Confidence in the multifamily housing market edged down in the second quarter of 2018, according to the Multifamily Production Index (MPI) released today by the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB). The MPI dipped two points to 51 compared to the previous quarter.

The MPI measures builder and developer sentiment about current conditions in the apartment and condo market on a scale of 0 to 100. The index and all of its components are scaled so that a number above 50 indicates that more respondents report conditions are improving than report conditions are getting worse.

Existing-home sales subsided for the fourth straight month in July to their slowest pace in over two years, according to the National Association of Realtors®. The West was the only major region with an increase in sales last month.

Total existing-home sales1, https://www.nar.realtor/existing-home-sales, which are completed transactions that include single-family homes, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops, decreased 0.7 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.34 million in July from 5.38 million in June. With last month’s decline, sales are now 1.5 percent below a year ago and have fallen on an annual basis for five straight months.

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By Ben Lane

One of the vestiges of the financial crisis is now officially in the past.

By Karan Kaul

First-time homebuyers face a difficult housing market: high prices, low supply, tight credit, and renting costs that make it difficult to save for a down payment. But compared with repeat buyers, first-timers have dominated the mortgage market for the past 10 years, and their share today is still high. We don’t see this changing anytime soon.

Freddie Mac (OTCQB: FMCC) today released the results of its Primary Mortgage Market Survey® (PMMS®), showing that mortgage rates decreased slightly for the second consecutive week.  

Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s chief economist, says mortgage rates remained mostly flat over the past week, which has been the dominant theme since late spring. “This stability in borrowing costs comes despite the highest core inflation rates since 2008 and turbulence in the currency markets,” he said. “Unfortunately, this pause in rates is not leading to increasing home sales.”

A new analysis by Freddie Mac (OTCQB: FMCC), finds that the strong performance experienced by the multifamily market in the first half of 2018 will continue throughout the end of the year and well into 2019. The findings were released as part of Freddie Mac Multifamily’s 2018 Mid-Year Outlook pdf and companion video. The Outlook predicts that in 2018, multifamily origination volume is expected to grow by 3.3 percent to $305 billion. 

In the Outlook, Freddie Mac Multifamily Research and Modeling vice president Steve Guggenmos and manager Sara Hoffmann find that overall, the multifamily market continues to experience very healthy performance. While fundamentals have started to moderate over the past few years, the factors most critical to market strength continue to remain strong, for example, with rents rising above inflation and vacancy rates only increasing slowly.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency extended the public comment period for the Agency's proposed rule on Enterprise Capital Requirements by an additional 60 days, citing "high level of interest in the proposed rule and requests from multiple stakeholders for more time to evaluate it."

The previous deadline for comments was September 17; the new deadline is November 16.

Some Fed districts reported moderate improvements in the residential real estate sector, but their reports on commercial activity revealed largely stagnant conditions, the Federal Reserve reported July 18 in its newest Beige Book.

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Written by Kelsey Ramirez

Last Wednesday, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell had his second hearing this week, this time before the House Committee on Financial Services for his semi-annual monetary policy report.

Written by Ben Lane

We’ve known that the rent may be too high for quite a while now, but a new report shows that rent has never been this high before.

A stronger economy, wage growth and an improving job market are expected to march home sales and prices higher in 2018, but low supply and weakening affordability will tamper the rate of increases, according to speakers at a residential real estate forum during the 2018 REALTORS® Legislative Meetings & Trade Expo.

Lawrence Yun, chief economist of the National Association of Realtors®, presented his 2018 midyear forecast and said despite headwinds a moderate and multiyear increase in home sales is likely ahead. After accelerating 3.8 percent in 2016, existing home sales rose only 1.1 percent to 5.5 million in 2017 and are forecast to finish 2018 at a pace of around 5.6 million (up 1.8 percent). He projects 5.7 million sales for 2019.