Housing markets

Stronger than expected demand and home prices drove the latest forecast.

Fannie Mae researchers found housing costs decelerating for the fourth straight quarter, but limited inventory may be driving hopeful buyers to look for opportunities in the new-construction market.

But overall availability still remained near a 10-year low in March, with government-backed products falling for the third time in four months, the Mortgage Bankers Association found.

Last month saw purchase rate locks increase by 44%, jumping past the 30% average in February, according to Black Knight's report.

Affordability constraints have made borrowers who bought properties within the last 12 months increasingly vulnerable to price declines.

Lower mortgage rates during the early part of the month, along with fewer properties for sale helped to drive values higher.

Purchases of new single-family homes increased 1.1% to an annualized 640,000 pace after a 633,000 rate in January, government data showed Thursday.

And in January, all-cash buyers reached their highest share in nine years, at 32.1%, Redfin said.

By the end of December, 63% of borrowers saw home values increase by 7.3%, for a collective gain of $1 trillion, CoreLogic's report found.

The CFPB is requesting input on adding specifications that are intended to alleviate TRID compliance concerns on construction-to-permanent single-close loans and those requiring separate construction and home loan closings.

Purchase and refinance mortgages continued their slide as total origination volume was $475.5 billion during the final months of 2022, down 56% from the end of 2021.

Buyer affordability has decreased by almost 22% in the past year, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Declining mortgage rates and home prices drove more positive views compared to the prior month, but December's overall outlook remained negative, Fannie Mae said.

House hunting activity also slowed in December, with home tours declining 69% from the start of the year, a Redfin report found.

Sales of high-end homes fell 38.1% year-over-year, per a Redfin report.

But the lower rates of the past month did result in a $7-billion boost to its origination forecast for 2022.

Borrowers gained an average of $34,300 in home equity since the third quarter of last year, but that's almost half the amount of growth recorded over the summer.

Home prices dropped again on a monthly basis in October, exacerbating the loss in home equity among recent buyers, but the size of the falloff was the smallest since June.

"This is Han Solo in carbonite: This is a market that could stay frozen for quite some time," said Benjamin Keys, a real estate professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School.

The decline in loan activity and softening prices also helped drive down builder sentiment for the 11th month in a row.