CoreLogic’s Frank Nothaft on the housing market’s vitality

This week, Frank Nothaft, chief economist at CoreLogic, joins the Housing News Podcast to discuss how the housing market has fared in 2020.

During the interview, Nothaft discusses how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the housing market’s vitality as well as the economy. Notably, Nothaft also offers his housing market predictions for 2021.

Here is a small preview of the interview with Frank Nothaft. The transcript below has been lightly edited for length and clarity:

HW: Let’s talk about CoreLogic’s housing market forecast. What are you expecting for housing in the first quarter and first half of 2021?

Frank Nothaft: We’re expecting mortgage rates to remain at record low levels, possibly well below 3%. I think that’s going to be the case, not only at the start of the year but for most or all of 2021. That’s going to be very important in stimulating home sales, and also refinance volume. However, I’m not expecting refinance volume in 2021 to hit the same numbers that we saw in 2020, but I think it’s still going to be pretty strong. In fact, I actually expect refinance volume in 2021 to be more than it was in 2019. On the housing market, we’re actually expecting home sales to be up in 2021 compared to 2020. It will be because of new single-family construction and increases in existing home sales. Notably, over the last several months, we’ve had an acute shortage of existing homes for sale in the United States. Part of that acute shortage of inventory for sale is directly related to the pandemic.