The National Association of Home Builders [1] (NAHB) will release its quarterly NAHB Housing Opportunity Index (HOI) for the fourth quarter of 2017 on Thursday, February 8 at 10 a.m. EST. The HOI gauges the affordability of home markets by covering the share of records in a metropolitan area for which the monthly income available for housing is at or above the monthly cost for that unit. The HOI is defined as the share of homes sold in that area that would have been affordable to a family earning the local median income, based on standard mortgage underwriting criteria.
The HOI for the third quarter of 2017 indicated that the Los Angeles region was the least affordable market during the quarter, while the Youngstown-Warren-Boardman, region in Ohio was the most affordable. Nationally, the data showed that 58.3 percent of new and existing homes sold between the beginning of July and end of September were affordable to families earning the U.S. median income of $68,000. This was down from the 59.4 percent of homes sold that were affordable to median-income earners in the second quarter.
Here’s what else is scheduled for The Week Ahead:
- The Five Star Institute’s Motown Throwdown [2], Tuesday, 6:30 p.m.CST, at the Palace Arts Center in Grapevine, Texas
- MBA Mortgage Applications Survey, Wednesday, 7 a.m. EST
- Consumer Credit Report, Wednesday, 3 p.m. EST
- Jobless Claims, Thursday, 8:30 a.m. EST
- Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey, Thursday 9 a.m. EST
- Fed Balance Sheet, Thursday, 4:30 p.m. EST