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Lower Unemployment Doesn't Necessarily Equal Higher Home-Buying Rates

When the U.S. economy emerges from a recession and the unemployment rate falls to pre-downturn levels, it’s typical to expect a corresponding uptick in homeownership. The real estate market and industries ancillary to housing are certainly hoping that’s the case when the busy home-buying season arrives this spring, but it seems they may be in for a disappointment. So reports CNBC.

According to Freddie Mac economists and researchers, professions with statistically higher rates of home ownership (doctors, lawyers, engineers, I.T. professionals) are seeing only average rates in job growth – not enough to justify the purchase of as many new homes as might be expected, even in the historically persistent low mortgage-rate environment.

Rather, predicts the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the outsized job growth over the next decade will be in industries more correlated with low rates of homeownership; i.e., lower-paying jobs in industries like retail sales and food preparation. So instead of sharp rises in single-home construction, multi-family dwellings and rental units are on the rise.

Also, say economists at Freddie Mac and Moody’s Analytics, the younger generation of workers was hit hardest by the economic downturn, and most of them aren’t yet earning (or saving) enough to purchase a home. The current score: employment levels up; home buying and mortgage applications down – at least for the time being.

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