Daily Financial Blog

The good news keeps rolling in for housing as the sector continues to recover after the bubble began to burst back in 2007. This morning, CoreLogic, a leading provider of financial, property and consumer information, analytics and business intelligence, reported that completed foreclosures across the U.S. declined nearly 16% from March of 2012s 66,000 to March of 2013s 55,000. In addition, from the peak of 2010, completed foreclosures plunged 52%.

However, the problems are far from over. The report showed that foreclosures did rise by 6% from February to March of this year and before the housing market decline in 2007, foreclosures averaged 21,000 per month between 2000 and 2006. Since the Great Recession began back in September of 2008, there have been approximately 4.2 million foreclosures that have been completed. So while the numbers are improving, there are still pockets of problem areas around the country.

Home prices continue to march higher as evidenced by the Case-Shiller 20-city home price index rising by 9.3% year-over-year in the month ended in February. This was the largest annual increase since 2006 as home inventories shrink and mortgage rates continue to hover near record low levels. Case Shiller is closely watched, but remember that the data is now two months old.

To round out the economic data this morning, Consumer Confidence rose more than expected and hit a five-month high as the American people feel that the economy and their incomes improved. But over in the manufacturing sector, the Chicago PMI fell to a three and a half year low and was highlighted by weak order backlogs. Just recently, manufacturing data from the Philadelphia and New York regions also saw a slump.