CoreLogic provides financial, property and consumer information, analysis and business intelligence to provide clients with customized data services within the housing market.
In writing CoreLogic’s Market Pulse Report for December 2018, Dr. Frank Nothaft, chief economist with CoreLogic, summarized the economic outlook for the US by saying that
- home prices increased +5.4% from October 2017 to October 2018
- 30+ day delinquency rates dropped slightly to -0.6% from August 2017 to August 2018
- the refinance share of loan originations dropped -25% to the lowest level in 25 years.
Peering into the 2019 US economy and housing market, Dr. Nothaft anticipates economic growth dropping from 2018’s level of 3.1% to 2.4%. He anticipates that this slower level of economic growth will be enough to push the unemployment rate down to 3.4% in 2019, the lowest unemployment rate in 50 years.
Due to these economic growth and unemployment rate projections, Dr. Nothaft predicts the Federal Reserve will continue to nudge up interest rates to 5.25% by the end of 2019, the highest interest rates in a decade. (Other industry experts project interest rates to be closer to 6.0% at the end of 2019.)
Possible consequences of continued interest rate hikes may be, in Dr. Nothaft’s view…
- An incentive for homeowners to “stay put” in their current homes
- A likelihood of keeping the flow of new listings to the market low
- Softening buyer demand
- Less pressure on home prices
- Nothaft forecasts growth of the national CoreLogic Home Price Index to slow by 1% over the next 12 months from 5.4% in October 2018 to 4.8% in October 2019.
States with the biggest price growth year over year within the CoreLogic Home Price Index looked like this in October 2018:
Arizona – +7.9%
Colorado – +7.3%
Idaho – +12.0%****
Georgia – +6.6%
Indiana – +6.3%
Michigan – +6.5%
Nevada – +12.1%****
Utah – +9.7%****
Washington – +8.0%
West Virginia – +10.1%****
North Dakota was the only state where price growth dropped year/year to -1.2%
