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2012 Economic Outlook

Congress is scheduled to vote on FHA loan limits Friday. Senator Vitter, whom we supported in his re-election, has voted against raising FHA loan limits. He needs to hear from us as to the importance in Louisiana of the FHA loan limits returning to their levels before they were dropped. Thes limits for the state dropped from $8000 to $16000 shutting out many buyers in our state and further crippling our industry. Please email or call his office to urge him to support raising the FHA loan limits to help us offset increased costs from new building codes.

New Improving Market Index Highlights Twelve Metro Areas Showing Sustained Economic Recovery

Pittsburgh and New Orleans Among Those Included
September 7, 2011 – Today the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) released its first NAHB/First American Improving Markets Index (IMI), a new economic index revealing metropolitan areas that have shown improvement for at least six months in three key economic areas—housing permits, employment and housing prices.

The list of metropolitan areas includes:

Alexandria, LA
Anchorage, AK
Bangor, ME
Bismarck, ND
Casper, WY
Fairbanks, AK
Fayetteville, NC
Houma, LA
Midland, TX
New Orleans, LA
Pittsburgh, PA
Waco, TX
“Despite the challenging conditions in the national economy and housing sector, there are areas throughout the country where we are seeing pockets of improvement” said Bob Nielsen, chairman of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) and a home builder from Reno, Nev. “Housing conditions are local, and do not always reflect the national picture. We created this new index to shine a light on those housing markets across the country that have stabilized and have begun to show signs of recovery.”

“By examining key indicators of home prices, employment and housing permits data, we are using a comprehensive, but conservative method in determining which markets are improving,” said NAHB Chief Economist David Crowe. “Last year at this time, there was not a single market that showed improvement using these criteria, and now we can point to 12 examples of growth.”

“It’s not surprising that many of the states represented are energy rich areas,” Crowe continued. “Those are the regions still experiencing relatively strong employment, supporting housing demand.”

The IMI is designed to track housing markets throughout the country that are showing signs of improving economic health. The index measures three sets of independent monthly data to get a mark on the top improving Metropolitan Statistical Areas. The three indicators that are analyzed are employment growth from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, house price appreciation from Freddie Mac, and single-family housing permit growth from the U.S. Census Bureau. A metro area must see improvement in all three areas for at least six months following their respective troughs before being included on the improving markets list. NAHB uses the latest available data from these sources to generate the list of improving markets.

Please visit www.nahb.org/imi for additional data, tables and a list of 2011 future economic release dates.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The NAHB/First American Improving Markets Index (IMI) will be released on the fourth business day of each month at 10:00 a.m. ET, unless that day falls on a Friday, in which case the index will be released the following Monday. A full calendar of 2011 release dates can be found at www.nahb.org/imi.

Nationwide housing starts rose 14.6 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 629,000 units in June, according to figures released by the U.S. Commerce Department today. This was the best pace of housing production since the beginning of the year, and was attributable to significant gains registered in both the single-family and multifamily segments as well as every region of the country.

“Today’s numbers are an encouraging sign that builders are responding to improving consumer interest in new homes and apartments by gradually replenishing their extremely thin inventories in places where demand is evident,” said Bob Nielsen, chairman of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) and a home builder from Reno, Nev. “That said, the lack of access to construction credit remains an impediment to starting new projects and getting building crews back to work in markets that are improving.”

Read More at http://www.nahb.org/news_details.aspx?newsID=13056

www.HousingEconomics.com