Milton Alexis Curiel Business Development Manager

Housing Starts Housing Starts for May were down 14.4% overall, but single-family homes, which are most important, were down 9.2%. Housing Permits were down 7% last month, but once again single family were also lower, dropping by 5.5%. Single family units authorized, but not started, were flat, but we finally saw s...

NAHB Housing Market Index The NAHB Housing Market Index, which measures builder confidence, fell 2 points to 67 in June, as expected. Looking at the internals, it’s important to remember that a reading above 50 signals expansion, while a reading below signals contraction: Current Sales: down 1 points to 77 Sales Expectatio...

Jobless Claims Initial Jobless Claims, which measures individuals filing for unemployment benefits for the first time, decreased by 3,000 to 229,000. While this is still a very low level of initial claims, the four-week moving average is at its highest since late January and this can be an early sign that companie...

BLS Jobs Report The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that were 390,000 jobs created in May, which was stronger than expectations of 320,000. There was a -22,000 revision to March and April, which tempers the optimism slightly. The Unemployment Rate remained at a very strong 3.6%, but did not decline to 3.5...

ADP Employment Report The ADP Employment report showed that there were only 128,000 job creations in the month of May, which was much less than the 300,000 expected and the slowest gain of the recovery. Adding to the weakness was a 45,000 downward revision to April, brining that figure from 247,000 to 202,000. All the jo...

FHFA House Price Index The FHFA (Federal Housing Finance Agency) released their House Price Index, which measures home price appreciation on single-family homes with conforming loan amounts. While you can have a million-dollar home with a conforming loan amount, it’s typically measuring your lower priced homes. Prices r...

New Home Sales New Home Sales, which measures signed contracts on new homes, were down 17% in April to a 591,000 annualized pace, which was in line with expectations. The report is actually weaker than it appears as there was a negative revision to the previous month. When factoring that in, sales are down 22% fro...

Jobless Claims Initial Jobless Claims, which measures individuals filing for unemployment benefits for the first time, increased by 21,000 to 218,000. While this is still a very low level of initial claims, it has been increasing over the past few weeks and the four-week moving average is at its highest since Febr...

Housing Starts Housing Starts for April were down 0.2% overall, but single family homes, which are most important, were down 7.3%. Housing Permits were down 3.2% last month, but once again single family were down by a larger amount, dropping 4.6%. Overall, these figures are higher on a year over year basis, but th...

NAHB Housing Market Index The NAHB Housing Market Index, which measures builder confidence, fell 8 points to 69 in May, which is much worse than expectations. Looking at the internals, it’s important to remember that a reading above 50 signals expansion, while a reading below signals contraction: Current Sales: down 8 poin...

ADP Employment Report ADP released their employment report, showing that there were 247,000 job creations in April, which was weaker than estimates of 400,000. There was a positive revision to last month – The March report was revised higher from 455,000 to 479,000 job gains, a total revision of 24,000. Small businesse...

Jobless Claims Initial Jobless Claims, which measures individuals filing for unemployment benefits for the first time, decreased 5,000 to 180,000. Continuing claims, which are those that continue to receive benefits after their initial claim, decreased 1,000 to 1.41M. This is the lowest number of continuing claims...

Pending Home Sales Pending Home Sales, which measures signed contracts on existing homes, fell 1.2% in March, which was stronger than the 1.8% decline expected. Sales are now down 8.2% year over year. There is no doubt that higher interest rates could be impacting demand, but this is still very strong considering the....

Case-Shiller The National Case-Shiller Home Price Index, which is considered the “gold standard” for appreciation, showed home prices rose 1.7% in February and 19.8% year over year, which is an increase from 19.2% in the previous report. The top three performing cities were: Phoenix: 33% Tampa: 33% Miami: 30...

NAHB Housing Market Index The NAHB Housing Market Index, which measures builder confidence, dropped two points from 79 to 77 in April. Current sales fell by 2 points to 85, which is still very strong. Buyer traffic fell 6 points to 60, while future sales expectations increased 3 points to 73. While some of these figures are....

Jobless Claims Initial Jobless Claims, which measures individuals filing for unemployment benefits for the first time, increased 18,000 to 185,000, coming off the lowest reading since 1968. Continuing claims, which are those that continue to receive benefits after their initial claim, decreased 48,000 to 1.475M. T...

Case-Shiller Home Price Index The Case-Shiller Home Price Index, which is considered the “gold standard” for appreciation, showed home prices rose 1.1% in January and 19.2% year over year, which is an acceleration from 18.8% in the previous report. Appreciation remains at very high levels, even in the face of rates, which st...

Pending Home Sales Pending Home Sales, which measures signed contracts on existing homes, fell 4.1% in February, which was weaker than expected. Sales are now down 5.4% year over year. There is no doubt that higher interest rates could be impacting demand, but the real story here is inventory. There were only 870,000....

New Home Sales New Home Sales, which measures signed contracts on new homes, were down 2% in February at an 772,000 unit annualized pace, which was weaker than expectations of 801,000. There was a negative revision to January, and when removing that, sales were down 3.5% from the originally reported January figure...

Existing Home Sales Existing Home Sales, which measure closings on existing homes, showed that sales down 7% in February at a 6.02M annualized pace. This likely measured activity in December and January, when rates were rising, but not at the levels they are today. This was a bit worse than expectations, but coming off...

Jobless Claims Initial Jobless Claims, which measures individuals filing for unemployment benefits for the first time, decreased 15,000 to 214,000. Continuing claims, which are those that continue to receive benefits after their initial claim, decreased 71,000 to 1.4M, which is a low going back to 1970. The labor....

Housing Starts Housing Starts increased 6.8% in February at an annualized rate of 1.77M, which was almost double expectations and the highest in 16 years. Year over year, Starts are now up 22%. Single family, which is most important, increased by 5.7%. They are now up almost 14% year over year. Permits fell by 1.9...

NAHB Housing Market Index The NAHB Housing Market Index for March, which measures builder confidence, dropped two points from 81 to 79. Current sales fell by 3 points to 86, which is still very strong. Buyer traffic increased 2 points to 67, which is also showing strength. The real decline came in Future sales expectations,....

BLS Jobs Report The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that were 678,000 jobs created in February, which was much more than expectations of 400,000. There were 92,000 in positive revisions to December and January. The Unemployment Rate decreased from 4.0% to 3.8%. The unemployment rate is derived from the ho...

Jobless Claims Initial Jobless Claims, which measures individuals filing for unemployment benefits for the first time, decreased 18,000 to 215,000. Continuing claims, which are those that continue to receive benefits after their initial claim, increased 2,000 to 1.48M, which is just off the lowest level since 1970...

ADP Employment Report ADP released their employment report, showing that there were 475,000 job creations in February, which was a bit stronger than expectations of 400,000. Adding to the strength of the report were big revisions to last month – The January report was revised higher from 301,000 job losses to 509,000 j...

Jobless Claims Initial Jobless Claims, which measures individuals filing for unemployment benefits for the first time, decreased 17,000 to 232,000. Continuing claims, which are those that continue to receive benefits after their initial claim, decreased 112,000 to 1.48M. Claims are at very strong pre-covid levels....

New Home Sales New Home Sales, which measures signed contracts on new homes, were down 4.5% in January at an 801,000 unit annualized pace, which was much stronger than expectations of a 8.6% decline. There was a positive revision to the December reading, and when factoring that in, sales were only down around 1.0%...

Case-Shiller Home Price Index The Case-Shiller Home Price Index, which is considered the “gold standard” for appreciation, showed home prices rose 0.9% in December and 18.8% year over year, which was unchanged from the previous report. Appreciation remains at very high levels, even in the face of rates, which started to move...