Freddie Mac releases October economic and housing market outlook
Freddie Mac has
released its U.S. Economic and Housing Market Outlook for October, which shows
that the multifamily sector is a strong positive signal for the U.S. housing
industry.
Highlights of the
outlook include:
- Over the year ending mid-2011, the Census
Bureau reported a net increase of 1.4 million households that moved into
rental housing, a 4 percent rise in the number of tenant households in
just one year.
- The U.S. homeownership rate has fallen about
1.5 percent over the past year, with owner rates falling by 4.4 percent
for those under 25 years of age and by 7 percent for those aged 25 to 29
years.
- Apartment rents, which had been flat to
falling in many projects during the 2008-2009 recession, have begun to rise,
albeit slowly.
- New construction starts of apartments in
buildings with at least 20 dwellings picked up this year, and in the
second quarter, was the highest since the end of 2008.
- Ten-year constant-maturity Treasury yields
averaged 1.98 percent in September, the lowest monthly average since the
Federal Reserve's series began in 1953; these yields are a common
benchmark for multifamily mortgage rates, and suggest that mortgage rates
fell to new lows for multifamily lending in recent weeks.
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