House Prices Fall to a 3-Year Low

Existing Home Sales reached a three-year low in March after showing four gains over the last five months. The weak sales left a 7.3 month supply of inventory, and a 7.4 month average time on the market, just below the cyclical high level from October. Lower mortgage rates and prices help improve affordability and demand, as median prices have risen in three of the last four months to leave an annual decline of just -0.3%. Existing sales include condos and co-ops which make up about 1/8 of the total. The National Association of Realtors expects existing home sales to bottom out in the second quarter. The subsequent rise should be very modest if any gains are made at all. While housing data clearly stole the show for US Dollar traders, there was more to worry about. The second major release was the Conference Board’s consumer sentiment survey for April. This print depressed expectations that domestic spending would make up for any shortfall in the housing or manufacturing sectors. The reading came back at a 104.0 print, which was a bigger dip than the market’s expectations. Higher gasoline prices and a rise in mortgage defaults are starting to expose the possible weak link in confidence that the US economy will shift towards a bullish Dollar in the near future. In price action, the EUR/USD is near the high of 1.3632 and the GBP/USD is near 2.0013. XPRESSTRADE Analyst David Hilgeman