The homebuilders only have 80,000 completed new homes for sale — in a country of over 336 million people with more than 157 million people working. Why so low? Well, builders are in business to make money, they’re not a charity. It’s not the safest business model either because builders take a contract to buy […]
Mortgage rates have risen recently but they could be much worse than they are today. As someone who doesn’t believe the Federal Reserve has pivoted and that the Fed enacted a COVID-19 housing policy to keep existing home sales depressed, It’s not shocking to me that rates are still this high, even though we had […]
We got a great existing home sales report on Thursday, but is this data already too old? Existing home sales showed a jump in sales, which was anticipated by most as we had positive, forward-looking housing data due to mortgage rates falling from 8.03% to 6.63%. However, the last four weeks have had negative trending […]
Will mortgage rates break toward 8% again, making another 2024 data line that looks like a carbon copy of 2023? It’s not part of my 2024 forecast, but since the Federal Reserve likes playing with fire, let’s look at where we are with mortgage rates and their impact on weekly housing data. Mortgage rates and […]
Today, housing starts fell more than anticipated, but the more important story in today’s report is that even though the apartment boom is dead, single-family permits are rising. The U.S. housing apartment boom ran into higher mortgage rates and more supply faster than anticipated, while single-family permits are still enjoying a world of sub-6% mortgage […]
So far in 2024, fewer homes are taking price cuts than in 2023, and this trend is on the verge of breaking below the 2023 lows in price cuts percentages. While weekly inventory is still falling, we have year-over-year growth in total active listing and new listings data. This calls into question a mortgage rate […]
People have been screaming about a housing bubble crash on social media sites for over 12 years. The truth is, U.S. housing credit looks very different than in 2005, 2006, 2007 or 2008. Homeowners have actually never looked better and the data from the Federal Reserve‘s Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit shows why. […]
There was rampant speculation after the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting last week about the timing and number of interest rate cuts this year. In a follow-up interview on 60 Minutes on Sunday, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell did not sound like someone who has pivoted. In fact, Powell believes the Fed can wait […]
How will mortgage rates impact seasonal inventory in 2024? Is the seasonal bottom going to happen later than I want? Maybe. It’s not what I wanted to see in 2024, but I have to be realistic since we are already in February. In the last four years, we have had abnormal seasonal inventory data, meaning […]
Today we got a jobs Friday hat trick! Better headline jobs were reported, with positive revisions and more robust wage growth, which caught bond traders off guard and sent bond yields and mortgage rates higher today. Now, we do have some quirky seasonality issues with this report, but as I have often stressed, don’t look at […]
Housing demand is up and it’s time to track the spring housing data and see what the selling season will bring. As I always stress, we are working from the lowest bar ever with demand, so let’s add historical context to the data. But, even with mortgage rates higher this year than last year, demand […]
People say that housing leads the economy into a recession: this is true when new home sales and housing permits fall together. When that happens, the builders start laying off workers before the national economy goes into a recession. This is one reason I raised my fifth recession red flag for Housing on June 16, […]
Housing inventory, new listing data and mortgage rates are all rising, but the price cut data percentages are falling. Traditionally at this time of year purchase apps rise and the number of price cuts fall. However, at the current trend, we will break below the lows in the price cut percentage data that we saw […]
Today, we saw existing home sales slip a bit month to month, which isn’t surprising to me as purchase application data started its positive run in November. That data line typically looks out 30-90 days for sales — it doesn’t move as fast as some people think. Since making some holiday adjustments, we have seen […]
Last week, housing inventory grew and the number of price cuts fell, which is expected at this time of the year. I hope the next thing we see is housing inventory grow at the level it typically does in January or February instead of being delayed until March or April. Last year at this time, […]
Inflation came in hotter than expected on Thursday, but we are still talking about rate cuts in 2024! The 10-year yield had a mild reaction to today’s data, increasing a few basis points early. It’s now at 3.98%, a far cry from 5.04% as we saw last year. This, while jobless claims data is still historically […]
Will the number of homes that take a price cut this year drop below 2023 levels? Yes! If the current trends continue into the strong seasonal pricing period, we will see fewer homes that are discounted before selling. I believe this was the most overlooked housing story of the last year because even as mortgage […]
Slowing job growth doesn’t mean a recession, but today’s jobs report tells me that the significant job gains we were accustomed to in the early part of the COVID-19 recovery period are ending, which ties nicely to how I thought labor would recover after COVID. Even though the headline number on the report today beat […]
The 2023 housing market faced one of the same roadblocks we saw in 2022: mortgage rates were too high for home sales growth. Now that we’re in 2024, the Federal Reserve‘s rate hike cycle is over, so let’s look at what that means for housing demand and home prices. However, a yearly forecast has limitations […]
Going into 2023, people thought housing inventory would skyrocket, home prices would crash, and we would see the housing market of 2008 all over again. We created this weekly tracker at the end of 2022 to give people a live weekly outlook on everything that drives the housing market and which factors to follow. Those […]
