March 21 2025

As is the case with a majority of housing and mortgage market data these days, the Existing Home Sales data from NAR is heavily dependent on context. To be sure, the headline is true. You'd have to go back to report that came out in February, 2024 to see a higher annual pace of sales. (NOTE: the table above contains initially-reported numbers.  NAR subsequently revised  the 3/31/24 report up to 4.31m) And if you were to chart these values only, the chart would probably look pretty good for the present month, but it would also belie the situation in the trenches.  Home sales certainly aren't in freefall in the bigger picture, but they're generally still sideways at long term lows. Realtors credited an uptick in inventory for the uptick in sales. Additional details are available at NAR's release page here: https://www.nar.realtor/newsroom/existing-home-sales-accelerated-4-2-in-february

March 21 2025

The Mortgage Bankers Association conducts a weekly survey on the level of mortgage applications, both for purchases and refinances.  Both data series continue to be a tale of two decidedly different eras for the mortgage market.  If we focus on the present era, for a moment, refi demand continued to enjoy a relative boom thanks to rates that remain much lower than they had been several weeks ago. The most recent levels were logically a bit lower as the average lender's rates were a bit higher this time around.  If you were overcome with indignation at seeing someone refer to refi demand with the word "boom" in 2025, don't worry.  We know about the context.  The present era is a barren wasteland compared to bygone eras when a boom meant roughly 5 times as many refis as today. The "2 era" phenomenon is less extreme when it comes to purchases, which tend to respond to rates only very gradually.  This has made for a much steadier level of purchase demand over the past few years.  In addition, the boomier era only saw twice as many purchase apps.  Other highlights from the data: Refis accounted for 42% of apps, down from 45.6% last week MBA's survey showed a conventional 30yr fixed rate increase from 6.72 from 6.67 the previous week FHA rates rate about 0.30% lower ARM rates were 5.84% but only account for 6.7% of applications 

March 21 2025

The Census Bureau released its New Residential Construction report this week, frequently referred to by its principal component "housing starts" (a term for the start of the first phase of new home construction, aka "breaking ground"). In addition to housing starts, the data also logs building permits as well as completions. As we often note, building permits are more even-keeled while housing starts and completions can experience much more month-to-month volatility.  February was the latest example of that as permits came in right in line with forecasts while housing starts surged higher. Single family homes accounted for the vast majority of the improvement, rising to their highest levels in a year, and close to the highest levels since early 2022. There's often quite a bit of variation across geographies in housing starts. This time around, 2 regions did most of the heavy lifting with the Northeast surging 75% from last month, bringing the annual pace for single family homes up to 84k from 48k. The South only posted a 19.6% gain, but because it's a much larger housing market, that resulted in an annual pace increase of more than 100k units. In contrast, the Midwest slid backward by 34k units, or about 25% from last month's annual pace.   The West was the most uneventful region, with a modest 1.8% increase, or 5k units in terms of annual pace. The full text and tables of the release are available at the Census Bureau's site, here: https://www.census.gov/construction/nrc/pdf/newresconst.pdf