CoreLogic’s Frank Nothaft talks 2020 and what’s to come

Today’s HousingWire Daily features a rerun Housing News Podcast interview with Frank Nothaft, executive, chief economist at CoreLogic.  In this 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. As we wrap the year, we are rerunning our favorite episodes from 2020.

Here is a small preview of today’s interview. The transcript below has been lightly edited for length and clarity:

Sarah Wheeler: Early on, what were some of the indicators you were looking at for how bad things could get with the COVID-19 pandemic?

Frank Nothaft:  Well, we were looking very closely at the jobs report that was coming from the Labor Department and of course, the GDP accounts that come from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. A big concern we had was the big drop in personal consumption expenditures because of how much of a loss there was in retail sales, and how much of a decline there was in restaurant sales. So, it wasn’t surprising what happened in the retail and food service sectors, but still, it was really unprecedented. And of course, it carried through to the labor market numbers where we saw wide scale layoffs in certain occupations and industries. Certainly, travel has been impacted a great deal, and it’s not just air travel. It’s even on railroads and cruise lines as well, with everyone either sheltering in place or being recommended to do so over the last several months.

HousingWire Daily examines the most compelling articles reported from the HousingWire newsroom. Each afternoon, we provide our listeners with a deeper look into the stories coming across our newsroom that are helping Move Markets Forward. Hosted by the HW team and produced by Alcynna Lloyd and Victoria Wickham.