Each month Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the MBA forecast housing sales and price appreciation rates for coming years. As you will see, there is neither a consensus nor even agreement in how the data are reported. Fannie Mae and the MBA individually forecast existing home sales and new single family home sales along with median prices while Freddie Mac shows combined home sales and price appreciation rates.
The following three tables show the individual forecasts as of July 2017. The first two tables are Fannie Mae and the MBA. For 2017, while Fannie Mae is expecting a 3.2 percent overall gain in combined new and existing home sales versus the prior year, the MBA is more positive at 5.0 percent. The difference continues into 2018 with Fannie Mae at a 2.3 percent sales increase and the MBA at 6.1 percent. Freddie Mac, however, sees an almost zero (0.2 percent) increase in 2018 at this time. Also note the material divergence on home price changes among the three.
Year-to-date existing home sales are up 3.0 percent (2.98 percent), but I am still sticking with my 2.2 percent increase forecast for 2017 but am going to stay nimble until next month’s data release.
Time will tell.
Ted