Housing Snapshot - December 20, 2004 - 12/20/2004 - Mortgage Loan Refinance Debt Equity

Housing Snapshot - December 20, 2004

Mortgage interest rates declined slightly again last week and remained comfortably under the 6% threshold, raising expectations that housing starts will show an increase this month, according to Frank Nothaft, chief economist for Freddie Mac. "There is no doubt now that 2004 will be a record year for single-family construction," he said. "That said, because of low mortgage rates, we feel confident that 2005 will not be very far behind this year." The Bush Administration is forecasting 3.9% growth in the Gross Domestic Product this year, with modest declines to 3.5% in 2005 and 3.4% in 2006, and 1.4 million new jobs in 2004 and 2.1 million more in 2005. General economic news was largely favorable last week. The Labor Department reported a 0.2% increase in the Consumer Price Index in November, a marked improvement over the 0.6% increase during the prior month. Fueled largely by energy prices, inflation was at a rate of 3.7% for the first 11 months of this year, compared with a rate of 1.9% for all of 2003. On Monday, the Conference Board reported that its Index of Leading Economic Indicators was up in November, following five months of decline. Not much was happening on the lumber price front. Framing lumber dropped slightly to $374 per 1,000 board feet from $379 in the prior week, according to Random Lengths; it was $319 one year earlier. Random Lengths' structural panel composite price, which includes oriented strand board, rose one dollar to $386, compared to $322 a year earlier.