Tag Archives: Housing and Economic Outlook

Leading indicators for the housing sector have shown that despite the moderate economic growth predicted, housing may experience a strong season in the spring, according to Fannie Mae. In March, existing home sales rose to their highest level in nearly two years, but for Q1 existing home sales were off slightly from the previous quarter's total. Despite a slowdown in March, new single-family home sales ended the first quarter at their strongest pace in seven years.

The temporary factors that slowed economic growth include a drawdown in inventory, unusually high snowfall in some parts of the country, and the West Coast port slowdown. Fannie Mae expects the reducing of those factors in the second quarter combined with upbeat labor market conditions and positive consumer and business fundamentals to push GDP growth to 2.8 percent in 2015, ahead of 2014's pace of 2.4 percent.

Freddie Mac cited a number of positive opportunities for housing to start 2015, but households and businesses should take advantage of them because those opportunities may be limited, according to the GSE's January 2015 U.S. Economic and Housing Market Outlook released on Tuesday.