Tag Archives: Multi-Indicator Market Index

The year 2016 was the best for home sales in a decade by many counts. But 2017 may turn out somewhat differently due to some recent changes in the market.

Housing markets in metros all over the country are improving and many metros are making their way back to their benchmark ranges, according to an index from Freddie Mac. 

Freddie Mac's Multi-Indicator Market Index shows a slowly but surely stabilizing housing market overall nationwide. But one economist says many areas of the country are still struggling to return to their long-term benchmark normal levels.

"Buoyed by strong employment growth, housing supply is struggling to keep pace with demand, which is driving house prices higher," Kiefer said. "Fortunately, low mortgage interest rates are helping to keep homebuying affordable for some prospective homebuyers."

According to the MiMi, current mortgages and employment are the major contributors pushing the MiMi into the stable range. Current mortgages reached 82.7 points in June, up 0.82 percent from May. Meanwhile, employment landed at 101.7 points, up 0.64 points from May.

The 79.2 value for the latest MiMi, which was released Wednesday, indicated a weak overall housing market but improved by 0.71 percentage points from April to May and by more than 2 percentage points over the three-month period from the beginning of March to the end of May. The MiMi value improved by more than 4 percentage points year-over-year in May, according to Freddie Mac.

Freddie Mac's report of more stabilization nationwide in the housing market was right in line with the GSE's economic outlook for June 2015, released just one day earlier, which showed that Americans may be ready to take on more mortgage debt due to low debt servicing costs and improved household balance sheets.

"In this month's MiMi three more states and seven metro areas moved within range of their benchmark level of activity," Keifer said. "However, as we've mentioned before, we're likely to see bouts of affordability shock with mortgage rate swings for the remainder of this year as market participants try to anticipate Fed timing around rising short term interest rates and expectations for global growth wax and wane."

Just as it reported for December's national index, Freddie Mac reported that January's national MiMi value of 74.6 indicated a weak housing market and even declined slightly (0.20 percent) month-over-month despite a year-over-year increase of 3.39 percent

While 38 states and 40 out of 50 metro areas showed an improving three-month trend in MiMi value for December, those numbers are down from December 2013. For that month, 47 states plus the District of Columbia and 47 of 50 metro areas showed an improving three-month trend.