Tuesdays Housing Market Data Recap
Chicago, IL (PRWEB) March 25, 2014 -- Tuesday, March 25th, was a big day for housing data. Two home price index reports were released as well as new home sales. Peoples Home Equity was disappointed to see that new home sales declined for the month of February. However, there were positive aspects in all of Tuesday’s announcements.
The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) home price index reported a 0.5% rise for January. The index has now shown a positive monthly change for the 23 of the past 24 months reported. Since the index began reporting in 1991, the average monthly change has been 0.3%, thus January’s number was higher than the average. The highest value reported was 1.4% in March 2013, while the lowest was -1.7% in November of 2008. Peoples Home Equity would not be surprised to see a continuation of above average announcements throughout the spring and summer months.
S&P/CASE SHILLER also reported its 20-city home price index on Tuesday with a -0.08% decline for January. Peoples Home Equity notes that this index has not made any significant percentage move since August 2013. However, what was notable was the percentage change of the individual cities. Five cities posted a positive monthly change for January: Miami +0.72%, Tampa +0.36%, San Francisco +0.54%, San Diego +0.55%, and Washington +0.34%. Of all the cities that experienced a monthly decline, Chicago reported the worst percentage change at -1.24%. While Peoples Home Equity found this data concerning, it realizes that a lot of the decline has to do with depressed home sales and very cold weather. The lender expects that as the weather warms in Chicago, the home price index will rebound.
Lastly new home sales were reported by the U.S. Census Bureau on Tuesday which posted a -3.3% decline but nothing severe according to Peoples Home Equity. While the lender did not enjoy seeing new home sales diminish, since they increases real estate inventories which the market is currently lacking, it appreciates that the number was still much higher than July 2013. New home sales in July 2013 were at 373,000 the February 2014 number was 17.96% higher at 440,000.
Peoples Home Equity is now waiting to see Wednesday’s mortgage applications numbers followed by Thursday’s pending home sales report.
Please contact Peoples Home Equity loan officer today for mortgage details at: (855)-897-0300
Giorgio U Ferrero, Peoples Home Equity, http://www.peopleshomeequity.com/index.php/main, +1 8473386062, [email protected]
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