National Housing Gains Boost Fed’s QE as Rally Spurs Growth: Economy

National Housing Gains Boost Fed’s QE as Rally Spurs Growth: Economy

Bloomberg - A revival in the U.S. housing market is amplifying the impact of the Federal Reserve’s efforts to spur the world’s largest economy.

Home values boosted by record-low mortgage rates are helping improve the finances of both households and banks. That’s easing the flow of credit, providing a further boost to the housing market and the economy, say economists at Bank of America Corp. and Deutsche Bank AG.

“We’re in the very early stages of a reinforcing cycle,”said Michelle Meyer , a New York-based senior economist at Bank of America, the second-biggest U.S. lender by assets. “The Fed has been quite impactful.”

 

 

 

Meyer predicts monthly housing starts could exceed 1 million at an annual rate by the end of 2013, compared with 894,000 in October. Residential construction may add to economic growth this year for the first time since 2005, boosting gross domestic product by 0.3 percentage point, said Deutsche Bank’s Joseph LaVorgna . That contribution may double next year and reach 1 percentage point when related industries such as furnishings and remodeling are added, he said.

“The one thing missing from this economic recovery was a healthy contribution from housing, and we might finally be on the cusp of that,” said LaVorgna, chief U.S. economist for Deutsche Bank in New York, who predicts GDP may grow about 2.5 percent in 2013. “Housing is going to be integral to the economy. We’re assuming it continues to do some of the heavy lifting.”

The Fed in September announced it would buy $40 billion a month in mortgage-backed securities in its third round of so-called quantitative easing.

The central bank’s purchases of housing debt have helped drive borrowing costs to all-time lows. The average fixed rate on a 30-year mortgage was 3.32 percent last week, close to the prior’s week’s 3.31 percent that was the lowest on record, according to Freddie Mac .

U.S. home prices jumped 6.3 percent in October from a year earlier, the biggest increase since June 2006, data provider CoreLogic Inc. said today.

Combined sales of new and existing dwellings climbed to a 5.16 million annual pace in October, up 40 percent from July 2010, which was the lowest since comparable data began in 1999. The S&P/Case-Shiller index (S15HOME) of home prices in 20 cities climbed 3 percent in September from a year earlier, the biggest gain since July 2010.

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