US Housing Market Results Surprisingly Strong

[Henry Lazerow]

Interesting article thought I would share.... U.S. Housing Prices Remain Surprisingly Strong

A funny thing happened to housing prices in June: They rose 1% compared to May, according to the real estate data provider CoreLogic’s Home Price Index. Analysts had expected the numbers, released Tuesday, to show a 0.1% drop.

• Home prices actually rose 4.9% year-over-year in June, a sign that the coronavirus hasn’t hurt the housing market as much as other industries.
• Near-record low mortgage rates helped. The average rate for a thirty-year fixed mortgage during June was just above 3% and dipped even lower in July, almost a full 2 percentage points below where it was in November of 2018. Financing costs are the main barrier for first-time buyers in many U.S. housing markets.
• Home prices “really rebounded much more strongly than I think any of us had thought they were going to,” Frank Nothaft, the chief economist at CoreLogic, told Barron’s.