Housing Wire

FEBRUARY 20, 2023

Another week down in 2023 and we’re seeing crazier action in the housing market as purchase application data fell, mortgage rates rose again, and weekly inventory took another dive with a noticeable move lower in new listing data. Mortgage rates hit 6.80%, marking the high point for 2023 so far. Weekly inventory change (Feb.10-Feb.

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Inventory Housing Market Marketing Mortgage 420

Housing Wire

JULY 23, 2024

Sinking sales, rapidly rising inventory and prices at all-time highs — this is the state of the market for existing homes. That’s according to June’s existing-home sales data from the National Association of Realtors (NAR), which reflect the problems that have hampered housing markets since mortgage rates began to rise in 2022.

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Inventory Buyers Sellers Inspection 483

Housing Wire

APRIL 23, 2023

Since 2020, the seasonal bottom for housing inventory has arrived several months later than normal, making it more complicated to track housing inventory data. Still, we have some promising signs that we might have finally hit the inventory bottom for 2023. I hope the seasonal bottom was two weeks ago.

Inventory 545

Inventory Housing Market Marketing New Listings 545

Housing Wire

FEBRUARY 7, 2024

With mortgage rates briefly topping 8% and home prices breaking records throughout the year, many would-be sellers simply decided not to bother listing their homes, exacerbating already tight inventories. Mortgage rates followed suit, walloping buyers’ purchasing power. New data from the U.S.

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Inventory Sellers Mortgage Marketing 439

Housing Wire

APRIL 30, 2023

The spring housing market music is playing, and purchase application data and active listing inventory rose together last week. The fear of not having an increase in inventory this spring should be put to rest. The other focus should be where mortgage rates go; only a little happened last week.

Inventory 523

Inventory Housing Market Marketing New Listings 523

Housing Wire

SEPTEMBER 5, 2024

Data released Thursday by Realtor.com and Redfin shows that even as more homes are being listed for sale and mortgage payments are becoming more affordable, fewer transactions are occurring. It was the 10th straight month of annualized growth and for-sale inventory is now at its highest level since May 2020.

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Inventory Buyers Sellers Mortgage 441

Housing Wire

JUNE 24, 2024

Inventory grew by almost 14,000 homes this week. Available inventory of unsold homes continues to grow but that growth in seems a bit less intense than it could be. He expects the second half of the year to see even more inventory growth. Inventory increases by 2.2% Sellers can just wait it out, and it looks like the U.S.

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Inventory Sellers New Listings Property Taxes 390

Housing Wire

MARCH 18, 2024

real estate market were for inventory growth, sales growth and home-price growth across the U.S. At the time, I observed that even if mortgage rates stayed flat, the momentum seemed to be in the cards for broad, slow growth in the market. However, mortgage rates didn’t stay flat. If mortgage rates continue to rise to 7.5%

Inventory 441

Inventory New Listings Sellers Contracts 441

Appraisal Buzz

JULY 24, 2024

year-over-year, the largest annual rise in a year and the highest share for any June since 2020. This trend is contributing to a glut of unsold inventory. The total number of homes for sale recorded its largest year-over-year gain in June, as listings remain on the market longer, causing inventory to accumulate.

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Inventory Marketing HOA Contracts 433

Housing Wire

JUNE 4, 2023

Last week we saw a noticeable slowdown in housing inventory growth that I hope has more to do with a holiday week than a trend. Mortgage rates fell last week after the debt ceiling issues were resolved, but the damage from higher rates took its toll on purchase application data again.

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Inventory Housing Market Marketing New Listings 452

Housing Wire

JANUARY 12, 2022

Early in 2021, when I was talking about how people should worry about home prices overheating, I had a glimmer of hope that maybe toward the end of 2021 we would be spared another seasonal collapse of inventory. Inventory always falls in the fall and winter, but I hoped it wouldn’t be a repeat of 2020.

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Inventory Housing Market Mortgage Marketing 538

Housing Wire

MAY 7, 2023

Just when I thought it was safe to say we were getting more traditional spring housing inventory , we hit a snag last week, as active inventory and new listings declined. We had a lot of drama over the week between Federal Reserve meetings and banking stress, and mortgage rates and purchase applications both fell.

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Inventory Housing Market Marketing New Listings 504

Housing Wire

DECEMBER 2, 2021

It’s official – housing inventory in America is at a crisis level. During the four week period ending November 28, the number of active listings was a 23% decrease compared to the same time period in 2020 and a 42% drop compared to 2019. In the short term, global interest rates, including mortgage rates, could fall. “In

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Inventory New Listings Contracts Housing Market 516

Housing Wire

AUGUST 2, 2024

properties sold at foreclosure auction, showed that this trend is being fueled by rising levels of inventory on the retail market. Data from Altos Research found that the inventory of single-family homes for sale was up 40% year over year at the end of July. from May to June. On an annualized basis, five major U.S.

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Inventory Retail Buyers Renovations 440

Housing Wire

JANUARY 30, 2023

Housing inventory decreased by 6,468 units, a more pronounced decline from the previous week. The 10-year yield can’t break lower from the critical level I have discussed, so not much is happening with mortgage rates. Does this move have more legs to run, and will we need lower mortgage rates to get more growth in this data line?

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Inventory Housing Market Marketing Mortgage 508

Housing Wire

APRIL 20, 2023

months’ worth of housing inventory in the U.S. Now, post-2020, we have had three straight years of late-in-the-year runs in this data line to mess everything up. NAR: Total housing inventory registered at the end of March was 980,000 units, up 1.0% Unsold inventory sits at a 2.6-month We only have 2.6

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Inventory Housing Market Marketing New Listings 529

Housing Wire

OCTOBER 5, 2024

18 and mortgage rates and bond yields headed higher. But, we have to remember that mortgage rates had already made an almost 2% move lower since the highs of 2023 without rate cuts, as the bond market always gets ahead of the Fed. This explains the rise in mortgage rates since the Fed cut rates.

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Mortgage Inventory New Listings Retail 499

Housing Wire

SEPTEMBER 28, 2024

Housing demand is very seasonal, so the fact that our pending contract data is firming up lately just shows that lower mortgage rates have stabilized and firmed up demand recently. It will likely take mortgage rates to go under 6% and stay there for an extended period to get real sustained demand growth from record-low sales levels.

Mortgage 511

Mortgage Inventory New Listings Contracts 511

Housing Wire

JANUARY 9, 2023

The housing market saw inventory fall 4% last week from the week before. Does that mean we are heading back to all-time lows in inventory again for 2023? During the last four weeks and especially this past week, we are seeing inventory decline faster than expected. Weekly housing inventory. Weekly inventory change: (Dec.

Inventory 534

Inventory Housing Market Marketing New Listings 534

Housing Wire

NOVEMBER 2, 2020

New rate lock data suggests 2020 will end with over $4 trillion worth of originations, easily a record. The data, from Black Knight’s “Mortgage Monitor” report , shows that rate lock activity in the first half of October was up 4% from September, with purchase locks up 6% and refinance locks up 3%. Roughly 18.5

Mortgage 495

Mortgage Lending Inventory Marketing 495

Housing Wire

MARCH 6, 2023

The housing market faced some serious obstacles last week as the 10-year yield broke over 4%, mortgage rates rose to over 7%, purchase apps fell again and we are still trying to find the elusive seasonal bottom for housing inventory. I discussed my theory on why inventory bottoms out later in the year on this HousingWire Daily podcast.

Inventory 468

Inventory Housing Market Marketing New Listings 468

Housing Wire

FEBRUARY 6, 2023

Despite mortgage rates briefly falling below the 6% threshold, both housing inventory and mortgage demand fell last week. However, we are going to see if 6% mortgage rates are good enough to create some growth in the future or if the housing market needs rates near 5%. Weekly inventory change (Jan.

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Inventory Housing Market Marketing New Listings 479

Housing Wire

SEPTEMBER 22, 2024

Have we seen the bottom in mortgage rates for 2024 after a crazy roller coaster ride so far this year? My 2024 forecast had a mortgage rate range of 7.25%-5.75%. To get to the lower end of this range, we needed to see two things: the labor market getting softer and the mortgage spreads improving. Yes, here’s how and why.

Mortgage 513

Mortgage Inventory New Listings Contracts 513

Housing Wire

JANUARY 20, 2023

On Friday NAR reported that total housing inventory levels broke under 1 million in December, dropping to 970,00 units for a population of 330 million people. million in January down to about 4 million in December, We now have total inventory levels near all-time lows again. In one of the most historical years in the U.S.

Inventory 540

Inventory Housing Market New Listings Marketing 540

Housing Wire

JANUARY 22, 2021

This also closed the books on 2020’s housing market as we finished out the year at 5,640,000 total existing-home sales — a 5.6% The COVID crisis of 2020 was responsible for a lot of abnormal metrics in the housing market. We saw hints of this prime housing market period as early as February of 2020.

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Housing Market Marketing Inventory Realtors 545

Housing Wire

AUGUST 4, 2024

Mortgage rates moved massively lower last week without any Federal Reserve rate cuts, primarily because the labor market is getting softer. Can mortgage rates go even lower? We don’t have that variable this year and spreads have improved earlier than I thought, which has helped mortgage pricing.

Mortgage 511

Mortgage Inventory New Listings Housing Market 511

Housing Wire

APRIL 11, 2022

Given the current housing inventory crisis, it might surprise people to realize this: we built too many homes during the housing bubble years. Yes, but this is where my work is much different from other housing economists and why we need to think of inventory in a new, modern 21st-century mindset. Wait, what?

Inventory 513

Inventory Housing Market Marketing Modernization 513

Housing Wire

DECEMBER 8, 2021

My biggest concern for housing in the years 2020-2024 was that if the demographic push in demand picks up and total home sales get over 6. 2 million , we could be at risk of housing inventory falling to such low levels that I would have to categorize this housing market as unhealthy. 2020 and 2021 easily each have over 6.2

Inventory 524

Inventory Housing Market Marketing Mortgage 524

Housing Wire

MAY 26, 2022

It’s an excellent time to discuss housing inventory. As the 10-year yield broke above 1.94% and mortgage rates rose, we saw the impact on housing data. Since the summer of 2020, this has been my main talking point on what can cool down housing ; it’s a 10-year yield above 1.94% , meaning rates above 4%. What is going on here?

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Inventory Housing Market Construction Marketing 516

Housing Wire

JULY 22, 2021

You can thank a rise in housing inventory for the gains. million in June 2020 as housing inventory has slowly improved in recent months. Total housing inventory at the end of June amounted to 1.25 from May’s inventory and down 18.8% ” Unsold housing inventory sits at a 2.6-month Sales climbed 22.9%

Inventory 508

Inventory Buyers Realtors Construction 508

Appraisal Buzz

MAY 21, 2024

However, just as inventory levels have increased, affordability has weakened as mortgage rates have drifted higher in response to the Fed’s decision to keep the federal funds rate ‘higher for longer,’ reducing demand.” More supply amid a pullback in demand means price appreciation is cooling,” Fleming says.

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Inventory Housing Market Marketing Appraisal 370

Housing Wire

DECEMBER 30, 2020

While the United States may not have been prepared to combat a deadly virus, a quick and robust response from the Federal Reserve , along with changing consumer preferences, created a perfect storm that resulted in a record year for the housing and mortgage industries. Quite the opposite. Sales of new homes spiked 18.6% bond market.

Mortgage 545

Mortgage Investors Housing Market Marketing 545

Housing Wire

NOVEMBER 18, 2022

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) reported today on two trends in existing home sales that we have seen for many months now: sales are declining while total inventory data has fallen directly for the three straight months. However, I knew the years 2020-2024 would see better demand from the bump in demographics.

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Inventory Marketing Housing Market New Listings 492

Housing Wire

AUGUST 22, 2023

Foreclosure inventory hit a 15-month low in July representing the continued strength of mortgage performance. Mortgages that were delinquent by 30 days rose by 35,000 in July, with 60-day delinquency climbing by 17,000 (6.4%). July’s foreclosure sales (completions) of 6,100 nationally were down 11% from June.

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Inventory Mortgage Housing Market Marketing 356

Housing Wire

MAY 15, 2024

This is an excerpt of a HousingWire Research report titled: What Everyone Needs to Know about Mortgage Rate Lock-in, by Altos President Mike Simonsen. housing market saw dramatic changes in affordability as mortgage rates skyrocketed 500 basis points. million in January 2021 (when mortgage rates were 2.7%) fell to 3.9

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Mortgage New Listings Inventory Sellers 426

Housing Wire

MARCH 29, 2022

Given the current housing inventory crisis, it might surprise people to realize this: we built too many homes during the housing bubble years. Yes, but this is where my work is much different from other housing economists and why we need to think of inventory in a new, modern 21st-century mindset. Wait, what?

Inventory 435

Inventory Housing Market Marketing Modernization 435

Housing Wire

AUGUST 18, 2021

I have often said that both purchase applications and housing starts would be limited until we hit the period of favorable housing demographics from 2020 to 2024. Specifically, I said that purchase applications would not get to 300 in the MBA index until 2020 to 2024. The post Why aren’t builders creating more housing inventory?

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Inventory Buyers Business Mortgage 524