News in end use

The U.S. Department of Labor is reporting that an additional 281,000 Americans made their initial filing for unemployment benefits during the week ending on Saturday, October 23, 2021 — a decrease of 10,000 from the previous week’s revised level. This is the lowest level for initial job claims since March 14, 2020, when it was 256,000.

According to the latest National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) Housing Trends Report (HTR), the number of prospective buyers looking for a newly built home has declined steadily since reaching 42% in Q4 of 2020. In Q3 of 2021, that number was down to 32%. Of course, when compared to Q1 of 2018, when there were only 15% of prospective buyers looking for a new home, it looks rather substantial.

According to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Application Survey (WMAS), for the week ending October 22, 2021, the Market Composite Index — a measure of mortgage loan application volume — increased 0.3% on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index increased 0.2% compared with the previous week.

The latest Mortgage Banker Association’s (MBA) Forbearance and Call Survey reports that the total number of loans now in forbearance decreased by 7 basis points from 2.28% of servicers’ portfolio volume in the prior week to 2.21% as of October 17, 2021. According to MBA’s estimate, 1.1 million homeowners are in forbearance plans.

The U.S. Census Bureau and the Deptartment of Housing and Urban Development jointly announced on Tuesday (10-26-21) that new residential single-family home sales for September 2021 were at a SAAR of 800,000, according to estimates. This is 14.0% above the revised August rate of 702,000.

The Conference Board, a non-partisan, not-for-profit think tank founded in 1916, released today (10-26-21) their Consumer Confidence Index® (CCI) for October 2021. The CCI increased in October, following decreases in August July and June. The Index now stands at 113.8 (1985=100), up from 109.8 in September.

According to the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price NSA Index, which covers all nine U.S. Census divisions, reported today (10-26-21) that home prices experienced a 19.8% annual gain in August 2021, unchanged from July. The 10-City Composite annual increase came in at 18.6% down from 19.1% in the previous month.

According to the latest Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) House Price Index (HPI®), U.S. house prices increased month-over-month 1.0% in August. House prices increased 18.5% from August 2020 to August 2021. The previously reported 1.4% price change for July 2021 remained unchanged.

The Remodeling Futures Program at The Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University released on Thursday (10-21-21) their Leading Indicator of Remodeling Activity (LIRA) Report. According to the LIRA, strong growth in home improvement and maintenance expenditures is expected to continue over the coming year.

A closer look at the September 2021 Job Openings and Labor Turnover (JOLTS) report by state reveals that across the 48 states which reported construction sector jobs data — which includes both residential as well as non-residential construction — 30 states reported an increase in September compared to August, while 16 states lost construction sector jobs.