Stocks and Sectors

John Lounsbury submits:

Nationally, 24% of all mortgages have outstanding values greater than the current market value. The term for this condition of negative equity is "under water", hence the title of this post.

Michael Gerrity reports at the Real Estate Channel on the latest data from First American CoreLogic. In February, Nevada had 70% of mortgages underwater. Number 2 was Arizona, at 51%, followed by Florida at 48%. Another 3.8% of Florida homes were essentially flat to value, nearing submersion.

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Markos Kaminis (Wall St. Greek) submits:

Housing Starts faded in February due to weather, but in the summer months ahead, we think the potency of stimulus could prove inadequate for housing activity as well.

February’s Housing Starts measured 5.9% short of January’s annual pace, as poor weather hampered Northeast activity. The annual pace of starts ran at 575K, which was still higher than economists had forecast (565K). Helping the monthly divide, January’s pace was revised higher to 611K, up from the previously measured 591K.

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Michael Panzner submits:

OK, time for a bit of crowdsourcing on a familiar subject. According to Bloomberg BusinessWeek, the bottom is at hand in the property market:

"Housing Real-Estate Recovery Signaled as Fed Unwinds"

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Calafia Beach Pundit submits:

The release of housing starts and building permits for February showed that activity softened a bit, but considering the weather, the results were a bit better than expected. In any event, as these charts show, it continues to look like we have seen the bottom in residential construction activity, which occurred last April, when housing starts were 17% lower than they were in February ‘10. Building permits in February were 23% higher than they were last April.

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Zachary Scheidt submits:

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Hickey and Walters (Bespoke) submit:

No matter how you look at it, housing starts in the US remain stuck near record low levels. This morning’s release of the monthly number showed that there were 575K starts during the month of February on a seasonally adjusted annualized rate (SAAR). While this figure is up 20% from the lows in April of 2009, it is still down 75% from the recent peak we saw in January 2006.

click to enlarge

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Sold At The Top submits:

Today’s New Residential Construction Report continued to indicate a weak recovery for the new home market showing the continued year-over-year increases to both permits and starts.

It’s clear now that the government’s housing stimulus tax credit and loose FHA lending policies have worked to prop both new and existing home sales.

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Sold At The Top submits:

Comparing today’s new residential construction data to the recently released NAHB housing market indicators appears to suggest that we may soon see notable declines to housing starts and permits.

The “buyer traffic” index has been declining steadily since September 2009 indicating that home builders are seeing declining foot traffic with an overall level only slightly higher buyer activity than seen in the panic stricken days of late 2008.

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Zacks.com submits:

The National Association Of Home Builders sentiment index fell to 15 in March from 17 in February. While the index is well off its record low of 8 set back in January 2009, it remains very depressed. The index is set up so any reading below 50 indicates contraction, and the current rate is well below anything seen prior to the Great Recession (although the history only goes back to 1983).

The builders index is a pretty good leading indicator of housing starts. The graph below shows the history of the index plotted against single family home starts. Historically residential investment, with new home construction being the largest part of that, has been the principal locomotive that pulls the economy out of recessions.

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Sold At The Top submits:

On Monday, the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) released their latest Housing Market Index (HMI) showing declining results for all measures.

It’s important to recognize that although each sentiment index has now shown notable year-over-year increases, their levels still remain near the worst levels seen in over 20 years.

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