Housing Wire

JULY 15, 2024

If we look at the housing market right now, sales are down, new listings are down and prices are decelerating. Good inflation data came in last week, the bond market rallied and mortgage rates took a notable dip below 7% for the first time in months. Maybe we’re finally past the peak of mortgage rates ?

Housing Market 486

Housing Market New Listings Marketing Mortgage 486

Housing Wire

DECEMBER 28, 2024

Now, as we look ahead to 2025, the market is in a much better position if mortgage rates fall toward 6%, something that wasnt the case before. The peak New listings came in a bit over 75,000 weekly. For context, remember that new listing data ranged between 250,000 and 400,000 per week during the housing crash bubble years.

Inventory 506

Inventory Housing Market Marketing New Listings 506

Housing Wire

NOVEMBER 30, 2024

Despite initial concerns that tariffs would push mortgage rates up to 8% and reduce housing demand, this week has brought some encouraging news. The 10-year yield has remained stable at a crucial technical level and even reversed direction, resulting in improved mortgage rates. This is what happened in the last two years.

Mortgage 503

Mortgage Inventory New Listings Contracts 503

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 506

Mortgage Inventory New Listings Contracts 506

Housing Wire

AUGUST 17, 2024

Have lower mortgage rates already started to slow down housing inventory? Now, with mortgage rates dropping below that 7.25% level recently, inventory hasn’t been able to hit that growth model once. However, 2024 looks much healthier than 2023 data, as we desperately needed to get off those historically low levels of active listings.

Inventory 510

Inventory Mortgage New Listings Contracts 510

Housing Wire

JUNE 8, 2024

Given last week’s surprising jobs report, how much longer will we have to deal with higher mortgage rates ? It’s essential to track the labor data along with inflation because the key to getting lower mortgage rates for longer lies with the labor data more than inflation.

Mortgage 491

Mortgage Inventory New Listings Contracts 491

Housing Wire

JANUARY 20, 2025

New contracts for home purchases are coming in very low this month. Buyer activity has been dropping for several weeks and there are now fewer homes in contract than a year ago. Buyer activity has been dropping for several weeks and there are now fewer homes in contract than a year ago. When will that be? I have no idea.

Mortgage 306

Mortgage Inventory New Listings Contracts 306

Housing Wire

AUGUST 6, 2024

Mortgage rates are dropping fast. Mortgage rates are now the lowest they’ve been in over a year. Last year at this time, mortgage rates were rising, eventually peaking at 8% in October 2023. We should be able to measure how demand changes over the next few weeks if rates stay at these new lower levels.

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Mortgage Inventory New Listings Contracts 473

Housing Wire

SEPTEMBER 15, 2024

An often misguided premise I see on social media is that lower mortgage rates are doing nothing for housing demand. Purchase application data First, purchase apps is the fastest way to look for positive or negative data at higher or lower mortgage rates. That’s ok — very few people are looking at the data without an agenda.

Mortgage 517

Mortgage Inventory New Listings Retail 517

Housing Wire

SEPTEMBER 30, 2024

The number of homes under contract across the country has risen for the last few weeks. Purchase mortgage applications are up for five weeks in a row. It seems like mortgage rates are getting closer to 6% are shaking loose a few transactions. Pending home sales climb There are 362,000 single-family homes under contract.

Mortgage 439

Mortgage Contracts Inventory New Listings 439

Housing Wire

SEPTEMBER 7, 2024

Mortgage rates have made almost a 2% move lower from the highs of 2023. Now that the jobs week data is in, the question is: can mortgage rates go even lower? Mortgage spreads Another way for mortgage rates to drop to the lowest level of the forecast or below is to improve mortgage spreads.

Mortgage 525

Mortgage Inventory New Listings Marketing 525

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 498

Mortgage Inventory New Listings Housing Market 498

Housing Wire

JUNE 15, 2024

Since May 29, we’ve witnessed a decline in the 10-year yield, which has been favorable for mortgage rates. 10-year yield and mortgage rates After the intense jobs week data , we ran straight into CPI and PPI inflation week, with a Fed meeting thrown in! Once mortgage rates began rising in 2024, some demand was removed.

Mortgage 471

Mortgage Inventory Marketing New Listings 471

Housing Wire

FEBRUARY 20, 2024

Mortgage rates are back over 7%. The economy has continued to be strong, so mortgage rates have defied expectations and remained very high. New listings rise New listings continue to show us that more sellers are interested in this market this year. That’s because mortgage rates have jumped over 7% again.

Mortgage 497

Mortgage Inventory Sellers New Listings 497

Housing Wire

JULY 6, 2024

Weekly housing inventory data While inventory growth this week slowed to 6,803 — well below my weekly target level of 11,000 -17,000 with elevated mortgage rates — the fact that we hit this target level five times this year versus zero last year is a big reason why 2024 has been a much better year for housing than 2023.

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Housing Market Mortgage Inventory Marketing 465

Housing Wire

FEBRUARY 5, 2024

Mortgage rates are back up over 7% this morning on the back of strong economic growth data. The 10-year bond yield jumped back over 4% and that pushes mortgage rates higher too. Mortgage rates are 40 basis points higher than a month ago, and 100 basis points higher than a year ago. And mortgage rates are 100 basis points higher.

Mortgage 438

Mortgage Inventory Sellers New Listings 438

Housing Wire

SEPTEMBER 1, 2024

The best part about 2024 has been that higher mortgage rates have created an inventory buffer, so if the economy gets softer and rates fall, we have many more homes to work with than we had in 2020-2023. However, as mortgage rates have fallen recently , I haven’t been able to hit my targets, which isn’t a surprise.

Inventory 506

Inventory Mortgage New Listings Housing Market 506

Housing Wire

DECEMBER 7, 2024

Last week, we witnessed a Santa Claus rally in mortgage rates alongside improved housing demand. We also see growth in our pending contract data compared to 2022 and 2023. Weekly pending sales The weekly pending contract data from Altos Research offers an insightful look into real-time housing demand.

New Listings 498

New Listings Inventory Contracts Housing Market 498

Housing Wire

OCTOBER 7, 2024

After the recent lows with mortgage rates this week, the 30-year fixed rate jumped back up over 6.5%. Mortgage rates bounced back up over the last couple days, and it demonstrates how fragile this housing market recovery could be. Conversely, if mortgage rates don’t stay low, we’ve seen homebuyers very willing to wait.

Housing Market 438

Housing Market Marketing Mortgage Contracts 438

Housing Wire

MARCH 25, 2024

Mortgage rates seem to have finally settled down. I was worried that we might come out of that meeting with a spike in mortgage rates but that didn’t materialize so we got lucky. The longer mortgage rates stay higher, the more inventory will grow closer to the old levels. In total, new listings data is 14% more than last year.

New Listings 496

New Listings Inventory Contracts Sellers 496

Housing Wire

APRIL 1, 2024

As mortgage rates rose starting in 2022, payment affordability got dramatically worse and homebuyer demand dried up. New listing volume last week was 18% more than a year ago. Pending sales Last week saw 69,000 new contracts for single-family home purchases across the country. Why the difference?

Inventory 487

Inventory New Listings Contracts Sellers 487

Housing Wire

JANUARY 4, 2025

Our weekly pending contract data has shown year-over-year growth for some time now, even with elevated mortgage rates. Weekly pending sales The latest weekly pending contract data from Altos Research offers critical insights into real-time trends in housing demand. Has the spring home-buying season already begun?

New Listings 492

New Listings Inventory Contracts Mortgage 492

Housing Wire

MAY 28, 2024

New listings climbed during the past week and there are now 72,000 more single-family homes on the market. It appeared that new listings might be on the decline already, but the pace picked up a tad this week, which is encouraging. And this trend will continue until mortgage rates drop significantly.

Inventory 515

Inventory New Listings Contracts Sellers 515

Housing Wire

APRIL 15, 2024

We saw a big jump in mortgage rates last week. The 30-year fixed rate mortgage, according to the HousingWire Mortgage Rates Center , is now over 7.2% — that’s 50 basis points above where we were at the start of the year. At that time, most of the voices in the media assumed that mortgage rates had peaked and would fall by now.

Inventory 408

Inventory Mortgage New Listings Sellers 408

Housing Wire

DECEMBER 14, 2024

The holiday season is here, and despite higher mortgage rates last week, housing demand is displaying some festive resilience. Additionally, our pending contracts are still reflecting double-digit year-over-year growth. If we had the worst spreads from last year, mortgage rates would be about 0.60 percentage points higher today.

Mortgage 433

Mortgage Inventory New Listings Contracts 433

Housing Wire

JUNE 22, 2024

Are we seeing the start of a market shift in mortgage demand? Notably, mortgage rates have been gradually declining, and we’ve observed back-to-back positive weeks in purchase application data for the first time since mid-March. For now, we just had back-to-back weeks of positive growth, with mortgage rates still around 7%.

Mortgage 396

Mortgage Inventory New Listings Contracts 396

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.

Mortgage 482

Mortgage Inventory New Listings Retail 482

Housing Wire

JANUARY 22, 2024

Those metrics, specifically the pace of new listings and new sales contracts, slowed this week. Our immediate sales metric of homes that get offers within a couple days of listing also slowed. New listings and new contracts both still show a bit of improvement over 2023, but the growth rates have slid back down.

Real Estate 417

Real Estate New Listings Contracts Inventory 417

Housing Wire

OCTOBER 31, 2023

We may be nearing the bottom in home sales even if mortgage rates don’t decline. At least, that’s what the data seems to suggest as inventory grows and new listings decline at a less aggressive rate than last year. Consumers are more sensitive to changes in mortgage rates than to absolute levels.

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New Listings Inventory Contracts Housing Market 483

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 497

Mortgage Inventory New Listings Contracts 497

Housing Wire

FEBRUARY 24, 2024

Mortgage rates have risen recently but they could be much worse than they are today. Mortgage rates and the 10-year yield The 10-year yield is the key for housing in 2024. The most important data line for me, along with mortgage rates , is jobless claims data because I value labor data over inflation. That hasn’t happened.

Mortgage 466

Mortgage Inventory New Listings Housing Market 466

Housing Wire

NOVEMBER 18, 2024

We already see many signals for what to expect, including last week’s data on inventory , new listings and price reductions, which I analyze below. Mortgage rates continue to move higher and that’s impacting buyers. Last week there were 52,000 new listings for single-family homes unsold.

Housing Market 442

Housing Market New Listings Marketing Inventory 442

Housing Wire

APRIL 9, 2024

Mortgage rates remained unchanged last week despite the release of the stronger-than-expected jobs report. HousingWire’s Mortgage Rates Center showed the average 30-year fixed rate for conventional loans at 7.16% on Tuesday, unchanged from one week earlier. At the same time one year ago, the 30-year fixed rate averaged 6.46%.

Mortgage 392

Mortgage New Listings Inventory Contracts 392

Housing Wire

APRIL 30, 2024

Mortgage rates inched higher last week ahead of the Federal Reserve ’s Federal Open Markets Committee on Wednesday and the national jobs report on Friday. The weekly volume of new listings is now higher than at anytime last year,” Mike Simonsen, founder and president of Altos Research, wrote on Monday.

Mortgage 385

Mortgage New Listings Inventory Sellers 385

Housing Wire

JUNE 3, 2024

Mortgage rates decided to bounce back into the 7s this week. These are the homes that go into contract immediately after listing. We also see new pending sales slowing and price reductions ticking up. Inventory continues to build each week as mortgage rates stay over 7%. Inventory rose by 1.7%

Inventory 487

Inventory Contracts New Listings Sellers 487

Housing Wire

MARCH 26, 2023

These events led to lower mortgage rates and increased purchase application data last week, but decreased housing inventory. Here’s a quick rundown of the last week: The 10-year yield had a Lord of Rings battle at a critical technical level, pushing mortgage rates lower at the end of the week with no real break in the bond market.

Inventory 469

Inventory Housing Market Marketing Mortgage 469

Housing Wire

NOVEMBER 27, 2023

You also know that new listings are up over last year, too. New listings volume is up, too. There were 58,000 new listings this week, with 10,000 of those homes already under contract as immediate sales. If you follow real estate data closely, you’ll know that inventory rose late into November.

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New Listings Contracts Inventory Housing Market 499