The coming year will see the continued slow-but-steady recovery in housing and housing-related industries, minimal interest rate movements, less than stellar economic growth, and an improving purchase market.

That’s the prediction from the brain trust at FBR & Co. FBR is a leading investment bank that focuses its efforts across a broad array of industries including financial institutions and real estate, among a host of others.

Despite the overall tepid outlook, the FBR forecast does point to good signs for the origination market.

“Financials, particularly banks and thrifts, outperformed the broader indices in 2013, and, generally speaking, we expect in-line performance at best over the coming year as stock prices have drastically outperformed fundamentals for most spread-based lending businesses,” the FBR 2014 forecast states.

In particular, the mixed overall news looks good for housing.

“We expect that those subsectors most levered to a continued recovery in housing will outperform in 2014, as housing-levered industries should have the largest opportunities for growth in the near term,” the report states.

http://www.housingwire.com/articles/28386-fbr-2014-good-for-housing-not-so-much-for-economic-growth