by Calculated Risk on 5/12/2014 04:11:00 PM

Economist Tom Lawler sent me the preliminary table below of short sales, foreclosures and cash buyers for several selected cities in April.

Note: From Lawler:

While I don’t yet have enough report/data to produce a “decent” projection for April existing home sales as measured by the National Association of Realtors, the data I’ve seen so far seems to be consistent with a annualized seasonally adjusted sales pace of about 4.67 million.

From CR: The NAR reported sales of 4.59 million SAAR in March, and 4.99 million SAAR in April 2013.

On distressed: Total "distressed" share is down in all of these markets, mostly because of a sharp decline in short sales.

Foreclosures are down in most of these areas too, although foreclosures are up in the mid-Atlantic area and Las Vegas (there was a state law change that slowed foreclosures dramatically in Nevada at the end of 2011 - so it isn't a surprise that foreclosures are up a little year-over-year).

The All Cash Share (last two columns) is mostly declining year-over-year.  As investors pull back, the share of all cash buyers will probably decline.  Omaha's cash share is up.

In general it appears the housing market is slowly moving back to normal.

	Short Sales Share		Foreclosure Sales Share		Total "Distressed" Share		All Cash Share
	Apr-14	Apr-13	Apr-14	Apr-13	Apr-14	Apr-13	Apr-14	Apr-13
Las Vegas	12.4%	32.5%	11.4%	10.0%	23.8%	42.5%	41.4%	59.3%
Reno**	15.0%	33.0%	6.0%	8.0%	21.0%	41.0%
Phoenix	4.0%	12.7%	6.5%	11.3%	10.5%	24.1%	32.2%	42.0%
Minneapolis	5.0%	7.4%	15.9%	24.0%	20.9%	31.4%
Mid-Atlantic	5.9%	9.9%	10.0%	8.6%	15.9%	18.5%	19.5%	19.4%
Memphis*			16.6%	24.7%
Toledo							33.4%	40.8%
Des Moines							17.1%	19.6%
Omaha							22.3%	17.4%
Tucson							30.5%	33.5%
Georgia***							34.3%	N/A
*share of existing home sales, based on property records **Single Family Only ***GAMLS

by Calculated Risk on 5/12/2014 12:13:00 PM

Here is another graph on framing lumber prices. Early in 2013 lumber prices came close to the housing bubble highs. Then prices started to decline sharply, and prices declined over 25% from the highs by June.

The price increases early last year were due to stronger demand (more housing starts) and supply constraints (framing lumber suppliers were working to bring more capacity online).

Prices didn't increase as much early in 2014 (more supply, smaller "surge" in demand), however prices haven't fallen as sharply either.

Click on graph for larger image in graph gallery.

This graph shows two measures of lumber prices: 1) Framing Lumber from Random Lengths through last week (via NAHB), and 2) CME framing futures.

Right now Random Lengths prices are down about 2% from a year ago, and CME futures are up about 4% year-over-year.

by Calculated Risk on 5/12/2014 09:39:00 AM

From the MBA: Applications for New Home Purchases Increased in April 2014

The Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Builder Application Survey (BAS) data for March 2014 shows mortgage applications for new home purchases increased by 5 percent relative to the previous month. This change does not include any adjustment for typical seasonal patterns.
...
The MBA estimate of new single-family home sales were running at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 419,000 units in April 2014, based on data from the BAS. The new home sales estimate is derived using mortgage application information from the BAS, as well as assumptions regarding market coverage and other factors. The BAS market coverage was rebenchmarked this month to an estimate of over 30 percent of annual sales volume based on data from the Census Bureau.

The seasonally adjusted estimate for April is an increase of five percent from the revised March pace of 400,000 units.

A couple of comments:

1) So far the MBA Builder survey hasn't been helpful in predicting Census Bureau reports. As an example, last month the MBA estimated March new home sales at 479,000 on a seasonally adjusted annual rate basis (SAAR), and the Census Bureau reported sales of 384,000 SAAR. Not close.

2) Now the MBA has increased market coverage, so maybe the survey will be more useful. A 419,000 SAAR would be up from March, but down from 446,000 in April 2013.

by Calculated Risk on 5/11/2014 08:12:00 PM

A somewhat strange story on inflation in the WSJ: Markets Watch, Warily, for a Small Bump in Inflation

Normally, a move of a couple of tenths of a percentage point in the inflation measures wouldn't matter much to anyone. But the stakes are high now as Federal Reserve officials justify their plan to keep short-term interest rates near zero in part because inflation is running so far below their 2% objective.

Fed officials expect inflation to move from near 1% to 1.5% by year-end. If it moves up sooner or more than they expect, officials could consider raising rates sooner than planned.

Uh, the Fed expects inflation to move up towards 2%, and if it doesn't, the Fed might slow or stop the tapering of QE3 asset purchases.  In her testimony last week, Fed Chair Yellen said: "Looking ahead, I expect that economic activity will expand at a somewhat faster pace this year than it did last year, that the unemployment rate will continue to decline gradually, and that inflation will begin to move up toward 2 percent."
emphasis added

The most recent FOMC projections show PCE inflation moving up to 1.5% to 1.6% by Q4, but the Fed wouldn't raise rates sooner just because inflation rate moved closer to 2% this year - unless employment indicators improved significantly too.

And another sentence from the WSJ article:

The persistent low inflation has befuddled economists who thought Fed easy-money policies would spark rampant price gains.

Well, yes, some economists had the wrong model, but most economists realized that easy-money policies wouldn't lead to inflation in a depressed economy (I've been making fun of incorrect inflation forecasts for years). Eventually we will see a little more inflation - and an increase in inflation towards 2% would be good news - not something to watch "warily" for.

Monday:
• At 2:00 PM ET, the Monthly Treasury Budget Statement for April. Note: The CBO's estimate is the deficit through April in fiscal 2014 was $301 billion, compared to $488 billion for the same period in fiscal 2013.

Weekend:
• Schedule for Week of May 11th

From CNBC: Pre-Market Data and Bloomberg futures: the S&P futures are up 5 and DOW futures are up 47 (fair value).

Oil prices were mixed over the last week with WTI futures at $100.07 per barrel and Brent at $107.89 per barrel.

Below is a graph from Gasbuddy.com for nationwide gasoline prices. Nationally prices are around $3.62 per gallon (might have peaked, and only slightly above the level of a year ago).  If you click on "show crude oil prices", the graph displays oil prices for WTI, not Brent; gasoline prices in most of the U.S. are impacted more by Brent prices.

Orange County Historical Gas Price Charts Provided by GasBuddy.com

by Calculated Risk on 5/11/2014 10:26:00 AM

In addition to Case-Shiller, CoreLogic, I'm also watching the FNC, Zillow and several other house price indexes.

FNC released their March index data. FNC reported that their Residential Price Index™ (RPI) indicates that U.S. residential property values increased 0.6% from February to March (Composite 100 index, not seasonally adjusted). The other RPIs (10-MSA, 20-MSA, 30-MSA) increased between 0.2% and 0.4% in March. These indexes are not seasonally adjusted (NSA), and are for non-distressed home sales (excluding foreclosure auction sales, REO sales, and short sales).

The year-over-year change slowed slightly in March, with the 100-MSA composite up 9.1% compared to March 2013.  In February, the year-over-year increase was 9.2%.  The index is still down 22.2% from the peak in 2006.

Click on graph for larger image.

This graph shows the year-over-year change based on the FNC index (four composites) through March 2014. The FNC indexes are hedonic price indexes using a blend of sold homes and real-time appraisals.

There is still no clear evidence in the FNC index of a slowdown in price increases yet.

The March Case-Shiller index will be released on Tuesday, May 27th, and I expect Case-Shiller to show a slowdown in price increases.