In the housing market, Existing Home Sales continued to climb through the summer months, and today’s New Home Sales also shows an increase of 1,000 more annualized units closed than the previous month–though missing greater expectations. At only 1.76%, the foreclosure rate across the U.S. is at its lowest rate since February of 2008 according to Black Knight Financial Services (that’s right, Batman is an economist now that he is no longer making movies). Now that we as a society have just accepted that the Ebola virus is among us, the DOW has regained close to 500 points this week, yet Mortgage Bonds have settled in near the 17 month highs of last week–though down about 25bps from the high close on the 15th. It’s a healthy reaction (never mind the pun) to last week’s scare.
