Housing is back on track
(MoneyWatch) "Real estate is back!" exclaimed a talking head on a financial network last week. The cause of the enthusiasm was the surprisingly strong Housing Starts report. In case you missed it, starts were up a better-than-expected 0.8 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 917,000 from February. Building permits, an indication of future demand, were up 4.6 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 946,000, the highest rate since June 2008.
This housing report, along with those due this week (S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index, New Home Sales and Pending Home Sales) confirm that the nation's real estate market has bottomed and is now slowly recovering. The Housing Starts report demonstrates the progress -- starts were up 28 percent from a year ago and by about 90 percent from the lows. That said, there's still a long way to go: Starts are still 60 percent from the bubble peak of 2.3 million starts in 2006. Additionally, prices are still down about 30 percent from the peak.
That's enough of the buzz-kill part of this post. The reason that economists are encouraged by the nascent housing recovery is that after 6 long years of melting down and creating a major drag on the economy, the sector is finally poised to help the economy. No, it's not going to be like the crazy years of 2000 to 2006 when prices doubled and housing had a steroid-like impact on the nation's growth. That's OK -- remember the price that everyone paid for those juiced-up results! If housing can go back to being a reliable boost to the economy instead of the epicenter of a financial crisis, that alone would have been sufficient (H/T "Dayenu" for those who are celebrating Passover).
Markets: Stocks edged slightly lower on the week, on concerns over Cyprus.
-- DJIA: 14,512 down 0.1 percent on week, up 10.7 percent on year
-- S&P 500: 1,556, down 0.2 percent on week, up 9.1 percent on year
-- NASDAQ: 3,245, down 0.1 percent on week, up 7.5 percent on year
-- April Crude Oil: $93.71
-- April Gold: $1,606.10
-- AAA nat'l average price for gallon of regular gas: $3.69
THE WEEK AHEAD:
Mon 3/25:
8:30 Chicago Fed Activity Index
Tues 3/26:
8:30 Durable Goods Orders
9:00 S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index
10:00 New Home Sales
10:00 Consumer Confidence
Weds 3/27:
10:00 Pending Home Sales
Thurs 3/28:
8:30 Weekly Claims
8:30 Q4 GDP final reading: Expected revision to +0.6% from +0.1%
8:30 Corporate Profits
9:45 Chicago PMI
Fri 3/29: GOOD FRIDAY U.S. STOCK MARKETS CLOSED
8:30 Personal Income and Spending
9:55 Consumer Sentiment
