Daily Dose

Lower and moderate-income residents of Washington, D.C. are now able to afford homeownership thanks to the District of Columbia Housing Finance Agency’s (DCHFA) administering of the DC Housing and Community Development's Home Purchase Assistance Program (HPAP). Monday, the DCHFA announced their first closing under the program during Mayor Muriel Brown’s June Housing Bloom, a monthlong initiative showcasing how the public and private sectors are partnering to produce and preserve affordable housing and revitalize neighborhoods across D.C. After five years living in a small apartment with three children, the first family to receive assistance now owns a four level townhome.

Despite the housing shortage and April’s drop in home sales, the housing market not only returned to seasonally high sales, but set a post-recession record— the strongest home sales in the last nine years of the report. According to the National Housing Report, May sales increased 20.6 percent from April and 4.3 percent from May 2016. The only metro considered to be a buyers market in the U.S. for May was Miami, Florida, which was only 0.1 over a balanced market between buyer and seller.

The U.S. is embarking on its ninth year of economic expansion and Fannie Mae is predicting economic growth rebound. Consumer spending growth is expected to return to its position as the biggest contributor to economic growth. With labor and inventory shortages still prevalent, the housing market hasn’t changed very much and home prices are still on the rise. Based on their research, Fannie expects mortgage rates to remain supportive, but the outlook on existing home sales remains cautious.

Inventory was on everyone’s mind last week, and in the week ahead the New Home Sales Report and Existing Home Sales Report for May will be released Friday and Wednesday, respectively. With home buying putting undue stress on first time homebuyers, and a severe lack of inventory due to an unwillingness to sell and fewer new houses being built, it is becoming increasingly difficult for those that desire to purchase. The previous New Home Sales report was at nearly half a million—569,000—while existing homes counted 5.57 million sales, not enough to provide a relief for the growing market.

Some may think owning a home means having more financial stability than renting, but a recent report says low-income homeowners are just as burdened by housing costs as renters. Housing shortages have sparked increasing home prices over the last few months and a higher share of homeowners and renters are facing affordability issues— a quarter of renters spending at least half of their income on rental housing compared to the 10 percent of homeowners. The generally lower income of renters normally explains this, but at a closer look at the numbers, they found that homeownership doesn’t protect low-income homeowners.

It’s now the third month straight that U.S. homebuilding has fell—considering the U.S. is currently in a housing shortage, this isn’t good news. According to the latest report from the U.S. Census Bureau, this is the lowest level housing starts have been at in eight months. The biggest drop in housing starts was in the South and Midwest, while the West slightly rose and Northeast stayed stagnant.

Lot and labor shortages are causing home builder confidence to falter—particularly in the single-family market. Builder confidence dropped two points in June, while overall construction starts fell 5.5 percent across the nation. Single-family production fell 3.9 percent in May, and multifamily declined 9.7 percent—nearly three times as much.

Home price appreciation rates are pretty disparate across the nation, according to a new report released on Friday. In fact, while 16 percent of U.S. markets saw housing prices jump 40 percent since the year 2000, another 30 percent of cities actually saw prices decline over the same period. Nominally, prices rose in 97 out of the nation’s 100 biggest metro areas last year. A result of high demand and tightening supply, affordability is on the downslope, too. According to the report, about 19 million U.S. households spent more than half of their annual incomes on housing in 2015.

As the mortgage industry attempted to digest the cumbersome alphabet soup of data standards and regulation, Fannie Mae innovated to deliver a recipe for certainty.

A former executive at Nomura, a financial holding company based in Japan, was found guilty of conspiracy on Thursday by a Connecticut jury. The defendant, Michael Gramins, allegedly added secret commission fees onto mortgage-backed security transactions he handled between 2009 and 2013, according to the verdict. Gramins wasn’t the only party involved—though he was the single person charged. The state’s case also named Nomura’s Ross Shapiro and Tyler Peters in the suit, which alleges the three defendants illegally added to their profit margins when handling RMBS transactions for their employer.