The U.S. Census Bureau reported this morning that construction spending in August fell by 0.6% to an estimated seasonally adjusted annual rate of $837.1 billion from a revised estimate of $842 billion. Compared with…
The National Association of Realtors (NAR) this morning released its data on pending home sales in August. The index fell from a two-year high of an upwardly revised reading of 101.9 in July to…
We recently became worried about the future dividends of the high-yielding mortgage REIT sector due to QE3’s focus being on $40 billion in mortgage-backed securities. In fact, after our call of caution about the future…
The U.S. Census Bureau this morning released data on new single-family home sales for August. Economists had been expecting a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 380,000, and were disappointed by a reported increase to…
The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) released its weekly report on mortgage applications this morning, noting an increase of 2.8% in the group’s composite index compared with last week’s total. Applications for refinancing rose 3%…
The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) reported this morning that U.S. home prices rose 0.2% month-over-month in July, following a downward revision of the April housing price index to a gain of 0.6%. For…
The S&P/Case-Shiller home price index for July rose sharply again compared with the June index, and house prices were higher on an annual basis as well. The 10-city composite showed that average home prices…
Lennar Corp. (NYSE: LEN) this morning reported fiscal third-quarter 2012 earnings per share (EPS) of $0.40 on revenue of $1.1 billion. In the same period a year ago, the homebuilder reported EPS of $0.11…
The advantages of small-town living are well known to Americans — and not just because of Norman Rockwellesque clichés about values, neighborliness and pace of life. These days, most prosperous small towns are bedroom communities…
KB Home (NYSE: KBH) this morning reported fiscal third-quarter 2013 earnings per share (EPS) of $0.04 on revenue of $424.5 million. In the same period a year ago, the homebuilder reported a net loss…
Hovnanian Enterprises Inc. (NYSE: HOV) may have been the hardest hit of all the publicly traded homebuilders since the housing market collapse began in 2007. The share price dipped below a dollar earlier this…
The Blackstone Group LP (NYSE: BX) is going big into home automation, and we would note that there is a solar angle here as well. The private equity giant is paying a sum of…
The National Association of Realtors (NAR) reported this morning that existing home sales rose by 7.8% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.82 million units in August, compared with 4.47 million units in…
New housing starts in August rose to an annual seasonally adjusted rate of 750,000, an increase of 2.3% from the revised July rate of 733,000 and a gain of 29.1% above the August 2011…
August Housing Starts hit 750,000 for a gain of +2.3% but the prior month was revised to -2.8% from -1.1% originally set. Consensus estimates: Dow Jones had a target of +2.5% on housing starts;…