I was a bit surprised to hear on the news that Citi was laying off a couple of thousand folks in their mortgage division.
After all, there’s been lot of talk re: housing recovery … with some markets el fuego.
Hmmm.
Turns out that mortgage applications bottomed out after the meltdown …and arguably showed some up-trend in the past couple of years (thanks to the Fed QE program),
But, mortgage apps have declined recently (as interest rates started moving up a bit) and are hovering at very low levels
What about home prices?
Again, lots of talk about rebounding housing prices
So, I was a bit surprised to find that housing prices are still down about 25% from their peak
… and, about where they were 10 years ago
So, Citi’s layoffs make sense and beg the question: where’s the housing recovery?
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