Tag: HUD

HUD: Monthly Housing Scorecard now referencing CME Futures

Recently the folks at HUD improved their monthly “Housing Scorecard” report by making changes to a graph (see below) of past and forward home price indices.  They now use the CUS-10 index for historical purposes, and reference the CME futures (which settles on the same CUS-10 index) for values as of December 2011 and forward prices.  This makes the graph more of an apples-to-apples set of comparisons versus prior versions.  (Click link here for their full February report).

They also changed from using Dec. ’09 to Dec ’11 as the basis for comparing today’s forward markets to where housing market “expectations” stood at some point in the recent past.

All of the changes reinforce the same messages:

  •  home prices have bottomed,
  • “expectations” (as measured by CME futures prices) have risen, and
  • forward prices are consistent with improving HPAs (of about 3-4%).

Each of these messages has been reinforced over the last few months with every uptick in the CME contracts.

In addition to this graph, the HUD report is wealth of free, publicly-available information for anyone following trends in home prices and mortgage issues.

 

 

Washington follows us!

One of my personal highlights of the recent Treasury meeting to address housing problems was to discover that HUD has been following the CME futures markets – and uses changes in the prices of forward contracts as indications of changes in sentiment on forward home prices. 

This graph, that shows the changes in CME contract prices between Jan. 2009 and July 2010, is from the second page of a monthly publication titled “The Obama Administration’s Efforts To Stabilize The Housing Market and Help American Homeowners”, otherwise known as the monthly housing scorecard.  (see link below for entire 8-page report.

http://portal.hud.gov/portal/page/portal/HUD/initiatives/Housing%20Scorecard%20Documents/JULY_Scorecard_1.10.pdf

Regardless of your politics, the package is a useful tool with 16 graphs and a tally of many housing metrics.

Beyond this report the HUD website is great springboard to press releases on programs designed to help borrowers.  As many efforts by the Government to address distressed homeowners may have an impact of foreclosures, housing inventory, and therefore pressure on home prices, the programs are worth understanding.