Data

The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment came in at 79.2 in the preliminary August reading, down from a final reading of 81.8 in July and several points below the consensus forecast of 82.3. It was the lowest reading since last November, when the country was still shaking off the effects of October's government shutdown.

Home sales for July decreased slightly from the previous month after increasing for four months in a row, according to the July 2014 RE/MAX National Housing Report released on August 14. Meanwhile, home prices fell marginally month-over-month but increased year-over-year.

Housing affordability took a hit in the second quarter but remains historically high, according to the Housing Opportunity Index (HOI) released by the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) and Wells Fargo. However, the decline in affordability is nothing to worry about, according to NAHB.

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) estimates purchase applications for new homes nudged up 2 percent compared to June. The increase does not account for any typical seasonal patterns. Factoring in seasonal adjustments, MBA says July single-family new home sales ran at an annual rate of 433,000 homes, up from 386,000 in June, representing a 12.2 percent rise.

The average rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages (FRMs) dropped to a year-low 4.12 percent with an average 0.6 point for the week ending August 14, according to Freddie Mac, down from 4.14 percent from the week ending August 7 and from 4.40 percent from the same week in 2013.

Home sales transacted in cash slipped again in May, falling to a four-year low but remaining elevated compared to the long-run average. According to sales data put together by CoreLogic, cash sales made up 34.4 percent of total home sales in May, down from 37.4 percent a year prior. It was the lowest share since May 2010, when all-cash sales started ramping up to an eventual peak of 46.2 percent in January 2011.

According to the latest Residential Price Index report from FNC, home prices are still on the way up, just not at the pace they used to be. FNC found that despite continued signs of leveling off in home price appreciation, U.S. home prices were up another 0.8 percent from May to June and 2.3 percent throughout the second quarter. Meanwhile, year-over-year growth is decelerating as expected.

In a follow-up piece on the company's inaugural Mortgage Lender Sentiment Survey, Li-Ning Huang, senior manager of Economic and Strategic Research at Fannie Mae, found that most of the lenders surveyed don't plan to change their current strategy in response to January's regulatory changes, with 46 percent saying they plan to "wait and see" what happens in the market before acting.

After half a year of failed predictions and slow starts, the U.S. economy actually appears to be closing in on normal, at least according to Freddie Mac. Freddie's latest Economic and Housing Market Outlook shows that the agency expects to see the U.S. housing market driven once again by fundamentals—jobs, household formations, and affordability—rather than economic upheaval.

According to a quarterly report from the National Association of Realtors, median existing single-family home prices increased in 71 percent of measured markets last quarter, with 122 out of 173 metros posting annual increases from Q2 2013. Nineteen of those areas reported double-digit increases. Those numbers reflected a slowdown from the first quarter, when prices rose in 74 percent of metros, and 37 areas saw gains higher than 10 percent.