September 24 Week in Review - Weak Housing Data

This week the data was scarce. What data was released was poor.  We saw week new home construction data. We saw weak existing home sales data. We saw weak trends in each category. The first-time unemployment data appears to be artificially low. There are many questions and few answers. It will be interesting to see if any of the questions asked this week are used in the debates between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

(Sep. 19) The week started with the column "When will the Recession Restart?" Some people ask whether or not the recession ever ended. This column looks at the data from more than one perspective. Recession are usually determined to have occurred when there is negative Gross Domestic Product growth for two or more quarters. If a recession begins during the middle of a quarter it may take over 6 months for it to be officially recognized. This column examines the data from the jobs perspective, the retail sales perspective, and from the housing perspective.

(Sep. 20) The first piece of housing data examined this week was the New Home Construction data. The Column "Weak August New Construction Data" examined the patterns in New Home Starts, Units under Construction, and Completions. The Data is Weaker than what were recorded during 1983 and 1992.

(Sep. 21) Next Week we will have the first Presidential Debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald J. Trump. The main questions of this debate are supposed to function on the economy.  The column "Questions for Clinton and Trump Debate." What will they do to increase participation? What will they do to get five sectors back to pre-recession levels?  What will they do to boost home ownership? What will they do about the irresponsible and unpatriotic debt? What will they do about the Affordable Care Act on the rising costs of health insurance?

(Sep. 22) Almost every week of the year the Labor Department releases the unemployment claims report on Thursday morning. You may have missed the reports if you have been expecting it to be reported on the news. This week the first-time unemployment claims recorded an increase in numbers and reported a decrease in numbers. Continuing Claims are at or near a 16 year low, for this time of year, again.

(Sep. 23) The August Existing Home Sales data was released this week as well. We saw improvement over last August for both units sold as sales price. The Seasonally adjusted data was report as declining. The  Realtors think we are doing better than last year at this time. The trend is to be slower than 2015 and even 2013. If we looked at the non-seasonally adjusted data we are doing worse than 2003 or 2008. The existing home market appears to be slowing.

Thank you for an incredible week and month, so far. The volume of traffic is up three-fold over January  and almost three-fold over August, the best month ever.