Last week, the Census Bureau released its Residential Construction report for December. Housing completions decreased 8.4 percent compared with last December and continued to fall short of the number of new housing units necessary to keep pace with household formation. Housing starts also decreased 10.9 percent in December compared with a year ... Read More ›

The Loan Application Defect Index for purchase transactions continued its upward trend, increasing 5.6 percent in January compared with the month before, the fifth consecutive month defect risk in purchase transactions has risen. Overall, the frequency of defects, fraudulence and misrepresentation in the information submitted in mortgage loan ... Read More ›

Housing affordability is a function of three economic drivers: nominal house prices, household income and mortgage rates. When incomes rise, consumer house-buying power increases. Declining mortgage rates or declining nominal house prices also increase consumer house-buying power. Our Real House Price Index (RHPI) uses consumer house-buying power ... Read More ›

In the first month of the new year, the housing market continued to underperform its potential, but gave us signs of promise for the future. Actual existing-home sales are 5.3 percent below the market’s potential, according to our Potential Home Sales model. That means the market has the potential to support 293,000 more home sales than the ... Read More ›

Contrary to many reports, student loan debt is not an insurmountable barrier to homeownership for millennials. Student loan debt is more likely to delay the timing of homeownership, but it does not necessarily prevent homeownership. But, this begs the questions, how does student loan debt impact house-buying power? And, is higher education a ... Read More ›

First American Deputy Chief Economist Odeta Kushi provided perspective on millennial homeownership in an interview with National Public Radio and Chief Economist Mark Fleming’s expectations for the spring home buying season were featured in a Forbes.com article earlier this month. Read More ›