National Housing Market Conditions, 1st Quarter 2016

July 6, 2016  

National Housing Market Conditions, 1st Quarter 2016

HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research has released its analysis of the national housing market with first quarter statistics for 2016. The report contains updates on production, marketing, housing performance, homeownership, and affordability, provides comparisons with previous quarters, and places the data in a larger historical context. The analysis indicates that during the first quarter of 2016, the housing market continued to improve.

Key Findings

• Construction starts on single-family homes were up 5 percent from the fourth quarter and 23 percent from one year before. Having risen in seven of the last eight quarters, single-family starts are now at their highest level since the fourth quarter of 2007. Multifamily housing starts dropped 7 percent from the fourth quarter but were up 3 percent from one year ago.
• Purchases of new single-family homes were up 5 percent from the fourth quarter and up 2 percent from one year earlier. Sales of existing homes were up 2 percent from the fourth quarter and up 5 percent from one year earlier.
• The number of underwater borrowers declined by 1 million for all of 2015, and homeowners' equity increased by nearly $1.2 trillion. Since the beginning of 2012, the number of underwater borrowers has fallen 64 percent, from 12.1 to 4.3 million.
• Foreclosure starts fell 2 percent from the fourth quarter and 15 percent from one year previously. For the past five quarters newly initiated foreclosures have declined or remained virtually unchanged.
• The U.S. Homeownership rate declined 0.3 percentage points in the first quarter after increasing for two consecutive quarters. Aside from the second quarter of 2015, the current 63.5 percent homeownership rate is the lowest since the fourth quarter of 1985.

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