by Calculated Risk on 6/02/2010 10:00:00 AM

From the NAR: Pending Home Sales Surge Continuing

The Pending Home Sales Index, a forward-looking indicator, rose 6.0 percent to 110.9 based on contracts signed in April, from an upwardly revised 104.6 in March, and is 22.4 percent higher than April 2009 when it was 90.6. That follows gains of 7.1 percent in March and 8.3 percent in February.

Pending home sales are at the highest level since last October when the index reached 112.4 and first-time buyers were rushing to beat the initial deadline for the tax credit. The data reflects contracts and not closings, which usually occur with a lag time of one or two months.

Once again this is no surprise - the tax credit has pulled demand forward, and existing home sales will decline after June (existing home sales are counted when the contract closes).

I suspect a number of these homes will never close. I've heard stories of buyers entering into two deals at the end of April, intending to cancel one. Also some short sales will probably not close on time because of the lengthy process.

Post title next month: Pending home sales collapse in May!

by Calculated Risk on 6/02/2010 07:06:00 AM

The MBA reports: Mortgage Refinance Applications Increase Slightly, Purchase Applications Decline Further

The Refinance Index increased 2.4 percent from the previous week. This was a smaller increase than in previous weeks, but was still the fourth consecutive weekly increase for the Refinance Index and it remains at its highest level since October 2009. The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index decreased 4.1 percent from one week earlier. The Purchase Index decreased for the fourth consecutive week and is currently at the lowest level since April 1997.
...
The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages increased to 4.83 percent from 4.80 percent, with points decreasing to 1.05 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent loan-to-value (LTV) ratio loans.

Click on graph for larger image in new window.

This graph shows the MBA Purchase Index and four week moving average since 1990.

The purchase index has declined sharply following the tax credit related buying, suggesting home sales will fall sharply too. Pending home sales for April will be announced today and a large increase is expected, however May pending home sales will be much lower.

As the Michael Fratantoni, MBA’s Vice President of Research and Economics noted two weeks ago: "The data continue to suggest that the tax credit pulled sales into April at the expense of the remainder of the spring buying season."

by Calculated Risk on 6/01/2010 08:17:00 PM

Breaking a trend ...

Click on graph for larger image in new window.

Fannie Mae reported today that the rate of serious delinquencies - at least 90 days behind - for conventional loans in its single-family guarantee business decreased to 5.47% in March, down from 5.59% in February - and up from 3.13% in March 2009.

"Includes seriously delinquent conventional single-family loans as a percent of the total number of conventional single-family loans."

This is the first decline since early 2006 and could be because Fannie (and Freddie and the FHA) are moving ahead with foreclosures.

As noted last month, the combined REO (Real Estate Owned) inventory for Fannie, Freddie and the FHA increased by 22% in Q1 2010 from Q4 2009. The REO inventory (foreclosed homes) increased 59% compared to Q1 2009 (year-over-year comparison).

This graph shows the REO inventory for Fannie, Freddie and FHA through Q1 2010.

Even with all the delays in foreclosure, the REO inventory has increased sharply over the last three quarters, from 135,868 at the end of Q2 2009, to 153,007 in Q3 2009, 172,357 at the end of Q4 2009 and now 209,500 at the end of Q4 2010.

These are new records for all three agencies.

by Calculated Risk on 6/01/2010 04:33:00 PM

The euro is down to 1.2238 dollars. It has been at about this level for two weeks now ...

The TED spread increased to 39.12 (a measure of credit stress). This is still fairly low, but has been increasing steadily. Note: This is the difference between the interbank rate for three month loans and the three month Treasury. The peak was 463 on Oct 10th and a normal spread is below 50 bps.

Click on graph for larger image in new window.

This is a slightly different graph from Doug Short of dshort.com (financial planner).

This graph shows the ups and downs of the market since the high in 2007. The S&P 500 is now off 12.27% from the recent high.

by Calculated Risk on 6/01/2010 02:49:00 PM

We are starting to see articles like this from CNBC: Strong Jobs Number on Friday Could Give the Markets a Boost

Economists expect the US economy generated about 540,000 jobs in May—a large portion of which expected to come from Census hiring—and many analysts will be hoping that's enough to assuage investor fears that the European debt contagion could cause a double-dip recession.

The BLS will release the May employment report on Friday. The consensus is for a gain of 540,000 payroll jobs in May, and for the unemployment rate to decline slightly to 9.8% (from 9.9%).

As the CNBC article noted, a large portion of the payroll jobs in May will be temporary hires for Census 2010 (May is the peak month). It will be important to remove the Census hiring to try to determine the underlying trend.

We can estimate the Census hiring using weekly payroll data from the Census bureau (ht Bob_in_MA). If we subtract the number of Temporary 2010 Census Workers in the 2nd week of May from the number in the second week of April, this suggests the Census boost will be around 417K in May. The Census Bureau will release the actual number with the employment report.

Click on graph for larger image in new window.

This graph shows the actual impact of Census hiring in 1990, 2000, and through April 2010. The impact of the Census hiring, from May through December 2010, are my preliminary estimates.

When the employment report is released on Friday, a key number will be payroll jobs ex-Census - since the Census will probably add over 400,000 temporary payroll jobs (these are real jobs, but they mask the underlying trend). This temporary hiring will also push down the unemployment rate in May by 0.1% or 0.2% based on previous decennial Census hiring.

Most ex-Census forecasts are in the 130,000 to 150,000 range (although most forecasts only release the headline number). This would be a decrease from the 224,000 ex-Census payroll jobs in April.

Starting in June, the Census will negatively impact the payroll report. My preliminary estimate is for a decline of 200,000 Census payroll jobs in June (see graph above). If the underlying trend is a positive 200,000 payroll jobs, the headline number will be zero! And that will understate the underlying trend, just like the 500,000+ will overstate the trend in May. So we will need to adjust for the decennial Census for most of this year.