August 18, 2021

MBA Mortgage Applications (week ended 8/13/2021)

- Purchase Index week/week -1.0%. Previous weeks were +1.8%, -2.0%, -2.0%. -6.0%, +8.0%, -1.0%, -5.0%, +1.0%, +2.0%, +0.3%, -3.0%, -4.0%, -4.0%, +1.0%, and -3.0%

- Refinance Index week/week  -5.0%. Previous weeks  were +3.2%, -2.0%, +9.0%,  -3.0%, -+20.0%, 2.0%, 8.0%, 3.0%, 5.5%, 6.0%, -5.0%, -5.0%, -7.0%, 4.0%, and +3.0%

- Composite Index week/week -3.9%.  Previous weeks were +2.8%, -1.7%,  +5.7%, -4.0%, +16.0%, 1.8%, -6.9%, 2.1%, +4.2%, -3.1%, -4.0% , -4.2%., -4.2%, +2.2%, and -0.9%.

Source:  MBA    Details: https://www.mba.org/2021-press-releases/august/mortgage-applications-increase-in-latest-mba-weekly-survey

 

Housing Starts and Permits  (July 2021)

- Starts - Annual Rate    1,534,000. Previous was 1.643,000

- Permits - Annual Rate    1,635,000. Previous was 1.594,000

A goal must be to keep starts above the 1,500,000 annual needed to accommodate expanded population and units lost. We were below that from Jan. 2007 to Dec. 2019, went above that for 2 months and then had the COVID crash. If we want affordable housing we should have 2,200,000 Starts/year for 10 years.

SFR Starts were 1,111,000 which was +27.2% year/year and -4.5% month/month.

Source:  Census  Details:  https://www.census.gov/construction/nrc/pdf/newresconst.pdf