Recent Posts by Mark Fleming

Mark Fleming is the chief economist for First American Financial Corporation and leads First American’s Decision Sciences team.

Fear and loathing in homeownership

By Mark Fleming on October 20, 2015
Achieving the American Dream of homeownership and increasing economic mobility – many recognize that these issues are important, but few realize how closely they are related. Consider that in the next 30 years, collectively, minorities will become the new "minority-majority" in the U.S. Read More

Income

HELOCS Poised to Surge

By Mark Fleming on October 16, 2015
Home equity is back, baby! And, perhaps more importantly, consumers are beginning to take notice. After 13 consecutive quarters of year-over-year house price growth, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s (FHFA) house price index (HPI), and with the Great Recession squarely in the rear view mirror, borrowers are more frequently tapping ... Read More

Interest Rates

Existing-Home Sales Capacity Increases 0.4 Percent In August

By Mark Fleming on September 16, 2015
Market capacity for existing-home sales has remained close to six million sales on an annualized basis for more than a year First American’s proprietary Existing-Home Sales Capacity (EHS-C) model provides a gauge on whether existing-home sales are under capacity or over capacity based on current market fundamentals. For the month of August, the ... Read More

Housing

Does A Fed Rate Increase Doom Housing?

By Mark Fleming on September 15, 2015
This week, the Federal Reserve has its September meeting where it could potentially decide to increase interest rates for the first time since 2008. The CME FedWatch Tool measures the market’s expectation of Fed target rates.Currently, the market-estimated probability of a 0.25 percent rate increase on September 17 is significantly higher than ... Read More

Interest Rates Federal Reserve

The Demographics of Homeownership

By Mark Fleming on September 11, 2015
The summer is officially over. Pools are closed, children are back in school, and Congress is back in session. It seems like an ideal time to catch everyone up on housing events in August, as well as look ahead to some important events in housing in the coming weeks. Read More

In The News

Existing-Home Sales Capacity Decreases 0.4 Percent in July — Market Capacity Nears Equilibrium

By Mark Fleming on August 19, 2015
First American’s proprietary Existing-Home Sales Capacity (EHS-C) model provides a gauge on whether existing-homes sales are under capacity or over capacity based on current market fundamentals. For the month of July, the EHS-C seasonally adjusted, annual rate of sales decreased by 23,000, a decreased of 0.4 percent compared to June and a decrease ... Read More

Housing