News in end use

Redfin, the Seattle-based technology-powered real estate brokerage, is reporting that in July the median price of a home sold was up nearly 20% year-over-year to a new all-time record high of $385,000. July was the 12th consecutive month of double-digit price gains, which is significant because a year ago the housing market was already in a strong growth phase, after pausing briefly at the onset of the pandemic.

According to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) National Delinquency Survey (NDS) for Q2 of 2021, the delinquency rate for mortgage loans on one-to-four-unit residential properties decreased to a seasonally adjusted rate of 5.47% of all loans outstanding. The delinquency rate was down 91 basis points from the Q1 of 2021 and down 275 basis points from one year ago.

According to the results released by the National Association of Home Builders’ (NAHB) Multifamily Market Survey (MMS), confidence in the market for new multifamily housing decreased in Q2 of 2021. The Multifamily Production Index (MPI), which was generated from the survey dropped 3-points to a reading of 48 compared to the previous quarter.

The Conference Board, which was founded in 1916 as a non-partisan, not-for-profit think tank, released today (8-19-21) their July 2021 Leading Economic Index® (LEI) for the U.S. According to the release, the LEI (which is based on ten separate components) increased by 0.9% in July to 116.0 (2016 = 100), following a 0.5% increase in June and a 1.2% increase in May.

Freddie Mac has released its Primary Mortgage Market Survey (PMMS) for the week ending August 19, 2021. The PMMS reports that 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 2.86% with an average 0.7 point, down slightly from last week when it averaged 2.87%. A year ago, at this time, the 30-year FRM averaged 2.99%.

The Federal National Mortgage Association, commonly known as Fannie Mae, today (8-19-21) revised their forecast for 2021 real gross domestic product (GDP) lower, from 7.0% to 6.3% on a Q4/Q4 basis, with a partial offsetting upgrade to the 2022 expected growth rate to 3.2% from 2.8%.

The U.S. Department of Labor is reporting that an additional 348,000 Americans made their initial filing for unemployment benefits during the week ending on Saturday, August 14, 2021. This is a decrease of 29,000 from the previous week’s revised level and the lowest level for initial claims since March 14, 2020, when it was 256,000.

The U.S. Census Bureau has reported that privately‐owned housing starts in July were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR) of 1,534,000. This is -7.0% below the revised June rate of 1,650,000 but is 2.5% above the July 2020 rate of 1,497,000.

Statistics Canada (StatsCan) reported today (8-18-21) that the Canadian Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased 3.7% on a year-over-year basis in July, up from a 3.1% rise in June. Excluding gasoline, the CPI rose 2.8% year-over-year.

According to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Application Survey (WMAS), for the week ending August 13, 2021, the Market Composite Index (a measure of mortgage loan application volume) decreased -3.9% on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index decreased -4% compared with the previous week.