As for home building, which had surged to a peak of just over two million housing starts earlier in the decade, by October 2007 builders were starting about half that at 1.2 million. Today, while coming back, starts are still at about 890,000 annualized. Builders are seeing more demand, and new orders for the big public builders are back at least 30 percent from where they were a year ago, but demand is far from what it once was.
Today, far more Americans are renting. In fact, all of the latest household formations, according to the U.S. Census, are in rental units. The home ownership rate, which reached a high of just over 69 percent in 2004, stood at 67.8 percent in the fall of 2007. Today it continues to fall, now down to 65.4 percent.
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Perhaps the biggest difference in today’s housing market from 2007 is in mortgage rates and activity. In October of 2007, the average rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage was 6.38 percent. Today it is nearly half that at 3.67 percent. In turn, it is a tale of opposites. Refinance volume today is twice what it was in 2007, while mortgage applications to purchase a home are about half what they were.
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In October 2007, the housing market was in the direct path of a massive foreclosure storm. Today, it is still picking up the pieces, with 5.3 million homeowners either delinquent on their mortgages or in foreclosure, according to Lender Processing Services. The good news is that the numbers are coming down, but the clean-up is far from over.
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Article source: http://www.cnbc.com/id/100419903