NAR.org - "Housing Market Taking A Breather But Staying Strong" (5-9-06)

David Lereah:

“Coming off a prolonged period of record sales, housing is taking something of a breather this year,” he said. “Even so, interest rates remain historically low, we’ve added about 2 million jobs over the last 12 months and the economy continues to grow – that will sustain healthy levels of home sales in 2006, but they’ll stay below the peaks experienced during the last two years.”

Lereah forecasts 30-year mortgage rates will rise to 7% this summer and hold there for the rest of the year. Nationally, unemployment will decrease to 4.7%, existing home sales will decrease 6.4%, and median existing-home prices should rise 5.7% while new-home prices will only rise 2.2%.

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