This is one thing I'm afraid I actually have to disagree with everyone on.
I don't believe the builders underbuilt in the previous decade because it was the weakest new home sales demand recovery ever.
They missed sales estimates in 2013, 2014, 2015, & 2018. So they build slow
In general, housing mortgage demand was slow, but back then, the builders also had a lot of competition with an active inventory much higher than today
What's happened now is that builders have much less competition for homes and can offer lower rates.
If that wasn't the case, assuming profit margins weren't as good as they are, builders permit for single-family homes would still be falling today.
Purchase Application Update
+8 week to week
- 18% year over year
Above 2014 lows now (But) remember this is a trend survey; it doesn't mean the next existing home sales print will be above 4.6 million
Let's Review Where We Are At!
Since mortgage rates started to fall after making some Holiday adjustments, meaning I don't count the last few weeks of the year or the First week of January, we have had an 8-week positive trend; we get 12-14 weeks we have something material, as did late 2022 early 2023
Last year, at this time, rates were heading toward 6%, and we got about 12 weeks of positive data before rates shot back up to 7%. But those 12 weeks did give us that one giant month-to-month print from 4.0 million to 4.55 million in existing home sales.
Low bar now in sales now
The key with 8% rates now is to track the big 3 data lines!
Let's review where we are today! Because I am batting a whopping zero this year with higher rates and inventory levels, call, and it didn't happen again last week. 😇
New listings data unfazed by 8% mortgage rates
The one data line has been very calm all year; new listing data is still trending at the lowest levels ever recorded in history, with no big move down or up, housingwire.com/articles/new-l…
The Big 3
-Weakness In demand
-Rising Inventory
-Price Cuts %
This is your guide to price declines. Yes, it can happen even with low inventory, but it needs these 3 to work together.
So, how has 2023 looked?
In honor of the Fed's Housing is in Recovery premise. 🤥
Purchase application data update!
-6% week to week
-22% year over year
Let's review where we are today.
First, we have separated the existing home sales market from the new home sales market. The new home sales market is still growing as they can live in a much lower mortgage rate market.
As you can see above, we aren't exactly booming in sales, but we had a shallow bar of sales to beat, as rates are lower in that sector; that is your growth model for 2023. The question now is how much longer can the builders do this
Purchase application data update
In Honor of :
FED'S KASHKARI: HOUSING MARKET RESPONSE TO RATE HIKES HAS BEEN SURPRISING, WOULD HAVE THOUGHT BRAKES WOULD BE SLAMMED. 🤨🤥
Note: 2022 was the single biggest one-year crash in sales in history.
The brakes didn't work, it crashed
Week-to-week data flat
Year-over-year data -26%
YTD 14 positive prints vs. 16 negative prints and one flat
Since November 9th
21 positive prints vs. 16 negative prints & 1 flat
Existing home sales found their historical floor of around 4,000,000 after a collapse in sales
Because affordability has gotten worse, not better, I would make the case of breaking below 4,000,000 again as long as rates stay high. However, the velocity of sales declining hasn't been able to replicate last year because we were working from a higher bar in 2022