Freddie Mac: Modest Mortgage Market Growth Forecasted In February Report
Mortgage giant Freddie Mac released an end of February forecast that predicts modest growth in the mortgage market, supported by a number of factors including low mortgage rates.
"We expect single-family mortgage originations to increase 2.6 percent to $1.69 trillion in 2019 and remain around that level in 2020," said Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s chief economist.
"With mortgage rates easing up since the end of 2018, we revised up our forecast of the refinance share of originations to 27 percent and 24 percent in 2019 and 2020, respectively."
Meanwhile, the report is also citing the current U.S. labor market as another reason for its optimistic outlook. Freddie Mac expects unemployment to dip to 3.6 percent in 2019 but predicts it will return to a more sustainable long-term rate of 3.9 percent in 2020.
"Due to lower mortgage rates, expect total home sales to slowly regain momentum, increasing to 6.10 million in 2019 and to 6.12 million in 2020," according to the report.
To learn more about Freddie Mac's updated forecast for the mortgage market, click on the image above.
