Happy Memorial Day and the Market Update

The housing market is rocking!!! The three major housing reports released this week do not just show the housing market improving, they are indicating the market is hotter than most experts ever expected, or even realized.

Starting the week on Tuesday, the New Home Sales Report came in at an annualized number of 619,000. (No your eyes are not deceiving you)

• This is the highest rate of sales since January 2008 and it blows past all of the numbers since the start of the housing recovery.
• This represents a 16.6 percent surge from the prior month.
• This is the largest gain in this report dating back all the way to January 1992.
• To add to strength of new home sales, February’s numbers came in at a strong 545,000, which represents the second highest reading since the recession.
• From the same time last year, sales are up 23.8 percent.

To add more strength to the report, prices for new homes jumped 7.8 percent to a median price of $321,000.

• Compared to the same time last year, prices are 9.7 percent higher.
• The only negative to the report is related to supply.
• As expected, with the increase in demand, supply for new homes dropped sharply to 4.7 months down from 5.5 months.

Following the lead of new home sales, pending homes sale also jumped a much higher than expected 5.1 percent for the month of April.

• This is the third straight gain for this index and points to continued acceleration for final sales of existing homes.
• The West was the big surprise of the report with sales jumping 11.4 percent. Recently this area of the country has been lagging.
• The second strongest market was the South with an increase of 5.1 percent.

After being flat for quite some time, home-price appreciation seems to be on the upswing.

• Following the report on new homes sales, the Federal Housing Finance Agency price report indicated prices are rising once again.

In March the FHFA index rose a more than expected 0.7 percent.

• This is the best reading since September of 2015.
• Compared to the same time last year, home prices are up 6.1 percent which represents the strongest reading since October of last year.

As is not uncommon, the Pacific and Mountain regions are leading the way for home price increases compared to last year.

• These regions are up in the high single digits whereas New England and the Mid-Atlantic are up only in the low single digits.

This week’s potential market moving reports are:

• Monday May 30^th – Memorial Day – All Markets Closed
• Tuesday May 31^st – Case-Shiller Home Price Index
• Wednesday June 1^st – MBA Mortgage Applications, Construction Spending & ISM Man. Index
• Thursday June 2^nd – First Time Jobless Claims
• Friday June 3^rd – National Employment Situation