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Massive housing data release day. Here’s a thread on points that catch my eye.
Housing starts down pretty sharply. Both MF and SF, but more for MF. 16% YOY. None of the numbers are statistically significant.
More interesting to me is change in permits since they lead starts. SF down 5.5% YOY and is statistically significant. To me that’s much more interesting than SF starts falling. And MF up 13.6% YOY. Surprisingly big jump this late in the game.
Looks like most of the pullback is in Midwest and Northeast. Polar vortex perhaps?
Significant gains in South and West.
Completions also down drastically in Northeast and Midwest and South. And they are significant. Up in West but not significant.
Overall I’d say this is a ho-hum construction report for December. I’d keep an eye on single-family permitting here on out to see if downward movement becomes a trend.
So S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller caught my eye on a few points. Largest YOY drop since August 2014. Ninth consecutive drop. 16 of 20 metros have YOY drop (when taking Cleveland change to two decimal places).
West no longer makes up all three fastest growing metros. Atlanta has now slipped into to the number three spot, but really because Seattle home price growth is SLOWING CONSIDERABLY.
Home price growth in Seattle is down 7.7 percentage points YOY. SEA had 5.1% in December 2018 vs 12.7% in December 2017.
Other markets in the West lead cooling. San Francisco growth rate is down 5.7 percentage points YOY, San Diego now down 5.1%.
Only markets to see increase in their growth rate? DC (0.1 pt), Miami (0.2 pt), and New York (0.1 pt).
Overall, SP CoreLogic CSI showing significant cooling across national and most sub markets.
A little late to the game on this one, but FHFA HPI also released today. Would be great to get @wdoerner’s thoughts, but national trend seems to be similar. This does suggest market segmentation isn’t playing much of a role in the SP CoreLogic CSI because of value weighting.
SP CoreLogic CSI YOY fell 0.4 pts from Nov to Dec, @FHFA’s fell 0.3 pts. Again, important because former is value weighted and latter isn’t, but trends are very similar in both.
FHFA cooling appears to be driven by East South Central and East North Central regions. Former YOY dropped 1 whole point between Nov and Dec, latter dropped 0.4 pts. West South Central also dropped by 0.7pts. All regions still growing by at least 4% YOY.
So am going to turn this thread into a massive data release week, since we have pending sales and homeownership today and tomorrow.
Pending home sales down 2.3% YOY. Biggest slowdown is in West, with a 10.1% YOY decline. Fits with the narrative from yesterday’s release that the West continues to cool. South also down 3.1%, but other regions up.
We released SoCal home sales for January this morning, and NorCal and NorCal tomorrow, 9:30am PST.
Big news in SoCal: home sales are down 17.1% YOY. Lowest number of sales in the region since January of 2008.
Sales have fallen on a year-over-year basis for six consecutive months.
Largest YOY declines in home sales occurring in Ventura (-21%) and Orange Counties (-20.3%). Change in median price now at 0% and 1.4% YOY, respectively, but note that doesn’t control for mix of homes on the market. Could be demand is waning or shifting to more affordable homes.
Will send out our NorCal numbers tomorrow at 12:30pm EST.
