U.S. Housing Market News and Resource

U. S. HOUSING INDUSTRY

This site is dedicated to bringing you the latest news and developments in the United States Housing Industry.  The Housing Industry in the United States is one of the key economic indicators and is essential to a healthy economy. By clicking on the pages above you can search Housing Industry news and find information for your local state and city.  We will bring you the information you need to know about the developments in your local real estate market to make the decisions essential to your business in the Housing Industry. We offer information for real estate professionals, Housing Industry participants, non-profit organizations and all other aspects of the Housing Industry. 

THE STATE OF THE U.S. HOUSING INDUSTRY

As we travel across the country there is one question we are asked consistently:  When will this real estate market turn around?  The answer to this question is key to the United States Economy as well as important to decisions effecting businesses and individuals as to expansion and relocation.  While we do not believe that anyone has that answer, there are many different indicators that will clue us into the market turnaround. The links below will give you further insight into Housing and the US Economy.

 

WHEN WILL THE HOUSING MARKET RECOVER IN THE UNITED STATES?

Below we have listed the predictions and timelines from written sources we trust.  As you can see, there is no consensus regarding a specific future date in which we believe the Housing Industry will be fully recovered.  Our objective is to consistently monitor the major sources of housing information to determine a trend in predictions.  If our sources consistently predict 5 years as their average recovery time, and then suddenly we notice that most reliable sources are predicting 3 or 4 years, then we have a significant variance which is very telling as to its predictive value.

REUTERS - November 23, 1011

"U.S. home prices will stagnate through next year and only start recovering in 2013, according to economists polled by Reuters who also felt the stimulus options being floated will not do much to reinvigorate the market."

MORTGAGE BANKER'S ASSOCIATION - January 4, 2012

The MBA said it does not expect any quick rebound in the mortgage market.

"As part of legislation to extend the payroll tax holiday, guarantee fees for loans purchased by the GSEs and mortgage insurance premiums for FHA loans will eventually increase," Michael Fratantoni, MBA's vice president of research and economics, said in a statement. "Given the announced implementation of this change, we do not expect to see an impact on mortgage rates and application activity until at least February."

Bob Moulton, president of Americana Mortgage Group in Manhasset, New York, said the company's pipeline of loan requests is off to a better start in 2012 than the same time a year ago, boosted by refinancing. But caution prevails with a big overhang of unsold homes and the presidential election looming, he said.

Refinancing applications represented about 82 percent of total mortgage activity in the latest week, the highest share of the year.

"It's going to be another couple of years until these short sales and foreclosures are flushed out of the system, so you might see a little weakness in prices this year," Moulton added. "We're feeling a little better about 2012 than 2011, but you're always waiting for the next shoe to drop."

FEDERAL RESERVE - June 9, 2011

Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Janet Yellen said the housing market will undergo a “long, drawn-out recovery” and the Fed is working with other agencies to prevent foreclosures and clear the stock of vacant properties.

“Looking forward, I unfortunately can envision no quick or easy solutions for the problems still afflicting the housing market,” she said in a speech today in Cleveland. “Even once it begins to take hold, recovery in the housing market likely will be a long, drawn-out process.”

Residential construction and real estate, except rentals, still showed “widespread weakness” last month, the central bank said yesterday in its Beige Book survey of the economy. Almost 2 million homes were vacant as of the first quarter, and a large number of distressed sales is one reason house prices remain low, Yellen said.

ROBERT SHILLER - June 10, 2010

“Robert Shiller, the economist who co- founded the S&P/Case-Shiller index of U.S. home prices, said a further decline in property values of 10 percent to 25 percent in the next five years ‘wouldn’t surprise me at all,’ according to Bloomberg News.

“’There’s no precedent for this statistically, so no way to predict,’ Shiller said today at a conference hosted by Standard & Poor’s in New York.

CLEAR CAPITAL - January 10, 1012

"National home price data indicates that the worst of the catastrophic home price implosion is behind us.  Clear Capital, a Truckee, Calif.-based real estate research firm, reports that 2011 saw a national decrease of 2.1% in home prices when compared to 2010. While still a loss, it’s measly drop compared to the double-digit plunges felt in the years before. For 2012, the firm’s Home Data Index (HDI) Market Report also predicts a humble 0.2% gain across all markets. “Overall, 2011 was a relatively quiet year for U.S. home prices compared to the last five years,” said Dr. Alex Villacorta, Clear Capital’s director of research and analytics, in the report. He further notes that “the current balance the market has found will continue through 2012.”

What does all of this mean? Housing from a national standpoint is flattening out; the macro level data suggests we could possibly be at the bottom or near to it.

 

FORBES - January 10, 2012

Has the U.S. housing market hit a bottom? Do we have further to go? When will a recovery start? These are the questions every homeowner and real estate investor are currently asking themselves — or should be.

Wall Street firms have optimistically been betting that the bottom’s here. Research firms like Zelman & Associates predict the sector will pick up this year and hedge funds have been jumping into real estate-related investments from brick and mortar building purchases to shares of home builders stocks. In December Goldman Sachs Group released a report stating that “The home price bottom [is] in sight,” according to my colleague Agustino Fontevecchia.