Housing in the coming year is going to be a relative bright spot – a helpful driver of national economic growth, rather than the wet blanket it’s been for the past couple of years.
Home sales and new home construction, at least according to the Fed, are likely to stimulate the economy in 2010 — enough to generate jobs and help avoid a double-dip recession.
That forecast just happens to track nicely with another that came out last week: Fannie Mae issued its projections for the coming year — and predicted that housing sales will jump by 11 percent — even in the face of a slow recovery for the economy as a whole.
Meanwhile, scattered reports from hard-hit local real estate markets suggest that there may be some reasons for guarded optimism.
Now, as is almost always the case, not all the news is on the up side. New home starts dropped by a surprisingly large, seasonally-adjusted 10.6 percent, according to the U.S. Commerce Department.
A lot of the decline came in multifamily housing apartment starts — a volatile month by month index — which plummeted by 35 percent. But there’s no sugar coating here: starts of single family homes dropped by 6.8 percent – which was enough of a negative to spook Wall Street .
Finally into the mix this week, mortgage rates continue to be the magic potion for home buyers, dropping again further into the upper four percent range. According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, fixed rate 30-year loans averaged just 4.8 percent, and 15 year loans are going for just 4.3 percent on average.
Now is the time to buy or sell a home especially with interest rates below 5 percent. A 1 percent increase in the interest rate, reduce that amount of home you can purchase by $10,000. If you are selling your home the time is NOW and let The Baker Realty Group show you why. If you are buying or selling, give Bill Baker a call today. One call could change your life.
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