News in end use

Sata from the US Census Bureau’s Starts and Completions by Purpose and Design for Q1, with additional analysis provided by the National Association of Home Builders, shows single-family attached starts totaled 29,000 during Q1.

According to Fannie Mae’s Economic and Strategic Research (ESR) Group’s latest commentary, the ESR is expecting the economy to enter a modest recession in the second half of the year. Unusual dynamics continue to complicate forecasting the exact time.

In March, 388,000 Canadians received regular Employment Insurance (EI) benefits, which is little changed from February’s totals. The number of Canadians collecting EI benefits fell by 141,000, or 26.7%, year-over-year.

The National Association of Realtors® reported that total existing home sales recorded a 3.4% decline in April from March to a seasonally adjusted rate of 4.28 million homes in April. Year-over-year, sales are down 23.2%.

Freddie Mac has released its Primary Mortgage Market Survey® for the week ending May 18th. The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 6.39%, up from last week when it averaged 6.35%. A year ago, the 30-year rate averaged 5.25%.

The Conference Board’s Leading Economic Index® (LEI) declined 0.6% in April to a reading of 107.5 (2016=100) after posting declines of 1.2% in March and 0.5% in February. The LEI has dropped 4.4% over the last six months.

The advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial unemployment claims was 242,000 during the week ending Saturday, May 13th. This is a decrease of 22,000 from the previous week’s unrevised level of 264,000.

Privately‐owned housing starts in April were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,401,000; this is 2.2% above the revised March. Single-family housing starts in April were at a rate of 846,000; this is 1.6% above the revised March figure of 833,000.

Statistics Canada reported that investment in Canadian building construction declined 1.3% to $20.3 billion (CAD) in March. On a constant dollar basis (2012=100), investment in building construction fell 1.8% to $11.5 billion.

The Mortgage Bankers Association’s Market Composite Index—a measure of mortgage loan application volume—declined 5.7% on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index decreased 6.0%.