Data

The latest Nowcast report, powered by Google data and released Monday by Auction.com, projects existing-home sales for November will fall between seasonally adjusted annual rates of 5.05 million and 5.46 million units, with a targeted number of 5.25 million sales.

Dodge Data & Analytics reported a 4 percent drop in the value of new construction starts last month, estimating groundbreaking at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $589.8 billion. The decline followed a 10 percent increase in September, which was the strongest month for total construction starts so far this year.

Based on transaction data throughout the month, Black Knight Financial Services' Home Price Index (HPI) recorded a 0.01 percent month-over-month decline, keeping it nearly flat at $241,000. The drop follows meager increases of 0.2 percent and 0.1 percent in July and August, respectively.

The Conference Board's Leading Economic Index (LEI), a measure of economic growth expectations for the coming months, increased 0.9 percent in October to a reading of 105.2, the group reported Thursday. The spike follows a 0.7 percent increase in September and a flat reading in August.

Despite slower economic growth in recent months following a strong showing in mid-2014, Fannie Mae's Economic and Strategic Research Group says that it still expects 2015 to be a slightly better year overall economically in the United States.

In its latest market update, Zillow reported that the number of for-sale homes nationwide rose 15.8 percent year-over-year in October. While the increase may be welcome news for home shoppers in some of the country's most supply-starved metros, the number comes with a catch: The biggest gains were seen in the highest price tier of homes.

Delivering comments to a group of REO brokers and agents, Ed Delgado, president and CEO of the Five Star Institute, offered his take on how the stage is set for the mortgage sector in 2015. "There are several embedded risks in the mortgage market that pose future risk of performance that have yet to be expressed," Delgado remarked. "In effect, the market may not be recovering at the rate that we think it is."

In its latest Origination Insight Report, released Thursday, mortgage technology provider Ellie Mae reported that refinancing activity accounted for 40 percent of overall mortgage volume in October, marking the highest level since March. Despite the increase in demand, lenders were able to improve their closing time on refinance loans.

Total existing-home sales in October, including single-family houses, townhomes, condominiums, and co-ops, came in at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.26 million, up 1.5 percent from an upwardly revised estimate of 5.18 million in September, according to transaction data from the National Association of Realtors (NAR).

Home flipping sales, or those in which a home is purchased and sold within 12 months, represented 4 percent of all single-family home sales in the United States in the third quarter, a decline from 4.6 percent in Q2 2014 and from 5.6 percent in the third quarter of 2013, according to RealtyTrac.