Monday, October 15, 2012

Housing continues to improve but...

Corelogic released their latest assessment of the housing market last Friday. Some takeaways include...

Key findings in the October MarketPulse Report include:
  • The 2012 housing recovery is expected to be more durable than in prior years because of an improved balance between supply and demand. Given the solid performance of home prices in the spring of 2012, even a stronger-than-projected decline in the fourth quarter of this year is unlikely to diminish the gains made.
  • According to CoreLogic estimates, new home sales are up 24 percent over a year ago and existing home sales are up 11 percent over a year ago. This demand is fundamentally driven by institutional investor interest in single-family residential properties as an asset class, pent up demand returning to the market, and increasing consumer confidence in housing.
  • About a million borrowers are still unable to access refinancing programs. This is due in part to the inability of a large number of borrowers to take advantage of lower interest rate refinancing on loans originated after May 2009, despite efforts by the Federal Reserve and Federal Housing Administration to implement policies aimed at lessening mortgage debt for struggling borrowers since the start of the U.S. housing recession.

It has been my thesis that the housing is recovering, or at the very least coming off the bottom. This is just further evidence to that.

That said, I found the following chart in the detailed Corelogic report very interesting.
 
This is not the easiest chart to read, but if you want to see the original it can be found here. What is interesting here is that this chart shows that despite all efforts to the contrary, most homeowners continue to hold mortgages with above market rates. To me this suggests there is a large overhang of potential home sellers, that will likely act to subdue any significant home price appreciation as markets improve. In addition, it should lead you to question the latest efforts of the Federal Reserve.


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