Each month, Fannie Mae’s Economic and Strategic Research Group releases a forecast for the economy and housing market. According to their most recent release, the group sees improvement ahead. In fact, their forecast calls for home sales to increase 6.3 percent this year and new home construction to rise almost 25 percent higher than the year before. But despite the optimistic numbers, there are still challenges facing the market. Among the biggest is the lack of existing homes available for sale. Fewer homeowners are listing their homes and the pace of new home construction, while greatly improved, is being slowed by supply constraints and a shortage of available lots. That means, inventory issues will likely continue for the foreseeable future. Fortunately, Doug Duncan, Fannie Mae’s senior vice president and chief economist, says conditions haven’t affected mortgage rates. “This has yet to significantly affect mortgage rates, except to the extent that the rise in the 10-year Treasury since the beginning of the year contains an increased expected inflation component and has prevented mortgage rates from retreating further from their temporary recent peak,” Duncan said. (source)
