What We're Reading

Some recovery.  *pfft* 

To construct this chart, we compute for each month the year-over-year house price change for all 1,220 counties for which CoreLogic reports overall house price indexes. Those price changes are ranked from highest to lowest and then reported as percentiles based on this ranking. For example, the 5th percentile tracks the 61st-lowest county-level house price change in each month. Note that an individual county can be, and often is, in different percentiles over time. Gray shading indicates an NBER recession.

Courtesy of NYFed

The new home market, held down by high prices and low supply of units, appears to be stalling further, not accelerating, as the spring unfolds. The housing market index fell 1 point to 45 which is 3 points below the low-end forecast. And weakness is centered in current sales, down 2 points to 48 in a reading that points to further trouble for new home sales.

But expectations for future sales are strong, up 1 point to 57, while traffic is weak but improving, up 2 points to 33. Breakdowns show mid-to-high 40 readings for all regions except the Northeast which is by far the smallest region for new home sales and is lagging badly.

The new home market in general has been lagging badly, lagging both the economy and holding down the housing sector. March new home sales fell a very surprising 14.5 percent in March and today's report doesn't point to much improvement for April and May.

The "new normal"?  With new job creation being either at the very low end, or very high end of the pay range

(Edited to add ITB weekly chart)

We chuckle in Chat when we see a fund manager recommend a short (or buy) in an area we've already discussed on site.  Case in point: home builders.

Having a mortgage banking background AND given the current state of low wage job creation, I could not agree more with Doubline's Gundlach.  Increasingly big business lobbyists are pushing for the Obama Administration to increase the number H-1B visa issuance, stating that the U.S. doesn't have the skilled workers needed to fill their need.  In truth are they merely pushing for a cheaper, more pliant labor?  That's an entire debate on it's own but I also think the charts are signalling future weakness as I recommended shorting TOL and PHM in April.

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You have cash buyers (top/left) buying up bank foreclosures to help with not only their balance sheet, but with existing inventory..............but NEW, first-time home buyers?  Their credit scores are still decimated from the credi