The Census Bureau is seemingly out to prove the point that monthly variations in home sales data are really meaningless. Downward revisions after last month’s curious “surge” in new home sales place the trend right back in the rut it has exhibited for a year and a half now. Given that single family home construction has likewise stagnated, the revisions [...]
The long-awaited “clarification” in GSE housing expansion is about due, and coincidentally it will be released at the same time other central agents are getting their work done. So as the global economy falls into at least a changed mood out of complacency and disinterest, suddenly the ECB has its covered bond “purchase” finalized (as if that is any different [...]
I want to believe markets are efficient and incorporate "all" the possible permutations as best as possible, but I don't think that is the case under current conditions. Whatever efficiency there has been, or whatever may have been exhibited in the past, was degraded by financial engineering, and not just interest rate targeting by the Fed and other central bank [...]
Since mortgage applications to purchase a home peaked back in June, it would make sense that home sales would follow a similar approach and pattern with enough lag. Not only are purchase applications down, they are back at the same low level that vexed the home market earlier this year – and this time without the “obvious” excuse of weather-forlorn [...]
Another month, another instance where supposed “tight” supply and high home prices fail to register any significant change in home construction. Construction figures for August bear little resemblance to the idea that anything other than monetary interference is responsible for the mini-bubble in activity. Further, August represents another month’s worth of confirmation, despite any and all volatility in the data [...]
With the main flow of housing data a few weeks off, there is more discouraging news in the area of housing finance. Despite the retracement of interest rates, the 30-year conventional fixed in particular, since last year’s dramatic rout has done absolutely nothing toward re-establishing volumes consistent with the interim mini-bubble of 2011-12. With every week that passes under these [...]
If there had been an actual recovery delivered as it was intended, promised and offered, the idea of inequality would be an afterthought in an otherwise prosperous age. Inequality, however defined, is a necessary feature of a dynamic economic system. We want inequality because that defines opportunity. A healthy economic system produces disparities due to prices, risk and value. Such [...]
I often stand in amazement at what passes for conventional wisdom, or more precisely what is being attempted as such. Only one year ago the tendency to view the housing market as the next great growth engine was ubiquitous all across economic commentary. It had “clearly” and “unarguably” turned from a maddening headwind to a comforting tailwind. More than a [...]
The depressed level of existing home sales throughout 2014 so far continued into April despite all projections of pent up demand after a cold and wintry start. There was some growth in the month-to-month change of the seasonally adjusted figures, but even there the clear problem that has been evident since mortgage finance collapsed starkly remains. While it may be [...]
The latest home construction figures confirm both the durability of the downward trend and the theory that policymakers are getting nervous to the point of addressing it through additional measures. First, though, we need to sort out the noisy pieces. The data in multi-family construction is extremely volatile, so paying attention only to the month-to-month changes is highly misleading. The [...]
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