Housing construction essentially stable in January – by New Deal democrat I’m on the road, so I need to keep this brief, but fortunately I can give you the essence of this most important housing report with little difficulty. Mortgage rates have declined about 1% from their peak during the autumn, and are about equal to […]
January 2024 consumer inflation: still a tug of war between gas and housing – by New Deal democrat As it has been for going on two years, consumer inflation has boiled down to a contest of strength between energy (mainly gasoline), which peaked in June 2022 and roughed in June 2023, and housing, which peaked […]
CNN Tells Us, Young People can’t Afford Homes Even Though more Young People have Homes now than when Trump was in the White House, CEPR, Dean Baker Major media outlets continually push the theme that young people can’t buy homes even though a larger share of households headed by someone under age 35 own homes […]
Housing construction changes little in December; but increased mortgage rates from H2 2023 have not yet been digested – by New Deal democrat For this post, I’m going to show what the housing market looks like from most to least leading of the indicators. That shows that, although this morning’s release for housing permits and […]
More economic news an d this time new single family housing. Completing the housing market picture for November, sales decline bigly, and prices remain down YoY – by New Deal democrat Our final important pre-year end release was also the final item of housing data for the month, new home sales. To reiterate, the […]
Housing under construction continues to levitate – by New Deal democrat Although they aren’t the most leading of housing metrics, because of supply-chain issues during the pandemic, housing units under construction has been the most important one, because they represent the actual economic activity of construction. With the exception of 2001, which was an investment-led […]
Housing construction continues to support subdued expansion – by New Deal democrat Yesterday I wrote of how manufacturing has faded somewhat as a leading indicator, at least in the sense that it takes a steeper downturn than it used to in order to forecast a wider downturn in the economy. Which makes the other big […]
The bifurcation in the new vs. existing home market continues – by New Deal democrat Last week we saw that sales of existing homes plummeted to a 28 year low, save for one month in 2010; but prices for the very limited number of such homes on the market rose 2.8% YoY. This morning we saw […]
The last holdout in housing data has turned; ‘recession watch’ for next 12 months remains – by New Deal democrat Last month I wrote that: “the biggest news was what happened with units under construction. The total declined slightly, as did single family units. But most significantly, for the first time since February 2021, multi-family […]
Why the public still views inflation as a major problem, despite the official numbers – by New Deal democrat This is the topic I indicated last week I wanted to write about more at length. Paul Krugman wrote last week about the disconnect between most economists, who see inflation declining, and voters, who still see […]