Housing Starts -Starts – Level – Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate (SAAR) – 604,000. -Previous was 629,000. -Permits – Level – SAAR 597,000. Previous was 624,000.

Last week, June housing starts were 629k annualized vs. 549k for May. It was the highest since January. But housing starts have averaged 400k annualized during the post-bubble years, the lowest in decades according to San Francisco Fed research published yesterday. The paper explores factors affecting weak housing starts and concludes that residential construction will [...]

Housing -Housing Starts (annualized): 629k June vs. 549k May, highest since Jan. -Housing Permits (annualized): 624k June vs. 609k May -Homebuilder confidence flat in June (from 7/18) -Graphs below puts Starts/Permits in perspective -There must be 1.5m Housing Starts a year to keep pace with population growth assuming that the number of people per household [...]

Housing: -May Starts 560,000 (annualized), up 3.5% from April, above 540k expected. -May Permits 612,000 (annualized), up 8.7% from April, most in 2011. -We need about 1,500,000 Housing Starts a year to keep pace with population growth and units scrapped to disaster or obsolescence.

After a four week rally that set new 2011 lows, rates are up slightly on net mortgage bond selling since yesterday. Bond yields (or rates) are now back up to the previous 2011 low level set March 16 after the Japanese earthquake and ‘not-a-war’ in Libya reached peak panic levels.

Mortgage Applications: Purchase Index – Week/Week Change -3.2 % Refinance Index – Week/Week Change 13.2 % Composite Index – Week/Week Change 7.8 %

Stocks rebounded a bit today after deep losses yesterday after S&P issued a negative outlook on the U.S.’s ability to meet its debt obligations. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner tried to steady the ship today, saying “There’s a lot of confidence in the capacity of this economy to grow, to make sure that we can meet [...]

Yesterday’s S&P Case Shiller January 2011 report of existing home prices showed average U.S. home prices declined 3.1% from January 2010. Also January was the sixth straight month with a lower reading from the prior month, which reflects sustained foreclosure volumes and high unemployment. U.S. home prices are now at similar levels to what they [...]

Stocks and rates are down midway through trading day following lots of market data. February housing starts, which measure new homes construction, were down 22.5% since last month, the worst monthly drop in 27 years. The February Producer Price Index (PPI), which measures business inflation, was up 1.6% since last month and has spiked 5.6% [...]

Rates are generally even on today’s market news which includes bank earnings and some housing data, as follows: Wells Fargo’s earnings came out as expected at $3.2 billion (61 cents per share). Initial reads show that Wells’ loan growth was better than expected. Credit quality improved dramatically, allowing Wells to release some $850 million in [...]