Fannie Mae’s Economic and Strategic Research Group releases an updated outlook for the economy and housing market each month. Their forecast provides a good view of where things are and where they’re headed. According to this month’s release, recent economic volatility may cause heightened concern on Wall Street but shouldn’t negatively affect economic growth or the progress the housing market has made over the past year. In fact, Fannie Mae points to an uptick in consumer spending, full-time employment surpassing its pre-recession peak, and the fact that average hourly earnings have increased as an indication that the economy will remain on track through the end of the year. Their housing market forecast also remains mostly unaffected by recent data. “Continued strong performance of year-to-date home sales and modestly weakening leading indicators confirm that our prior forecast of existing home sales this year remains valid,” Doug Duncan, Fannie Mae’s chief economist, said. “However, lower actual and projected cash sales led us to revise slightly higher purchase mortgage originations.” In fact, Duncan believes total mortgage originations this year will be up approximately 25 percent over last year. More here.
