Has The Housing Market Hit Its Bottom?

 Morgan Brennan, Forbes Staff

 

From Forbes.com  -  1/10/2012

 

Has the U.S. housing market hit a bottom? Do we have further to go? When will a recovery start? These are the questions every homeowner and real estate investor are currently asking themselves — or should be.

Wall Street firms have optimistically been betting that the bottom’s here. Research firms like Zelman & Associates predict the sector will pick up this year and hedge funds have been jumping into real estate-related investments from brick and mortar building purchases to shares of home builders stocks. In December Goldman Sachs Group released a report stating that “The home price bottom [is] in sight,” according to my colleague Agustino Fontevecchia.

Indeed national home price data indicates that the worst of the catastrophic home price implosion is behind us.  Clear Capital, a Truckee, Calif.-based real estate research firm, reports that 2011 saw a national decrease of 2.1% in home prices when compared to 2010. While still a loss, it’s measly drop compared to the double-digit plunges felt in the years before. For 2012, the firm’s Home Data Index (HDI) Market Report also predicts a humble 0.2% gain across all markets. “Overall, 2011 was a relatively quiet year for U.S. home prices compared to the last five years,” said Dr. Alex Villacorta, Clear Capital’s director of research and analytics, in the report. He further notes that “the current balance the market has found will continue through 2012.”

What does all of this mean? Housing from a national standpoint is flattening out; the macro level data suggests we could possibly be at the bottom or near to it.

Full Article Here

U.S. Job Creation Unchanged in December

Gallup Job Creation Index at +14 -- same as in October and November

by Dennis Jacobe

Gallup

January 4, 2012

 

PRINCETON, NJ -- Job market conditions in the U.S. remain unchanged in December, with Gallup's Job Creation Index continuing at +14 for the third month in a row. While job creation has not improved during recent months, the jobs situation has not deteriorated as it typically does at this time of year. It instead remains near the high point for the year and is significantly better than the +10 of one year ago. The Job Creation Index average for 2011 is +13, about twice the 2010 average of +7.

 

Hiring and Firing Also Unchanged 

The Job Creation Index of +14 is based on 32% of workers nationwide saying their employer is hiring workers and expanding its workforce and 18% saying their employer is letting workers go and reducing its workforce -- the same as November. Hiring was at 29% and firing at 19% in December 2010.

 

Implications

The lack of change in Gallup's Job Creation Index in December provides some mildly good news about U.S. job market conditions. The Index is not seasonally adjusted and the job situation usually deteriorates at this time of year, meaning this lack of change is a mild positive. The same is true for the fact that the Index closed out 2011 near its high for the year.

Full Article Here