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US Housing Starts: August 2015
Home-building in the US slipped in August, with declines in both single-family and apartment-building construction. US housing starts fell 3 per cent from a month earlier to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.126 million last month, the Commerce Department said Thursday. Moreover, new applications for building permits rose 3.5 per cent to 1.17 million,…
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US Real Estate and General Economic Indicators
“There’s still plenty of pent up activity in the housing sector. And it’s hard to see the US economy running out of steam with this much upside left in residential investment, according to some economists and analysts,” said Bloomberg Business Thursday. “New [home] foreclosures have dropped to precrisis levels and sales of previously owned homes—the…
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Canada and US Residential Construction Spending
Canadian investment in residential construction totalled $28.9 billion in 2Q, up 4 per cent from the same quarter in 2014, said Statistics Canada Thursday. Renovation spending (up 4.3 per cent to $13.9 billion), investment in apartment and apartment-condominium buildings (up 9.9 percent to $3.9 billion) and acquisition costs for new dwelling units built (up 9.9…
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US Housing Market, Home Building
New data out this week from the US Commerce Department, Standard & Poors, RealtyTrac, the National Association of Realtors, and Zillow all show a steady and improving situation for US home selling, house prices, rental rates, and foreclosures. Similarly, the recent release by the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) shows that its measure of house…
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US Rates on New Home Loans: July 2015
On average, the contract rate on conventional mortgages used to purchase newly-built homes increased 12 basis points in July, to 3.98 per cent, according to data released Friday by the Federal Housing Finance Agency. At 3.98, this is the highest the contract rate has been since December of last year. Initial fees have some ability…