News in end use

Existing home sales increased 9.5% month-over-month in February to a seasonally adjusted rate of 4.38 million, the National Association of Realtors reported.

The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 6.87%, up from last week when it averaged 6.74%, Freddie Mac reported.

The Conference Board’s Leading Economic Index® increased 0.1% in February, following a decline of 0.4% in January.

The advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial unemployment claims was 210,000, a decrease of 2,000 from the previous week.

The Federal Reserve announced it was holding interest rates steady and made no changes to its forecast that it will be necessary to cut rates three times in 2024, Yahoo Finance reported.

Mortgage loan application volume declined 1.6% on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier, the MBA reported.

The Redfin Home Price Index showed that US home prices climbed 0.6% month-over month in February, on par with the average gain in the years leading up to the pandemic.

In 2023Q4, job vacancies in Canada fell by 3.6%, or 25,400, to 678,500. The job vacancy rate decreased 0.1 percentage point to 3.8%.

Privately‐owned housing starts in February were at a SAAR of 1,521,000, 10.7% above the revised January estimate of 1,374,000.

According to the ESR Group, the increase in mortgage rates in February has driven a modest downgrade to expectations for total home sales and mortgage originations in 2024.