As new home sales prices inflated to a record high – with the median price in April 2021 at $372,400, up 12.6 percent from the prior month and up 20.2 percent year-over-year, the air was let out of the number of sales which dropped 5.9 percent from the prior month according to the latest data …Read more
Fannie Mae and the MBA continued to tweak their monthly forecasts for 2021 and 2022 in the U.S. residential housing and lending markets. The two still diverge on where interest rates are heading. In their May 2021 forecast, Fannie Mae now believes that the conventional, fixed-rate 30-year residential mortgage rate is going to dip slightly …Read more
In the dark and clouds, airplane pilots need to know where they are heading. Fortunately flight instruments lead the way. The same is true in residential markets with monthly updated forecasts by Fannie Mae and the MBA so market professionals do not have to fly blind across the economic landscape. Each month Fannie Mae and …Read more
Each month Fannie Mae and the MBA release forecasts (both quarterly and annual) for housing and related lending. This summarizes their latest outlook as of March 2021. Interest Rates Not only do Fannie Mae and the MBA disagree on where interest rates are heading, they even see different average rates last year in 2020. Fannie …Read more
New home sales rose an estimated 19.3 percent on a seasonally adjusted annualized rate (SAAR) in January 2021 compared to one-year ago, and were up 4.3 percent sequentially from December 2020 according to the United States Census Bureau. Total sales in January 2021 on a SAAR were an estimated 923,000. Median new home price in …Read more
Who knew when reading Charles Dickens’s Tale of Two Cities in high school or college that parts of this classic text were prophetic regarding the impact of the 2020 COVID pandemic? Just as with the Tale of Two Cities, some people are better off (economically speaking) while others are financially devasted. “It was the best …Read more
December 2020 monthly forecasts from Fannie Mae and the MBA show they continue to disagree on where home sales and residential lending volumes are trending for 2021. The divergence is a function of differing expectations regarding interest rates. Interest Rates Interest rates have a profound and material impact on housing affordability. The U.S. hit an …Read more
The latest monthly forecasts from Fannie Mae and the MBA show that the only thing the two agree on is not to agree in 2021 for either interest rates or existing home sales. Each provides a monthly prognosis on the residential housing sector including homes sales, prices, interest rates and lending. Interest Rates Interest rates …Read more
The increased amount of time we are spending at home makes the residence more intrinsically valuable than at any time in people’s lives today. Coupled with record-low interest rates, new and existing home sales and refinance lending volumes continue to grow – with total residential lending now forecast by Fannie Mae to hit a record …Read more
Have been wanting to use the words Smoking Hot regarding real estate since the last downturn in 2008, and finally have a reason: August 2020 new home sales! New home sales came in at a blistering 1.011 million units in August on seasonally adjusted annualized rate (SAAR), up a massive 43.2 percent from the prior …Read more