Things Are Looking Up: Nationwide Releases Latest Health of the Housing Market Report

Nationwide releases 2016 first quarter findings from their National Housing Markets Report – results suggest a positive housing market across the US and houselittle fear of a nationwide downturn anytime soon.

Nationwide’s Health of the Housing Market Report comes out quarterly and features performance rankings in the housing market. The current report shows the 2016 first quarter results. An interactive map gives users the chance to hone in on specific regions within each state (though the map still shows fourth quarter 2015 data).

2016Q1 HoHM Report Executive Summary

  • The national LIHHM* remains above the break-even level of 100, despite dropping modestly at the end of 2015, suggesting that the overall U.S. housing market remains healthy.
  • Regionally, the LIHHM performance rankings show that the housing markets in the vast majority of metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) and divisions are healthy. This suggests that most local housing markets should see sustainable expansion in the near term.
  • Low oil prices continue to weigh on job growth and the housing outlooks for a number of MSAs in energy intensive areas, especially in Texas and Louisiana. MSAs in these two states now comprise eight of the bottom ten LIHHM performance rankings.
  • A surprising slowdown in household growth in the fourth quarter of 2015 lowered the national LIHHM ranking, and filtered into the MSA rankings as well. Given continued solid job growth and incipient wage gains, household formations should pick up again soon, reversing the negative impacts on the latest LIHHM rankings.

* Leading Index of Healthy Housing Markets (LIHHM): A data-driven view of the near-term performance of housing markets based upon current health indicators for the national housing market and 400 metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) and divisions across the country.

Read the full report from Nationwide.