Dive summary:

• Fannie Mae’s Economic & Strategic Research Group.is a glass-half-full crowd when it comes to the U.S. economy for the second half of this year.
• The group's analysis sees residential construction continuing to grow despite rising mortgage rates, pulled along in part by ongoing job growth and more robust consumer confidence.
• Mortgage rates will get to about 4.7% in the last three months of this year, the economists say, but they still expect about an 8% increase in home sales from where they were in 2012.

From the article:

The latest jobs report showed steady year-to-date job creation and measures of consumer confidence are at or near recovery highs. ...