2-Week Rate Lows: There’s a Catch; Sharpest Drop Since 2011 in Construction Spending; Home Prices Too High?

2-Week Rate Lows: There’s a Catch; Sharpest Drop Since 2011 in Construction Spending; Home Prices Too High?

How high is too high? When it comes to home prices the wounds left from the Great Recession make this question an important one. Amidst that event, home prices plummeted and didn't begin to recover until 2011. Recent price growth has been particularly strong and for a while that was welcome news. More recently though, a rapid escalation has led some to worry about the potential for another house price bubble. Freddie Mac's current Insights report, published by its Economic & Housing Research Group headed by Chief Economist Sean Becketti, asks how one can tell it is time to worry. While there is no foolproof technique they explain a two-stage method for identifying unsustainably-high house prices. Sometimes, the report says, it is easy to see where home prices are escalating too quickly