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Housing Market Posts Strong First-Quarter Results06-11-15 | News

Housing Market Posts Strong First-Quarter Results

Existing home sales were 6.6 percent higher in the first quarter of 2015, compared to the same period in the previous year.

The U.S. housing market is well on its way to recovering from the subprime mortgage crisis of eight years ago, according to a team of economists from Morgan Stanley.

And this is a rally that could very well pick up even more momentum over the foreseeable future.

Existing home sales posted a 6.6 percent gain in the first three months of this year, compared to the first quarter of 2014, a report released in May notes.

New home sales have also seen "impressive gains," the Morgan Stanley team said. Starts and permits were just slightly higher, at 3.9 percent, for the quarter, compared to the same period last year. However, an index of building permits that combines both new construction and renovation projects is up 8 percent.

Authorities are now convinced that the housing market is the strongest it's been in years, and that this recent trend will fuel the U.S. economy going forward.

"Despite a weak first quarter on several fronts of the U.S. economy, the housing sector has been a source of relative strength," Morgan Stanley economist Vishwanath Tirupattur wrote. "In our view, the U.S. housing sector is poised to accelerate into the spring, a traditionally strong period for housing."