MBA Expecting a Flood of Home Price Listings

With home prices stabilizing, the market may soon be flooded with new listings from sellers that have been waiting for such an improvement, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. "There will be a flood of listings," predicted MBA vice president of research Michael Frantantoni. "We will have a rather volatile, sort of topsy-turvy market for the next couple of years." Speaking at an MBA trade show, Frantantoni noted that both owner (2.6%) and rental vacancy rates (10.6%) are increasing. He said this trend suggests "we are losing households." MBA anticipates that home prices will be flat for the rest of the year. The trade group anticipates that the Federal Reserve will not start hiking short-term rates until December of this year, at the earliest. But Frantantoni fears that even with the economy improving, consumers may not spend much. "Their outlook on spending, saving and risk taking may have changed," he told the audience. As for the job market, MBA sees unemployment falling steadily to 7.5% by 2012, but a large portion of that improvement may come in the hiring of temporary workers, he said. "Roughly one-quarter to one-third of this audience is hiring temps," Frantantoni said. "We're not anywhere close to a peak. Businesses are seeing an increase in demand for their services and they need to staff up as a result, or plug the hole while they wait to see if this demand will persist."