{"id":1004085166,"date":"2013-10-15T06:05:55","date_gmt":"2013-10-15T14:05:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.commercialsearch.com\/news\/?p=1004085166"},"modified":"2022-12-03T22:45:39","modified_gmt":"2022-12-04T06:45:39","slug":"economy-watch-close-but-no-cigar-housing-affordability-drops","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.commercialsearch.com\/news\/economy-watch-close-but-no-cigar-housing-affordability-drops\/","title":{"rendered":"Economy Watch: Close but No Cigar; Housing Affordability Drops"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Dees Stribling, Contributing Editor<\/em><\/p>\n

As of Monday night, the debt-ceiling standoff was reportedly close to resolution \u2013 at least if word from the various top Senators involved could be taken at face value \u2013 but no resolution had been achieved. No word on whether the House would go along with any deal the Senate cooked up, either, though everyone seems to be aware of the looming debt-ceiling deadline, if in fact the Treasury Secretary Jack Lew\u2019s estimate of Thursday is correct.<\/p>\n

Large questions remain. Even if the deal is done quickly, and gets through Congress, how much damage has already been done to the U.S. economy, directly through the two-week shutdown of the government, and (arguably) more importantly to investor and consumer confidence in the country\u2019s ability to govern itself in important economic matters? If the debt ceiling is raised until, say, January, will the same unnerving spectacle happen again so soon? Prognosticators incorrectly said after the summer of 2011 that because arguments over the debt ceiling were clearly a bad idea \u2013 they seemed to temporarily damage an already-weak economy \u2013 and they wouldn\u2019t happen again.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, the data federal government data blackout continues. A good number of economic indicators might not exist for October unless key federal data crunchers, such as the Bureau of Labor Statistics, get up and running this week. One critical collection of data, the October employment surveys, is normally slated to begin this time of the month by the BLS.<\/p>\n

Housing Affordability Drops<\/strong><\/p>\n

Other economic data, privately generated, continued to trickle in on Monday. The National Association of Realtors reported, for instance, that housing affordability reached a four-year low in August because of increasing home prices this year, as well as upticks in interest rates. In August, the median mortgage payment was $851, or about 16 percent of median U.S. household income. A year earlier, the median payment was $683, or 13.3 percent of median income.<\/p>\n

The last time monthly payments were as much as 16 percent of income was in July 2009, when home prices were generally on their way down. With home prices still edging up, it seems likely that lower affordability will slow purchases down in the second half of 2013, and help put the brakes on those price increases as well.<\/p>\n

In a related note, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that homebuilders are turning to cash incentives and upgrades more now than in the summer or spring to close deals with homebuyers put off by increasing prices and higher interest rates. It isn\u2019t clear yet, however, whether these efforts will help keep new home sales on track to have a better year in 2013 than any since before the recession (though no one is expecting housing bubble rates of sales, or as bad a year as 2009).<\/p>\n

On Monday Investors were still betting that the government won\u2019t default sometime this week. The Dow Jones industrial Average was up 63.9 points, or 0.42 percent, while the S&P 500 gained 0.41 percent and the Nasdaq advanced 0.62 percent. Stocks markets around the rest of the world didn\u2019t seem to panic, either, with shares edging up both in Europe and Asia.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Still no resolution was achieved at the White House regarding the debt ceiling. And housing affordability reached a four-year low in August because of increasing home prices this year and upticks in interest rates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":952,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21742],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1004085166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nEconomy Watch: Close but No Cigar; Housing Affordability Drops - Commercial Property Executive<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.commercialsearch.com\/news\/economy-watch-close-but-no-cigar-housing-affordability-drops\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Economy Watch: Close but No Cigar; Housing Affordability Drops\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Still no resolution was achieved at the White House regarding the debt ceiling. 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