The Hanley Wood Market Intelligence Key Indicator Alert is out for the week. It’s more positive news, although slightly so. At least it’s not negative. The stock market did pull back some from its run. But that’s to be expected with investors wanting to take their profits when they can.
You may have heard in the news that housing starts jumped in May by 17%. That’s true but . . . it’s mostly multi-family housing. Single family housing rose only by 3%.
Housing continues to move ever-so-slightly up. New home starts are up and inventories are low – about 10 months. That’s the lowest the new homes inventory has been since over a year ago. And the median new home prices continue to rise ever so slightly. Of course, they are still down drastically from where they were just a year ago.
Existing home sales also rose but are down from where they were one year ago. And more slightly good news is that the median existing home prices are inching upward.
Mortgage rates continue to rise and fall. Last week they fell again.
So the good news is that things are moving in the right direction, although very slowly. That’s probably for the best right now. We don’t need any huge spikes and we certainly don’t need the economy to go into over-drive overnight. Slow and steady.
If you’d like to learn how to discover trends in your own market, check out my article How to Become Your Own Economist – Reliably Predict Your Construction or Remodeling Market.
Friday, June 19, 2009
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