Tag Archives: Economic Activity

"Despite sluggish pending contract signings, the housing market is resilient with approximately three offers for each listing," said NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun. "The lack of housing inventory continues to prevent housing demand from being fully realized."

August's increase was driven by an increase in Conference Board's measure of current economic sentiment, which grew to 94.6 from 87.9 in July. Most of that was spurred by more promising reports over the spring and summer as business and labor market indicators improved.

The First American Leading Markets Index (LMI) , a report released Thursday by the National Association of Home Builders showed that 56 of approximately 350 metro markets nationwide have returned to or exceeded their last normal levels of economic and housing activity, as recorded before the recession. This is nine more metros than a year ago, suggesting that even though the lion's share of metros in the U.S. are still underperforming, more are coming back to stable ground.

The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System issued their Federal Open Market Committee statement, commenting that growth in economic activity has picked up recently despite a sluggish first quarter, due in part to adverse weather conditions. The Fed noted that recovery in the housing sector remained slow.

A weaker-than-expected first quarter has researchers at Fannie Mae amending their forecast for growth in 2014, but they still project acceleration as the year progresses. In its Economic and Housing Outlook for April, Fannie Mae's Economic and Strategic Research Group notes economic activity slowed in Q1 even more than was forecast, partly due to a sharp decline in inventory investment as consumer spending waned.