Fannie Mae Shows the Housing Market Doing Better than the Economy
Fannie Mae’s economists have come out with their economic and strategic summary for May. The bad news is that their outlook for the economic growth in 2015 is weakening. Despite this, their assessment of the housing market is getting stronger.
Their reduced expectations for the economy are based on the disappointing growth of the GDP in the first quarter, which came in at only 0.2%. With this in mind, their expectations for the year dropped by 0.5% to a total of 2.3%.
As far as housing goes, Chief Economist Doug Duncan is calling the market “mixed”. In March, existing home sales reached their highest level in two years. Meanwhile, pending home sales and mortgage loan applications were both strong, and foreclosure rates have been improving. However, the first quarter represented a decline from the numbers seen in the fourth quarter of 2014.
