According to the Federal Reserve, reporting in its July 2013 Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey on Bank Lending Practices, domestic banks claim (on balance) to have eased their lending standards, and have experienced stronger demand for loans over the past three months.

The monthly unemployment numbers for July were relatively weak—up 176,000 jobs—and it turns out that the previous months weren’t quite as strong as first reported, according to revisions released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the economy created 162,000 jobs.

By Dees Stribling, Contributing Editor In recent weeks, prognosticators have been predicting that U.S. real gross domestic product would barely increase at all in the second quarter. On Wednesday, the Bureau of Economic Analysis released its first, or “advance,” estimate of real GDP for 2Q13: an annualized increase of 1.7 percent. Though not especially robust, growth was better than expected. In the first quarter, real GDP increased by only 1.1 percent, annualized. The increase in real GDP in the second quarter reflected positive contributions from personal consumption expenditures (people out buying stuff), exports (foreigners buying our stuff), nonresidential fixed investment…

U.S. residential prices continued their upward climb in May, according to the latest S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices.

The National Association of Realtors reported on Monday that its Pending Home Sales Index dropped a notch in June to 110.9 from May’s reading of 111.3. The May reading was the index’s highest level since before the housing bubble burst; back in December 2006, the index maxed out at 112.8.

The University of Michigan reported on Friday that its consumer sentiment index for July came in at 85.1, an improvement from June’s final reading of 84.1, and also up from the mid-July reading of 83.9.

Mortgage interest rates spiked unexpectedly a few weeks ago and have been easing off since.