Market Studies

The housing market will continue its gradual recovery and gain momentum in 2015 after a disappointing 2014, according to the Wells Fargo Economics Group 2015 Economic Outlook entitled "A Whole New Ballgame," released earlier this week.

After trudging along a sluggish track in 2014, the market for new homes is projected to make a comeback next year, Fitch Ratings says in a new forecast.

In a year that's seen promising—albeit unspectacular—growth, economists agree that one sector of the U.S. economy disappointed: the housing market.

The nation's mortgage loan delinquency rate is expected to fall down to 2.51 percent by the end of 2015, its lowest level since prior to the housing bust, according to data released by TransUnion on Wednesday.

In her outlook, IHS economist Stephanie Karol focuses on two major trends that have shaped the housing market in 2014: low household formation and diverging trends for new versus existing-homes.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported 4.8 million job openings in the U.S. as of the last day of October 2014, up slightly from the 4.7 million reported at the end of September, but overall things changed little month-over-month, according to the October 2014 Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary released Tuesday.

Sales of single-family homes in Rhode Island increased by 3.2 percent in October from the previous year, the fifth time in 2014 single-family home sales have increased year-over-year in the state, according to a report released Monday by the Warren Group.

The year 2015 is gearing up to be a stronger, more expensive housing market powered for the first time by new millennial buyers, according to the Realtor.com 2015 Housing Forecast.

U.S. payrolls for November surpassed even the most optimistic forecasts, increasing at the highest rate in more than two years, according to a government estimate.

Despite the declining share of underwater mortgages as a percentage of all mortgages in the U.S., which has fallen below 8 percent, about four million borrowers are still underwater, according to Black Knight Financial Services' October 2014 Mortgage Monitor released today.