New home sales rose unexpectedly in May despite rising mortgage rates and an otherwise cooling housing market. The increase was driven by more supply coming online, pushing prices down for the first time since February. Sales increased by 10.7% on the month to 696,000 new homes annualized, after ... READ MORE >
Real Estate
Real estate and the middle market go hand in hand. Developers in commercial, residential and industrial markets provide the economic fuel to transform local economies, building infrastructure that leads to new business and job creation.
As rates rise, Canada’s construction industry enters a new phase
In response to rising inflation, the Bank of Canada began a series of aggressive rate hikes this year, bringing its policy rate from an effective lower bound of 0.25% to 1.5% in June. One of the industries hit hardest by rising interest rates has been construction, and this slowdown now threatens to ... READ MORE >
The American housing deficit and what it takes to close it
Over the past 15 years, the United States has not built enough houses to keep up with growing demand. The problem intensified during the pandemic as demand skyrocketed because of the shift to working from home and historically low mortgage rates encouraged this move. We estimate that at the end of ... READ MORE >
Chart of the day: U.S. housing starts and permits plunge
U.S. housing starts and permits plunged in May amid a steep rise in mortgage rates and sour builder sentiment. We expect new housing supply to fall further as mortgage rates continue to rise following the Federal Reserve’s 75 basis-point rate increase on Wednesday, its largest since 1994. Housing ... READ MORE >
How lumber tells the story of home building during the pandemic
RSM took a detailed look at gross margins across different peer groups to see how each has fared during this time of high inflation. In this article—part of a series—we examine margins for timber companies, lumber producers and homebuilders. Here is what we found. Lumber prices have had a tumultuous two ... READ MORE >
Chart of the day: Pending home sales fell in April
Pending home sales in April dropped more than expected as mortgage rates climbed toward a multidecade high, the National Association of Realtors reported on Thursday. April's pending sales index fell by 3.9% on the month, following an upwardly revised 1.6% decline in March. That pushed the total ... READ MORE >
New home sales fell 16.6% in April to lowest level since pandemic began
New home sales plummeted in April to their lowest since the onset of the pandemic amid a steep rise in mortgage rates and elevated prices. We expect sales to drop further in the coming months as a result of two potential 50-basis-point interest rate hikes from the Federal Reserve in June and ... READ MORE >
Chart of the day: U.S. existing home sales fall again as rates rise
Sales of existing homes in the United States fell for the third straight month in April as the housing market continued to cool off amid steep mortgage rate increases. Total sales declined to 5.61 million on the month, down by 2.4% compared to March and by 5.9% from a year ago, according to data ... READ MORE >
Chart of the day: U.S. housing starts fall amid rising mortgage rates
Construction of new houses in the United States slowed in April as builders' sentiment soured on the spike in mortgage rates. Builders, expecting faster interest rate increases from the Federal Reverse to tackle inflation, are slowing down their plans for new supply. With demand cooling off, we should ... READ MORE >
Pending home sales fell back to pre-pandemic level amid rising rates
U.S. pending home sales fell 1.2% in March, declining for the fifth month in a row, as demand continued to slow due to high home prices and rising mortgage rates. The National Association of Realtors' index for pending home sales is a proxy for future sales of existing homes as about 80% of pending ... READ MORE >