Federal Reserve Highlights For The Fifth District

The Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond issued its November 2014 Snapshot for the Fifth District with current housing, office and industrial data.

Building permit growth has been trending downward since 2011.  Total Private Buildings Permits for the U.S. in the September period were 90,696, a +4.05 MoM percent increase and a +11.51 YoY increase.  The Fifth District reported 12,212 permits, +5.59 percent MoM and +2.09 percent YoY.

Mortgage Delinquencies (percentage 90+ days delinquent) have been trending downward since 2010 in the U.S.  The Q2 2014 delinquencies were 2.31 percent for all U.S mortgages; 1.28 percent for Prime and 8.68 percent for Subprime, all down YoY.  The District of Columbia reported Subprime delinquency at 12.13 percent.

Home prices fell MoM -0.06 percent in the U.S. and -1.56 percent in the District of Columbia.  YoY the District of Columbia reported +4.42 percent and the U.S +5.64 percent.

Maryland unemployment spiked higher as of September 14 to 6.3 percent and broke above the U.S. average of 5.9 percent.

Median Home Sales Prices for the Baltimore-Towson MSA were flat YoY while the U.S. as a whole saw a 5.64 percent increase.

Office vacancy rates have fallen since 2009 for the Baltimore-Towson MSA and declined from 14.2 percent in Q3 2013 to 13.3 percent in Q3 2014. Industrial vacancy has remained flat over the same period and was 14.7 percent as of Q3 2014.

North Carolina’s unemployment rate also spiked in 2013 and stood at 6.7 percent in September 2013 but remained steady at 6.3 percent in August and September 2014.

The Charlotte MSA saw declining office vacancy, moving from 14 percent in Q3 2013 to 12.5 percent in Q3 2014.

South Carolina unemployment spiked higher in 2013 and passes the U.S. rate.  In September of 2013 the rate was 7.2 percent which declined to 6.3 percent in August 2014 but edged higher to 6.36 percent in September 2014.

Despite the unemployment situation, South Carolina Housing Starts were up at 29,400 in September, a MoM percentage change of +28.41 percent and +18.04 percent YoY.

South Carolina saw its House Price Index decline in September with -0.91 percent repoted, compared to -0.06 for the United States.