Housing Wire

DECEMBER 19, 2023

The defining characteristic of the 2023 housing market has been dramatically fewer home sellers than any recent year. In this week’s Altos Research video, I look at how home sellers and sales are up, but that doesn’t mean prices will climb in 2024. Housing inventory climbed late in the year as mortgage rates rose.

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Sellers Marketing Inventory Contracts 456

Housing Wire

DECEMBER 30, 2024

However, there are two big trends that stand out as we launch into 2025 affordability and sellers in the market. Home prices finished 2024 up a few percent nationally and mortgage rates are at their highest level in seven months back over 7% as we head into January. Theres another set of sellers that we call immediate sales.

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Housing Market Marketing New Listings Inventory 543

Housing Wire

OCTOBER 26, 2024

Since mid-2022 when mortgage rates headed higher , two facts have been apparent: new listings data has been trending at the lowest levels ever recorded in history and inventory has been able to grow from record low levels thanks to mortgage rates staying elevated. Let’s see what the data for last week tells us.

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Inventory Sellers New Listings Mortgage 494

Housing Wire

FEBRUARY 26, 2024

Price reductions ticked up this week for the first time since November in the face of rising mortgage rates. We can see the impact of higher mortgage rates slowing homebuyer demand. Now, mortgage rates are 100 basis points higher. We still see more sellers than last year. The pace of sales inched down, too.

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Sellers Inventory New Listings Contracts 436

Housing Wire

FEBRUARY 12, 2024

There are still notably not a lot of sellers. But home sellers are gradually easing back into this housing market. There were 66,000 new listings this week, of which 14,000 are already in contract. Sellers are coming back to this housing market. 14,000 of those new listings are already in contract.

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Sellers Housing Market Buyers New Listings 385

Housing Wire

FEBRUARY 20, 2024

Mortgage rates are back over 7%. Even as money is more expensive and there are more sellers than a year ago, we can also see slight home sales growth over 2023. The economy has continued to be strong, so mortgage rates have defied expectations and remained very high. And as demand slows, inventory grows.

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Mortgage Inventory Sellers New Listings 497

Appraisal Buzz

JUNE 12, 2024

Home sellers are returning to the market, but buyers are hesitant, according to a recent Zillow market report. Inflation has hit younger households hardest, and stubbornly high rates have pushed a mortgage out of reach for many first-time buyers. The typical mortgage payment is up 11.3% That has cooled competition for houses.

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Sellers Buyers New Listings Home Value 397

Housing Wire

JUNE 24, 2024

Sellers can just wait it out, and it looks like the U.S. I think it’s worth examining if sellers will indeed just wait it out now. If mortgage rates jump in late summer, we would see another boost in unsold inventory. That is 13% more sellers than last year at this time, but it’s not expanding any more this summer.

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Inventory Sellers New Listings Property Taxes 366

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. There are more buyers than sellers.

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Mortgage Inventory Sellers New Listings 438

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.

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Mortgage Contracts Inventory New Listings 439

Housing Wire

JULY 13, 2024

In 2023, following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank , the spreads between the 30-year mortgage and 10-year yield were at their worst, leading to new cycle highs. This meant mortgage rates were significantly higher than average. Mortgage spreads Last year, the 10-year yield hit 5% and mortgage rates got above 8%.

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Mortgage New Listings Inventory Contracts 499

Housing Wire

NOVEMBER 23, 2024

It has been almost two months since mortgage rates spiked again, and my initial thought was this would tank housing demand. We had a positive 18-week period with purchase applications before mortgage rates started rising in September. Initially, the data showed more robust performance as mortgage rates approached 6%.

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Mortgage Inventory New Listings Contracts 488

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.

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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. Are we past the opportunity for declining mortgage rates to help demand and pick up home sales in 2024? Overall, there are only 4.6%

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Mortgage Inventory New Listings Contracts 473

Housing Wire

OCTOBER 10, 2023

Mortgage rates continue to climb. It’s not uncommon to hear rates quoted over 8% for a 30-year fixed mortgage. 8% mortgage rates are a new reality We’ve been talking about the impact of 8% mortgage rates for months. The path to finally having more selection for homebuyers is through higher mortgage rates.

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Mortgage Inventory Contracts Sellers 424

Housing Wire

JULY 15, 2024

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 ? That’s a very small number of new listings that took offers and went into contract immediately. We are not seeing any sales growth.

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Housing Market New Listings Marketing Mortgage 486

Housing Wire

JULY 23, 2024

Mortgage rates continue to move lower this week even as higher borrowing costs have kept activity subdued across many areas of the housing market. Lower mortgage rates are having a positive impact on application levels, with the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) reporting last week that applications were up 3.9%

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Mortgage Real Estate Agent Finance Buyers 510

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.

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Mortgage Inventory New Listings Contracts 506

Housing Wire

MARCH 15, 2024

Mortgage pros have closely monitored the commission lawsuit developments since a Kansas City, Missouri jury determined that NAR, HomeServices of America , and Keller Williams conspired to inflate or maintain high commission rates through NAR’s so-called Participation Rule.

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Buyers Agents Mortgage Real Estate Agent 514

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.

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Mortgage Inventory Marketing New Listings 471

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.

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Inventory Mortgage New Listings Sellers 408

Housing Wire

APRIL 1, 2024

As mortgage rates rose starting in 2022, payment affordability got dramatically worse and homebuyer demand dried up. At the same time, seller volume dried up. But now sellers are coming back into the market. Pending sales Last week saw 69,000 new contracts for single-family home purchases across the country.

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Inventory New Listings Contracts Sellers 487

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. Even the withdrawal rate of frustrated home sellers declined over the last month.

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Housing Market Marketing Mortgage Contracts 438

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. Inventory continues to build each week as mortgage rates stay over 7%. Last fall, we all assumed that mortgage rates would be declining by now. Inventory rose by 1.7%

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Inventory Contracts New Listings Sellers 487

Housing Wire

JULY 8, 2024

It was the second half of the year last year when mortgage rates started rising. After June 2023, mortgage rates climbed from the 6s into the 7s on the way to 8% by October. Mortgage rates are higher than they were six months ago, higher than last year, and higher than two years ago. That’s 114,000 sellers vs. 87,000 now.

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Inventory Contracts Sellers New Listings 468

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

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.

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Mortgage Inventory New Listings Retail 517

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. It’s still April, so there could be as many as eight more weeks of seller growth in the spring housing market. On the more bullish side, more inventory could result in more sales.

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Mortgage New Listings Inventory Sellers 385

Appraisal Buzz

DECEMBER 30, 2024

Year-over-year, contract signings increased in all four U.S. Despite higher mortgage rates in November and persistent affordability challengers, buyers took advantage of more inventory as pending home sales reached the highest level in nearly two years, said First American Deputy Chief Economist Odeta Kushi. in November.

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Contracts Inventory Buyers Sellers 435

Housing Wire

NOVEMBER 2, 2022

And with Fed rates expected to rise even further, industry experts and economists don’t expect mortgage rates to stabilize for at least another year. Mortgage rates , which are currently near a 22-year high, declined slightly from last week ahead of the Fed’s sixth rate hike announcement.

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Mortgage Sellers Contracts Buyers 419

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.

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Mortgage Inventory New Listings Housing Market 498

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%.

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Mortgage Inventory New Listings Contracts 396

Housing Wire

MAY 28, 2024

No one wants a scenario in which there’s a flood of sellers but no buyers. But, basically, inventory is still climbing everywhere as mortgage rates are still north of 7%. And this trend will continue until mortgage rates drop significantly. As previously mentioned, any signs of rising seller volume is helpful to this market.

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Inventory New Listings Contracts Sellers 515

Housing Wire

APRIL 22, 2024

After a couple weeks of big jumps for mortgage rates , we’re still seeing relatively surprising strength in the housing market. We’re watching a few key factors to see if homebuyers are backing off in the face of increased mortgage rates. With the most recent mortgage rate jump, inventory growth has also accelerated.

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Inventory New Listings Sellers Contracts 479

Housing Wire

OCTOBER 18, 2024

Indiana-based lender Ruoff Mortgage is making a move designed to help more homeowners get into new homes with ease. Ruoff Mortgage is teaming up with fintech company Calque to offer two “buy before you sell“ programs to customers. The Trade-In Mortgage — Calque’s most popular program — functions similar to a vehicle trade-in.

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Mortgage Buyers Contracts Finance 390

Housing Wire

APRIL 8, 2024

With the Easter holiday last week, data for housing inventory , new listings and the pace of new contracts started all took a breather from their growth pace. Mortgage rates haven’t fallen — if anything, mortgage rates are higher than they were a year ago. In other words, seller growth continues.

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Inventory Contracts New Listings Sellers 469

Housing Wire

OCTOBER 31, 2023

We may be nearing the bottom in home sales even if mortgage rates don’t decline. New listings decline isn’t as steep as a year ago There were only 53,000 new listings (single-family homes) unsold this week, plus 10,000 more new listings that are already in contract. There are far fewer sellers now than in any recent year.

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New Listings Inventory Contracts Housing Market 483