Builders chairman noted their confidence index ...

MARKET UPDATE

Fannie Mae's Home Purchase Sentiment Index (HPSI) slipped a tick overall in September, though the share of respondents who say now is a good time to buy rose by 5%.

The ADP and Moody's Analytics National Employment Report revealed 34,000 construction jobs were added to ...

MARKET UPDATE

Realtor.com reports 465,000 new listings hit the market in September, up 8% from the year before, the largest annual gain in five years. The hot sales pace left inventory flat, but it's expected to increase soon.

Prices are already beginning to moderate, as the August ...

MARKET UPDATE

New Home Sales went up 3.5% in August, though most of the gain came from a downward revision to July. Yet the trend is higher: sales the first eight months of this year are up 6.8% from the same period in 2017.

But Pending Homes Sales ...

MARKET UPDATE

After a slow June and July, Housing Starts shot up 9.2% in August, to a 1.282 million annual rate. And single-family starts are up 5.7% for the first eight months of 2018 compared to the same period last year.

Existing Home Sales held steady in ...

MARKET UPDATE

Black Knight reports that in Q2 this year, tappable equity for homeowners with mortgages passed $6 trillion for the first time in history. And this happened even with the recent slowdown in home price growth.

Freddie Mac's chief economist thinks the "spectacular stretch of solid job gains ...

MARKET UPDATE

Construction spending in July landed a healthy 5.8% above where it was a year ago. In line with this, the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) pegged builder confidence at a still high 67.

The NAHB Chairman explained, "builders continue to report strong demand for new housing ...

MARKET UPDATE

The Pending Home Sales index edged down 0.7% in July, but this was after a 1.0% jump in June. Some economists say these numbers point to a small gain in August existing home sales.

The Case-Shiller Home Price Index rose 0.3% in June. But First ...

MARKET UPDATE

New Home Sales slid 1.7% in July to a 627,000 yearly rate, off for the second straight month. But the housing recovery holds: sales for the first seven months of 2018 are up a healthy 7% over 2017.

Existing Home Sales slipped 0.7% in July ...