Positive November Jobs Report to Aid U.S. Housing Market

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Today's October 2015 jobs report showed a headline initial November job creation number of 211,000, above market expectations of 190,000.  In addition, revisions to September and October netted a positive 43,000 jobs.
 
Realtor.com's chief economist Jonathan Smoke said today, "Job creation is a very important leading indicator of strong demand for housing.  The strong employment results for the last two years created an uptick in household formation, which drives demand for home purchases and rentals.  We now have had two strong months above 210,000, reflecting a true return back to a strong growth trend.  Our positive forecast for 2016 assumed growth of 208,333 per month.
 
The report clearly shows that we've returned to a strong jobs growth trend, and combined with recent comments from the Federal Reserve Chairperson and board members, it is beginning to look a lot like higher rates this December.
 
Our analysis of November data on Realtor.com indicates that the residential real estate market continues to follow the normal seasonal decline in demand as we head into the New Year. The median listing price remained fairly constant over last month, down just 1 percent to $230,000, but that still signified an increase of 7 percent year-over-year."