Morning Report: New Home Sales down big YOY

Posted on August 24, 2021 by Brent Nyitray

Vital Statistics:

  Last Change
S&P futures 4,479 6.2
Oil (WTI) 66.53 0.95
10 year government bond yield   1.27%
30 year fixed rate mortgage   3.05%

Stocks are higher this morning on no real news. Bonds and MBS are flat.

 

New home sales rose 1% MOM to a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 708,000 in July, according to Census. This was down 27% compared to July of 2020, when people were escaping the cities. The median price rose 18.5% to $390,500. New Home prices have been on a tear.

 

The number of loans in forbearance fell 1 basis point last week to 3.25% of servicers’ portfolios. “The share of loans in forbearance was little changed this week, as both new requests and exits were at a slower pace compared to the prior week. In fact, exits were at their slowest pace in over a year,” said Mike Fratantoni, MBA Senior Vice President and Chief Economist. “There were more new forbearance requests and re-entries for portfolio and PLS loans, leading to a 10-basis-point increase in their share. Portfolio and PLS loans now account for almost 50% of all depository servicer loans and almost 40% of IMB servicer loans in forbearance, which highlights the importance of this investor category.”

 

The Urban Institute thinks that Fannie Mae’s new policy of including rental history will expand access to home ownership. That said, Fannie expects few borrowers to actually benefit from this new system. This is because lenders cannot request bank statements directly from the banks due to PI restrictions, and banks will be reluctant to release the data to lenders due to the information security risks.

 

 

Filed under: Economy, Morning Report | 8 Comments »

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