February Home Sales Forecast: The Slow Start Will Continue
Thanks to weak pending home sales in January and two consecutive months of shrinking housing starts, Zillow is expecting 2016 to get off to a slow start on the home sales front.
Sales from January to February are expected to decline 2.2 percent to 5.35 million units at a seasonally adjusted rate. This figure would put existing home sales at a 6.2 percent gain over February 2015.
For three of the past four months, single-family housing starts have shrunk. In December they shrunk by 3.9 percent and in January they shrunk by 3.2 percent. Texas accounted for 15 percent of single-family construction permits issued in 2015 by itself, but because of the oil price crash slowing employment, new construction in Texas and other energy dependent states could suffer in 2016.