On Monday it was announced that Homebuilder Sentiment rose again in April, marking the eight-straight month of increases. Yesterday the April Building Permit and Housing Start reports came out, and they both woefully missed estimates. Read the full story

Monday

Economic Reports: Leading Indicators

The Leading Indicators report isn’t much of a market mover since it contains previously released data, but it is still worth noting that it is indicating another down month. While the expected decline in March isn’t as bad as the previous month, we are still going in the wrong direction. Read the full story

The highly regarded S&P/Case-Shiller home- price index comes out this morning. Last month it reported that home prices for December had dropped 18.55 percent from a year earlier, a record decline. Read the full story

Has the housing market hit an absolute bottom yet? Perhaps, but probably not. But there are at least indications however that things could start turning around.

Last week, the February Housing Starts report handily beat estimates. While this may only be a temporary spurt, it was a positive surprise. The growth was primarily focused in the Northeastern states, but again, any increase in this dismal sector is a positive. Read the full story

After last weeks surprising housing numbers (building permits and housing starts actually increased) the housing reports this week are now even more unpredictable. Existing home sales are expected to drop by approximately 40k units, but I wouldn’t be shocked if this number actually beats expectations to the positive side and shows a gain. The reason is that foreclosures continue to create tremendous buying opportunities, and at some point, prices get low enough to spur sales.

The New Home Sales report that comes out Wednesday is also expected to show a decline, but I think this one will be a much larger than the 9k units that’s anticipated. With so much cheap existing inventory available, builders moving new inventory face many obstacles. Read the full story

What is your house really worth?

Let’s say it was worth $500,000 two years ago. If you put it on the market today, what would you get? $350,000? $250,000?

What? No fair you say? The difficulty in getting mortgage loans is skewing the market? If it were a more liquid market, your house would be worth much more… Read the full story