News in end use

The University of Michigan today (Friday 7-16-21) released its preliminary Consumer Sentiment Index (CSI) for July. Concerns about rising prices has led to a sharp drop in buying conditions for ‘big-ticket’ items and resulted in the decline. The CSI fell to a five-month low to a reading of 80.8 from 85.5 in June. Consumers expect inflation to rise 4.8% over the next year, the highest since August 2008.

Data released today (7-15-21) by the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) reports that Canadian national home sale decreased -8.4% between May and June 2021. This marks the third straight monthly decline since activity hit an all-time record in March 2021. While sales are now down a cumulative -25% from their peak, and below every other month in the last year, June transactions still managed to set a record for that month.

The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) today (7-15-21) released their Remodeling Market Index (RMI) for Q2 2021. The RMI posted a reading of 87, up 14 points from Q2 of 2020 and a sign of remodelers increasing confidence in their markets, for all size projects.

Freddie Mac has released its Primary Mortgage Market Survey (PMMS) for the week ending July 15, 2021. The PMMS reports that 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 2.88% with an average 0.7 point, down from last week when it averaged 2.90%. A year ago, at this time, the 30-year FRM averaged 2.98%.

The U.S. Department of Labor is reporting that an additional 360,000 Americans made their initial filing for unemployment benefits during the week ending on Saturday, July 10, 2021 — a decrease of 26,000 from the previous week’s revised level and the lowest level for initial claims since March 14, 2020.

Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) reported on Tuesday (7-13-21) that according to its latest ABC member survey conducted between June 20 and July 6, 2021, its Construction Backlog Indicator (CBI) rose to 8.5 months for June. The latest report is 0.5 months higher than the May 2021 report and 0.4 months higher than in June 2020.

According to a recently released report from Redfin, the Seattle-based technology-powered real estate brokerage, the number of offers written by their agents that faced competition declined from 72.1% in May to 65% in June — well below the pandemic peak of 74.1% in April of this year. Nonetheless, that is higher than the 56.6% bidding war rate Redfin saw in June 2020.

Statistics Canada (StatsCan) today (7-14-21) released its flash/early estimate of the Industrial Product Price Index (IPPI) for June 2021. A final release will be issued on July 30, 2021. According to the report, the IPPI decreased by -0.4% month over month in June. However, year-over-year, the index was up 16.2%.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported today (7-14-21) that the Producer Price Index for final demand, seasonally adjusted, increased 1.0% in June. Final demand prices rose 0.8% in May, 0.6% in April, 1.0% in March and 0.5% in February. On an unadjusted basis, the final demand index moved up 7.3% for the 12 months ended in June.

According to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Application Survey, for the week ending July 9, 2021, the Market Composite Index — a measure of mortgage loan application volume, which includes an adjustment for the 4th of July holiday — increased 16.0% on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index decreased -7% compared with the previous week.