News in end use

The U.S. Department of Labor is reporting that an additional 744,000 Americans made their initial filing for unemployment benefits during the week ending on Saturday, April 3, 2021 — an increase of 16,000 from the previous week’s revised level.

Freddie Mac has released its Primary Mortgage Market Survey (PMMS) for the week ending April 8, 2021. The PMMS reports that 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 3.13% with an average 0.7 point, down from last week when it averaged 3.18%.

A deeper look into the Bureau of Labor Statistics, February 2021, Job Opening and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) with a focus on the construction sector, provided by the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), reveals that construction job openings declined -3.5% in February, to 266,000 unfilled positions.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported today (Wednesday, April 7, 2021) the Metropolitan Area Employment and Unemployment information for February 2021. According to the BLS, unemployment rates were higher in February than a year earlier in 383 of the 389 metropolitan areas, lower in 4 areas, and unchanged in 2 areas.

According to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Application Survey, for the week ending April 2, 2021, the Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, decreased -5.1% on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index decreased -5% compared with the previous week.

Black Knight Inc. — a provider of innovative, high performance software, data and analytics for the mortgage and home equity lending services — is reporting in their latest Home Price Index (HPI) that home prices in February 2021 were up 11.6%, the highest annual rate in more than 15-years.

The latest Mortgage Banker Association’s (MBA) Forbearance and Call Survey reports that the total number of loans now in forbearance decreased by 6 basis points from 4.96% of servicers’ portfolio volume in the prior week to 4.90% as of March 28, 2021.

According to the JOLTS report, as of the last day in February, the number of job openings edged higher to 7.4 million (+268,000). The Job opening rate was little changed at 4.9%.

Redfin, the Seattle-based, technology powered real estate brokerage is reporting that for the 4-week period ending on March 28, 2021, the median home-sale price has increased, year-over-year (y-o-y) 17% to $335,613, setting another new all-time record high.

Further analysis of the U.S. Census Bureau’s Construction Spending data provided by the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) reveals that total private residential construction spending dropped -0.2% in February 2021 to a seasonally adjust annual rate (SAAR) of $718 billion, down slightly from January’s record high level.