FannieMae has just released its March 2013 Economic & Housing Outlook provided by Fannie Mae’s Economic & Strategic Research Group. You can find the news elease here: Economic Growth Poised to Strengthen – Businesses and Consumers Apathetic Toward Fiscal Drag
from FannieMae’s March 2013 Report:
…overall economic growth is expected to pick up in the second half of the year, coming in at 2.1 percent in 2013. … Housing indicators showed mixed performance in early 2013, but the market is continuing its upward trajectory. Home prices have increased significantly and are expected to firm further, helping to boost household net worth and providing support to consumers amid ongoing fiscal tightening.
You can also hear the podcast for the March 2013 Economic Outlook here.
MikeZ
FYI. From ZeroHedge, a guilty weekend reading pleasure of mine… “The housing recovery was described by one muppet on CNBC yesterday as ‘parabolic’ so we decided to go in search of this mystical anecdotal surge that is so often heard on the airwaves of the preachers. It turns out, the recovery (if that’s what you want to call it) is not so much. …”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-03-28/spot-housing-recovery
MikeZ
Also, related:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-04-02/walking-dead-housing-recovery-zombie-foreclosures
The ‘Walking Dead’ Housing Recovery – Zombie Foreclosures
…
One figure that stood out for Nevada is the 22 percent increase in “front end” inventory, or homes that have received a notice of default, Blomquist said. It’s up 22 percent from a year ago, to nearly 10,000 as of mid-March.
RealtyTrac reported a 69 percent decrease in notices of trustee sale for the first quarter in Nevada, and a 31 percent drop in back-owned homes, or actual foreclosures.
The so-called “shadow inventory” of homes that have entered the foreclosure process but have not yet been listed for sale may provide hope in markets hungry for more inventory, Blomquist said.
Many of those properties will be listed as short sales in the next six to 12 months, or they’ll go through foreclosure and eventually come on the market as bank-owned properties in the next 18 months, he said.