Despite being told by Bullard, Yellen (and numerous other Federal Reserve thinkers) that quantitative easing was aimed at improving the housing market, the data suggests that - somewhat predictably - it did very little for mom-and-pop organic real home-buyer but stoked speculation and fervor among fast-money cheap-funding investors (and as Marc Faber noted actually hurt the average homebuyer via un-affordability [7]). The week-to-week ebbs and and flows in mortgage applications are notable (this week saw purchase applications drop 5% and back near recent lows) but a bigger picture glance at just where this "recovery" has been tells a very different story about confidence among home-buyers.
Mortgage applications for home purchases have basically flatlined since the Fed began QE and hover now just above their lowest levels since 1995...
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Charts: Bloomberg