Recent Posts by Mark Fleming

Mark Fleming is the chief economist for First American Financial Corporation and leads First American’s Decision Sciences team.
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 ...
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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 ...
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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.
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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 ...
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I, House: The Complexity and Far-Reaching Benefits of Homeownership
By
Mark Fleming on August 4, 2015
A recent release from the American Enterprise Institute harkened back to Milton Friedman’s discussion of the now famous I, Pencil essay by Leonard Read. In short, I, Pencil tells the story of a pencil and the multitude of factors that go into its assembly. Where does the wood come from? How is it transported? What goes into the production of the ...
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Anything But Normal Is The New Normal - Risk Intelligence Forum
By
Mark Fleming on July 31, 2015
Last week, I had the distinct pleasure of attending the First American Risk Intelligence Forum in Nashville, Tennessee. It was my first visit to Nashville and it did not disappoint. The tour of the Country Music Hall of Fame, and the dinner and country music at City Winery were fabulous.
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