Housing completion data is positive news for housing market
During a typical recession, builders typically show lower starts, permits, and completion data. But builders now they have a massive backlog of homes they need to finish.
During a typical recession, builders typically show lower starts, permits, and completion data. But builders now they have a massive backlog of homes they need to finish.
New home sales rose by 5.8% in November, beating expectations. But homebuilders aren’t out of the woods.
As mortgage rates continue their ascent toward 6%, more and more folks are talking housing market crash. But high interest rates arenât really a catalyst for a crash, especially if the high rates arenât really high. Emphasis on âreal,â as in inflation-adjusted. Everything has gone up in price, and wages should also be rising. This… Read More »Why You Might Not Want to Get Too Excited (or Nervous) About a Housing Crash
The post Why You Might Not Want to Get Too Excited (or Nervous) About a Housing Crash appeared first on The Truth About Mortgage.
Stocks traded lower on the two-year anniversary of the pandemic market bottom as familiar worries weighed on investor sentiment.
For starters, sizzling energy prices kept inflation concerns front and center. U.S. crude futures jumped 5.2% to $114.93 per barrel after Russia said a storm-damaged pipeline running from Kazakhstan to the Black Sea could cut exports by roughly 1 million barrels per day in the near term.
Rising interest rates also remained in focus as speeches from several Federal Reserve speakers indicated support for taking a more hawkish approach on inflation.
Among them was Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester â a voting member of the central bank’s rate-setting committee â who told reporters that she thinks “we’re going to need to do some 50-basis-points moves.” (A basis point is one-one hundredth of a percentage point.)
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Elsewhere on the economic front, data from the Census Bureau showed new home sales fell by a bigger-than-expected 2% in February to an annual rate of 772,000.
Additionally, mortgage applications are down around 8% this week, says Michael Reinking, senior market strategist for the New York Stock Exchange. “As we approach the ever-important spring selling season, this is a dynamic to pay close attention to,” he adds.
At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 1.3% at 34,358, the Nasdaq Composite was off 1.3% to 13,922 and the S&P 500 Index had given back 1.2% to 4,456.
YCharts
Other news in the stock market today:
Don’t let the market’s daily noise distract you from its long-term signal. After all, investing is a marathon, not a sprint â and there are many reasons to be upbeat toward stocks, especially those that return cash to shareholders.
Companies that reliably grow their dividends, or gift investors with special one-time payments, are always worth paying attention to. And then there are those firms that have generous buyback programs, which can help boost earnings per share and stock prices to boot.
Indeed, the breadth of buybacks is currently running near a record high, according to the Goldman Sachs Portfolio Strategy Research team. As a result, GS recently raised its S&P 500 buyback forecast by 12% to $1 trillion for 2022.
“Looking ahead, our previously assumed headwinds to buybacks from higher effective corporate tax rates and a buyback excise tax no longer look likely,” the team says. “Based on our forecast, buybacks will continue to represent the largest use of cash for S&P 500 companies, followed by capital expenditures.”
Read on as we explore six companies that are repurchasing impressive amounts of their own stock.
Karee Venema was long AAPL as of this writing.
The last few months have seen an increase in home sales to first time homebuyers, as well as a slight improvement in the real estate market as a whole. A lot of people feel that this is largely due to the first time homebuyer tax credit that the Obama administration passed earlier this year. The […]
The post First Time Homebuyer Tax Credit May Be Extended To All Homebuyers And Increased to $15,000 Through New Bill appeared first on Bible Money Matters and was written by Peter Anderson. Copyright © Bible Money Matters – please visit biblemoneymatters.com for more great content.
Over the past few years, the term âwalking awayâ was synonymous with strategic default. In short, homeowners who were underwater on their mortgages had very little hope of turning things around. As a result, they would simply walk away from the property (and the mortgage), accepting whatever consequences came with that. Typically, a big fat [&hellip
The post Prospective Buyers Are Beginning to Walk Away from Home Purchases first appeared on The Truth About Mortgage.
Thereâs been a lot of speculation lately about the impact higher mortgage rates might have on the housing market, with some arguing that theyâll simply slow purchases, while another claimed theyâll lead to smaller home purchases. Regardless, we now have our first clue, thanks to the release of the Commerce Departmentâs new home sales report [&hellip
The post First Sign of Mortgage Rate Impact as New Home Sales Disappoint first appeared on The Truth About Mortgage.
Posted To: MND NewsWire
New home sales continued the turnaround, started in December, that ended three straight months of slowing sales. The U.S. Census Bureau and Department of Housing and Urban Development said newly constructed homes were sold in January at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 923,000 units. This is an increase of 4.3 percent compared to the upwardly revised (from 842,000) rate of 885,000 in December and 19.3 percent above the estimate of 774,000 units in January 2020. Analysts polled by Econoday had projected sales to be flat compared to the December estimate, in a range of 809,000 to 905,000 units. Their consensus was 855,000 annualized sales. Robert Dietz, chief economist for the National Association of Home Builders, said “Housing affordability headwinds are rising for 2021, due to supply-side…(read more)