Each day the Research staff takes a look at recently released economic indicators, addressing what these indicators mean for REALTORS® and their clients. Today’s update highlights mortgage purchase applications and the producer price index.

  • Mortgage applications reversed the downward slide of the past few weeks, to rise 6.3 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis, for the week ending September 9.  The data provides an adjustment for the Labor Day holiday.
  • Purchases increased 7.0 percent, with refinancings gaining 6.0 percent.
  • Interest rates on 30-year fixed mortgages also continued to decline from 4.23 to 4.17 percent.
  • Cash purchases—which account for 30 percent of transactions—were not captured in the data.
  • The Census Bureau’s monthly advance report of retail sales registered no change for August. Retail sales were up 7.2 percent from August 2010.
  • The Producer Price Index released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics was also unchanged in August. Looking at core prices, those for goods other than those for food and energy, the trend has been modestly rising at 0.1 percent.
  • Despite some respite in produce prices in August, prices are still higher by 6.5 percent from one year ago and have been consistently rising faster than consumer price inflation in the past 2 years.
  • These indicators point to a slight improvement to the outlook.  NAR estimates that the current quarter GDP is probably growing at near 2 percent, which would be an improvement from less than 1 percent growth in the first half of the year.

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