Housing Barometer

   The crystal ball is cloudy.
   As confidence goes, so goes the economy.
   
   You can't buy a house if you don't have a job.

   Some say the housing market is a barometer for the overall economy. If so, consider these numbers:
   Building permits issued for single family homes are flat, as are housing starts, according to the Census Bureau, which tracks such things. Housing  starts for privately owned homes were also flat, the bureau said. 
   And sales of existing homes dropped in October, as rising mortgage rates dragged the sales momentum.
   Meanwhile, the median age of first marriages for men is 29, and for women 26. In 1970, it was 23 for men and 21 for women. It follows, then, that if folks wait longer to marry, they wait longer to invest in a home. And 76 percent of parents with children under 18 are married, according to a Census Bureau report. Only 8 percent cohabit, the survey said. So much for marriage as a disappearing institution.

   On top of all this, consumer confidence continued to fall. The Conference Board reported Tuesday that its Consumer Confidence Index, which decreased sharply in October, declined again in November. 
   As for expectations, the board said its survey showed yet another drop in November. Some 12.7 percent of those surveyed anticipated more jobs in the months ahead, down from 16 percent. 

   In August, construction began on 883,000 houses, down 0.9 percent from July.
   For the month of October, builders took out a total of 1 million permits for housing units, up 6.2 percent from the month before and up 14 percent from a year ago. That's good for the industry overall, but permits for single family homes in October were at a rate of 620,000, barely above the September figure of 615,000, according to Census data.
   Separately, the National Association of Realtors reported that contracts for sales of existing homes dipped by 0.6 percent in October, following a 4.6 percent drop in September. Moreover, contracts to buy existing homes were down five months in a row in October, a low for the year.
   Mortgage rates, meanwhile, are up, meaning hopeful buyers must shell out more in monthly payments.  The  average rate for a 30-year loan is now about 4.4 percent, nearly a full point above last year, according to industry surveys. And the Mortgage Bankers Association reported loan applications were down 2.3 percent last week from the week before.

   Combine all this with job figures, and it does not yield a rosy picture for the future. Unemployment nationwide is still high -- 7.3 percent in October, roughly where it's been since summer, according to official government statistics. Moreover, the number of people out of work has changed little -- 11.3 million.
   Likewise, the number of long-term unemployed people, those working part-time because they can't find full-time work, and the number of discouraged workers -- all those numbers have changed little from a year ago, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said.