News in end use

Freddie Mac’s Economic and Housing Research Group is reporting that they are seeing lots of positives in the current economic environment. The company’s quarterly forecast points to the increasing availability of COVID-19 vaccines and the easing of virus-related restrictions, the passage of the American Rescue plan, and its cash stimulus for households as setting the stage for economic growth and sending consumer confidence to a post pandemic high in March.

According to the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA), Canadian national home sales set another all-time record in March 2021 as an increased supply of homes became available. CREA is reporting that national homes sales increased month-over-month basis by 5.2%.

The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) / Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI) reports that strong buyer demand pushed builder confidence in the market for newly built single-family homes up 1-point to a reading of 83.

Freddie Mac has released its Primary Mortgage Market Survey (PMMS) for the week ending April 15, 2021. The PMMS reports that the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 3.04% with an average 0.7 point, down from last week when it averaged 3.13%.

The U.S. Department of Labor is reporting that an additional 576,000 Americans made their initial filing for unemployment benefits during the week ending on Saturday April 10, 2021 — a decrease of 193,000 from the previous week’s revised level.

According to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Application Survey, for the week ending April 9, 2021, the Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, decreased -3.7% on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index decreased -3% compared with the previous week.

Redfin, the Seattle-based, technology powered real estate brokerage is reporting that for the 4-week period ending on April 4, 2021, the median home-sale price has increased year-over-year (y-o-y) 17% to $338,225, setting yet another new all-time record high. The asking prices of newly listed homes rose 16% y-o-y, to $ 351,851, an all-time high, but were flat from the four-week period ending March 28, 2021.

The latest Mortgage Banker Association’s (MBA) Forbearance and Call Survey reports that the total number of loans now in forbearance decreased by 24 basis points from 4.90% of servicers’ portfolio volume in the prior week to 4.66% as of April 4, 2021. According to MBA’s estimate, 2.3 million homeowners are in forbearance plans.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is reporting that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) increased 0.6% in March, on a seasonally adjusted basis, after rising 0.4% in February and 0.3% in January.

The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), one of the largest small business associations in the U.S., is reporting that their NFIB Small Business Optimism Index rose 2.4 points in March to a reading of 98.2. March’s reading is the first return to the historical reading since last November.