Housing Snapshot
Mortgage interest rates remained low last week and are expected to climb only modestly over current levels in the year ahead, setting the stage for expectations of robust levels of housing activity in 2004. While the pace of home starts and sales slowed a bit toward the close of 2003, the year is expected to set a record for single-family construction and single-family sales. Job growth, which stalled in December, raised new uncertainties for the economy last week. The unemployment rate declined to 5.7% during the final month of 2003, down from a peak in June of 6.3%, but that was largely because 309,000 workers dropped out of the job force. There were 2.4 million fewer jobs in the economy at the end of 2003 than in February 2001, one month before the official start of the recession. Following the disappoining news from the jobs front, the Federal Reserve was not expected to change its policies on interest rates in its upcoming Jan.27-28 meeting and rates are generally expected to remain unchanged for some time. According to Random Lengths, framing lumber rose last week to $334 per 1,000 board feet from $323 the prior week. But increases in 15/32-inch 3-ply CDX Southern Westside plywood and OSB raised concerns over the recurrence of price spikes for those materials. The former rose to $295 per 1,000 square-feet last week, up from $250 the prior week; the latter rose from $240 to $295. [ MORE ]
Mortgage Interest Rates
30-Year Fixed-Rate: 5.87%
15-Year Fixed-Rate: 5.17%
1-Year ARM: 3.76%
Housing Starts - Nov. 2003*
Total: 2.070 million
Single-Family Starts: 1.695 million
Multifamily Starts: 375,000
New Home Sales Nov. 2003*
1.082 million
Existing Home Sales Nov. 2003*
6.06 million
* Seasonally adjusted annual rate