Jobs and the housing market
Boston Condos for Sale and Apartments for Rent
Jobs and the housing market
US adds 172,000 jobs in May, April data revised up
May nonfarm payrolls increased by 172,000 and April was revised up to 179,000, while unemployment held at 4.3%. Job growth was concentrated in leisure and hospitality, local government, and health care, with losses in finance and real estate. AI Summary
Most of the job gains in May occurred in leisure and hospitality, which added 70,000 jobs, followed by local government (+55,000 jobs) and health care (+35,000 jobs).
“Combined, these three sectors’ gains accounted for 160,000 of the total 172,000 jobs, a 93% share,” Mike Fratantoni, the senior vice president and chief economist of the Mortgage Bankers Association, said in a statement. “By contrast, there were job losses in the financial sector, and the report showed that finance has lost 107,000 jobs since last May.”
The Washington Post has an interesting article on the housing outlook. Here are a few excerpts:
In a report last month, Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies singled out high joblessness as “one of the biggest drags” on the market. Based on past downturns, the report concluded that job growth is highly correlated to a sustained housing recovery, even more so than falling mortgage interest rates.
Many housing analysts are rethinking their predictions for the market’s performance for the year. More than half of the 106 economists and analysts surveyed by Macro markets in June said they expect a dip in home prices; that’s up from 40 percent in May.
“The tax credit was like a Band-Aid over the housing market,” said Mark Vitner, a senior economist at Wells Fargo Securities. “Now that the Band-Aid has been ripped off, we’ve found that the wound has not quite yet healed.”
File: It’s all about jobs.
