Housing market data have been mixed over the past few months, as harsh winter weather has appeared to put a damper of homebuying. Investors will get some more data on housing in the days ahead, when new home sales, pending home sales and home price data are released. But even if these numbers come in soft, some experts say the U.S. housing market is just getting heated up.
“We’re still in the very preliminary stages of a housing market upturn,” said Carl Riccadonna, senior U.S. economist at Deutsche Bank. “Housing is extremely seasonal, and there’s a high season and a low season. This low season is particularly low due to the weather, and housing numbers have been vulnerable.”
“In next week’s data, new home sales will be pretty lousy, just because buyer traffic has been depressed. But I’m personally waiting to see the March and April data to see what happens in the spring buying season,” Riccadonna told CNBC.com on Friday.
New homes sales for the month of February are set to be released by the Commerce Department on Tuesday morning. The consensus expectation is for sales to come in at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 449,000 units, below the 5½ year high of 468,000 that was recorded for the month of January.
In other housing data that will emerge this week, the S&P/Case-Shiller home price index for January will be released Tuesday as well. This is designed to give investors an indication of the trend in real estate prices. And on Friday, pending home sales data from the National Association of Realtors, which tracks sales that have not yet closed, will give an indication of the demand for houses.