National Real Estate News

We may finally be seeing the end to the home building bust and the start of what some believe will be a sizable recovery in residential construction over the next few years. Friday morning, housing starts for June came in UP 3.6%, at an annual rate of 582,000 units. With volatile multi-family starts down for the month, the gain all came from a 14.4% boost in single family units, which have risen four months in a row, UP 31.7% since February. April and May starts were also revised UP considerably.

June Building Permits were UP 8.7%, at an annual rate of 563,000 units, increasing for the second straight month, resulting in a 13.1% boost since April. Although there are still excess inventories, experts feel the rate of home building had been so low, inventories will continue to fall rapidly even as new building activity picks up.

The week began with a report from Freddie Mac saying they believe home sales bottomed in Q1 at a 4.46 million annual rate. They project sales will grow every quarter, to an annual rate of 5.85 million by Q4 next year. Their turnaround evidence includes nine straight months of sales growth for Florida and 14 straight months for California. Admitting that home price bottoming tends to lag, the report did say they saw signs of "the seeds of turnaround" in prices as well. All good news.

~ Courtesy of Chuck Chrobak, Golf Savings Bank, CChrobak@GolfSavingsBank.com, 425.330.9657