Tag Archives: Unemployment

Republican presidential candidates used housing issues in Florida to trump up their bona fides in separate addresses Tuesday. With nearly all precincts reporting in Florida, former Gov. Mitt Romney routed former House speaker and rival Newt Gingrich by 46.4 percent to 31.9 percent. The Dodd-Frank Act, new mortgage rules and regulation, and foreclosures all made appearances in addresses by Gingrich and Romney. Numerous analysts credit housing-related ads helping the former Masschusetts governor head off a primary threat.

New-home sales crawled to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 307,000 in December despite modest signs of recovery. The Commerce Department said Thursady that new-home sales fell 2.2 percent below expectations from November, which held that homebuyers would pick up a seasonally adjusted 314,000 homes annually. New homes from last month carried a median sales price around $210,300, with the average sales price hovering around $266,000. Experts suggest contract failures, foreclosures, short sales, and tight credit helped slow sales.

President Barack Obama used his State of the Union address Wednesday to tout his accomplishments and propose several new housing ventures, including possible expansions to refinance programs, consumer financial protection, and new federal initiatives to combat abusive lending practices. The speech weighed in on risky lending practices in particular and went after Republicans for their opposition to his policies, including consumer financial protection. Experts remain on the sidelines about an expanded refinance program.

The economy and housing market enter the New Year with mixed results, and will likely remain that way for at least the first part of 2012, Freddie Mac forecasted in a report Thursday. Citing numerous indices in his outlook, Frank Nothaft, VP and chief economist with Freddie Mac, predicted that economic growth will likely hit 2.1 percent in the first quarter, up from the doldrums during the financial crisis. He said that U.S. unemployment will likely remain around 8.5 percent following a reversal for seasonal job growth.

The FDIC finalized one rule and proposed another Tuesday that requires systemically large financial institutions to submit resolution plans and undergo annual stress tests, respectively. Under the finalized rule, financial institutions with more than $50 billion in assets will need to craft so-called living wills, or resolution plans, for the FDIC and regulators to follow in the event of collapse. The agency also proposed another rule Tuesday for public commentary on capital adequacy tests, or stress tests, for financial institutions with $10 billion or more in assets, including 23 state non-member banks.

The economy will drift upward in 2012 as incremental changes take place in the housing market, with a divisive and uncertain policy environment the darkest cloud on the horizon, Fannie Mae said in an economic outlook Friday. Doug Duncan, VP and chief economist with Fannie, offered up the outlook from the GSE's Economics and Mortgage Analysis Group. Fannie Mae said that total home sales could hit 4.7 million in 2012, reflecting a 3.5-percent boost from total sales, new and existing, last year. The forecast said that home sales could reach as many as 5 million come 2013.

The U.S. economy soldiered ahead by adding 200,000 jobs over December, lowering the unemployment rate to 8.5 percent as more employers picked up seasonal staff members for the holidays. The Labor Department reported Friday that total private-sector employment reached 212,000 last month, alongside fewer jobs for local and state governments, marginal declines in real estate services, and a notable pickup in residential construction around the country. Real estate, rental and leasing services lost jobs by 1.3 percent on average in December.

Uncertainty in the markets helped ring in the New Year with record lows for mortgage rates, as concerns over debt crises and job growth lingered for wary investors. Finance Web site Bankrate.com and mortgage company Freddie Mac released their findings for mortgage rates Thursday in two separate weekly surveys. Bankrate.com reported interest rates for the 30-year loan hitting a record 4.18 percent this week, down from 4.21 percent last week. Freddie likewise found rates for the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage sliding from 3.95 percent last week to 3.91 percent this week.

With the euro zone crisis deepening, members of the Federal Open Market Committee elected to stay the course in November by keeping interest rates historically low and pooling investments from agency debt into agency mortgage-backed securities. Minutes framed discussions around concerns about weakening confidence in the markets as a result of any potential default by euro zone nations, even while the U.S. economy signaled that it would continue climbing out of the financial crisis. Europe helped rattle markets and compel the Fed's action in 2011.

Homebuilders spent more on construction in November last year than in any month before August, with figures for new residences climbing by 1.2 percent above October estimates. Fielding the numbers Tuesday, the Commerce Department reported that construction spending overall hovered at around $807.1 billion. Single-family home construction moved forward at a steady clip by rising 1.5 percent, with nonresidential construction staying nearly the same as in October with about $278 billion or so in reported expenditures.