Predicting Housing Industry’s Growth in 2019

Fixed mortgages will rise in 2019, according to a poll conducted by CoreLogic during its annual conference. Attendees at this event weighed in on a slew of significant issues facing the housing industry and seven in eight expected fixed mortgage rates to post higher a year from now.

How much higher? Nearly two-thirds said rates would ramp up between 0.2 and 0.5 percentage points, CoreLogic reports. That being said, almost one-fourth believed rates would blossom by more than 0.5 percentage points. To wit, 30-year, fixed-rate products were about 0.6 percentage points pricier this year than last year. They reached a seven-year high this May.

Attendees were also queried on how much they think the 2019 CoreLogic Home Price Index (HPI) would change. Practically three-fourths of respondents expect price growth to lose speed in the national index during the next year, the poll reveals. Two in five poll takers forecast the falloff to be moderate, with the national HPI up 5 to 7 percentage points during the next year. Those numbers are in keeping with the CoreLogic HPI Forecast, the company notes. 

Flipping that coin, however, almost one-third foresee the slowdown being more severe, with the national index growing less than 5 percentage points.

“The expectations were affected by a variety of assumptions each respondent had for how the economy and the housing market may evolve, reflected in the distribution of forecasts among the attendees,” the survey said. “Nonetheless, a large majority of attendees expect higher mortgage rates and slower home-price growth during the next year.”

The attendees and respondents represented a wide swath of industry professionals, think tank researchers, and government policymakers who have a sweeping view of the interest rate and home price outlook, the company says. They convene at the yearly conference to discuss the most critical matters affecting today’s housing economy.