Here’s just a sample of the latest:

• Single-housing starts for August are up 7% and it looks like they’ll post the first double-digit annualized gain after 13 straight double-digit declines, that’s quite a swing.

• Market home prices are up nationwide, somewhere between 2.7% and 7.3%, depending on whose numbers you trust (Freddie on the low side, Clear Capital on the high).

• The nearly record low rates last week boosted mortgage apps up by 17%.

• We’re enjoying 6 straight months of pending sales increases.  In Lansing, we’ve already closed as many transactions as we did all of last year.

• Consumer confidence ratings are up—and in all categories: current conditions and short-term outlook in both the economy and labor markets.

So the indicators that we’ve been watching so intently, so nervously over the past two years seem to be settling in to a healthy rhythm. And that’s good.

And though we may never be as complacent as we were a few years ago, that’s probably good too. In fact, maybe those were the dark days—when we thought nothing could go wrong…maybe. Either way, I’m ready for some sunshine.

Let’s look over these latest stats and just breathe deep for a minute…

• Single-family starts and permits up. The most depressed segment of the real-estate industry over the past two years, homebuilders, are pulling permits again. Single-family starts are up almost 2% and at the highest levels since last October. Permits for single-family construction are up 6%. That’s 6 of 7 monthly increases for 2009 (March showed a slight downturn).

• Mortgage apps jumped 4% for a 3^rd straight week of increases. The recent drop in rates should see this statistic holding.

• Pending home sales index shows an increase for the fifth consecutive month, the first such streak in six years. A still-glutted inventory will feed this trend for a while.

• NAR’s Housing Affordability Index has the Midwest at a whopping 188, down from an incredible 206 for last month. (The HAI is set against a value of 100, which means that a median-income family can exactly qualify for a mortgage on a median-priced, single-family home. A value of 200 means the same family could “afford” twice as much home.) We need to be careful with this one: affordability is being driven—the larger part of it, at least—by the record number of short sales and foreclosures. So it’s great for buyers, but not a great sign of overall economic health. Look for this one to slip back as the next indicator, home prices, improves…

• Home prices nationwide are on the rise. This is one economic indicator that everyone wants to see rebound as it’s our best sign that the market as a whole is on the mend. Great housing affordability is fine, but no business thrives by holding an indefinite fire sale.

So the encouraging news is beginning to show some consistency to it. And though we’re still being warned that we may bounce along at these levels for some time, still, there’s a sense that we can, at last, stop holding our breath.


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• Nationwide, July’s pending home sales saw a 3.6% increase, the fifth consecutive monthly increase. And if you’re keeping track, that’s the longest string of increases since 2003. Why this good news now? A few reasons: 1. We’re gaining lost ground, and we’ve lost a lot of ground in the last two years; 2. Affordability—low prices and continued low mortgage rates work great together; 3 Timing—in addition to low prices, there’s also a sense that the bottoming out of the market has passed, so prices aren’t getting any lower. Now if we can just get the rest of the economy’s numbers (GDP, unemployment rates) to turn…

• Actually, there’s some hopeful news there too. The latest quarterly drop in GDP, about 1%, is much better than the previous quarter’s drop of 6%. Yes, it’s still a drop, but economists are optimistic that this is a slowing trend, an early sign of recovery. And if GDP recovers and moves into positive growth, employment will follow.

• Consumer confidence is still shaky, but this is an indicator that relies heavily on other indicators, particularly unemployment numbers. The more good news we hear about jobs and business, the more confident we are as consumers. So we should expect that this should be trailing the rest. So even this bad news is actually good news.

Is a full economic recovery a certainty? Of course not. But it’s never been a certainty; there’s always been risk—fundamental and necessary risk!—even in boom times. In fact, it was our losing sight of risk that contributed much of these recent woes.

So be optimistic—not foolhardy, just optimistic—and expect good news. And when you hear it, share it. Our economy thrives on transactions like that.

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