by Calculated Risk on 8/08/2012 09:19:00 PM

First, a little rent relief coming? From Brady Dennis and Amrita Jayakumar the WaPo: A renter’s respite: In Washington area, thousands of new units to open soon

Thousands of new rental units under construction are scheduled to open in the coming months, the first such wave of new building in the area since the financial crisis hit in 2008.

The coming surge — which includes a whopping 6,000 new units by the end of this year — will give prospective renters a slew of new options and could even halt the upward march of monthly rental payments ...

The projected number of new units would be more than double the number that went on the market in the Washington area during each of the past two years.

Thursday will be busy ...

• At 8:30 AM ET, the Trade Balance report for June will be released by the Census Bureau. The consensus is for the U.S. trade deficit to decrease to $47.5 billion in June, down from from $48.7 billion in May.

• Also at 8:30 AM, the initial weekly unemployment claims report will be released. The consensus is for claims to increase slightly to 367 thousand from 365 thousand. This report has been showing some improvement recently, although it might have been distorted by the timing of auto plant shutdowns.

• At 10:00 AM, the Mortgage Bankers Association's (MBA) will release their 2nd Quarter 2012 National Delinquency Survey.

• Also at 10:00 AM, the Monthly Wholesale Trade: Sales and Inventories report for June will be released. The consensus is for a 0.3% increase in inventories.

Here are two more questions for the August economic contest (both on Thursday).

More game updates: The red line shows the relative number of picks for each option, and people can now login using twitter.