Market Update

QUOTE OF THE WEEK... "Never, never, never give up." --Winston Churchill INFO THAT HITS US WHERE WE LIVE... Not giving up on the U.S. housing market is clearly the right strategy. Additional proof of this came with latest New Home Sales report. Up a strong 9.6% in January, new single-family home sales reached a 468,000 unit annual rate. This was the strongest yearly rate since July 2008. So much for the notion that slightly higher mortgage rates are holding back home sales. This January boom in new home sales also supports the theory, reported here, that recent weaker existing home sales numbers were partially caused by a lack of inventory that drove buyers into new homes. Pending Home Sales, a measure of contracts signed on existing homes, was up just 0.1% in January, foretelling modest sales growth a couple of months out. The January reading, however, was the first increase since last May. In other housing news, the Case-Shiller index of home prices in the 20 largest metros went up 0.8% in December and was up 13.4% for all of last year. The FHFA index of prices for homes financed with conforming mortgages was up also 0.8% in December, and is 7.7% ahead for 2013. Both annual home price gains were the largest seen since 2005.