Housing Market Highlights

It has been an interesting week. Stock market has had a positive week. Retail sales are up. There is cautious optimism creeping into both the Canadian and US housing market. Below are some of the highlights form news articles posted this week:

-Canada's housing industry showed signs of life in February after several months of declines, with resale's rising 8.6% from January thanks to lower mortgage rates and prices, the Canadian Real Estate Association reported yesterday.

-A total of 28,669 homes changed hands in February on a seasonally adjusted basis via the industry group's Multiple Listing Service. That marks the first month-to-month uptick in home-resale activity since September, 2008.

-CREA said February's 9.2% annualized price decline is smaller than year-over-year drops posted in the past four months and is the first time the pace of decline has decelerated since turning negative in July, 2008.

-OTTAWA - Retail sales surprised on the upside in January, adding hope that the economic free-fall is at least showing signs of slowing down. Sales rose 1.9 per cent to $33.7 billion during the month, almost double market expectations, and a welcome relief after December's revised 5.2 per cent retreat. But economists warned it was too early and perhaps too fleeting a statistic to break out the bubbly just yet.

-OTTAWA - American housing starts surged last month, U.S. wholesale sales edged higher and Canadian factory shipments surprised on the up side. The encouraging developments unveiled Tuesday come at a time when both the Canadian and U.S. economies are at rock bottom.

-NEW YORK, March 18 (Reuters) - U.S. mortgage applications surged last week, driven by a spike in demand for refinancing as the average 30-year fixed-rate home loan rate fell, the Mortgage Bankers Association said on Wednesday.

-Fannie Mae (FNM.N) (FNM.P), the government-controlled home funding company in the USA, on Wednesday said its February refinancing volume nearly tripled from January to more than $41 billion. February's refinancing volume was the company's highest in almost a year. This activity is expected to increase further under Obama's 'Making Home Affordable' plan and new broader refinancing programs from Fannie Mae and its counterpart Freddie Mac.