Wed, Mar 29 2023, 3:07 PM
January was a refreshingly strong month for many economic reports, but especially for metrics relating to the housing and mortgage markets. This wasn...
Wed, Mar 29 2023, 8:07 AM
Applications for both home purchases and refinancing rose for the fourth time during the week ended March 24. The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) s...
Thu, Mar 23 2023, 12:08 PM
New home sales surprised everyone in January, surging by 7.5 percent to 670,000 units, the highest rate since March 2022. It was, however, only an il...
Tue, Mar 21 2023, 1:09 PM
Existing home sales emerged, at least temporarily, out of a prolonged slump last month, and weren’t even shy about it. The National Association of Rea...
Mon, Mar 6 2023, 3:27 PM
Black Knight releases a robust collection of mortgage/housing info each month via its Mortgage Monitor report. There are always more charts than we h...
Mon, Feb 27 2023, 11:27 AM
Not only did pending home sales increase for the second month in a row in January, but the increase was the largest since the June 2020 rebound from t...
Fri, Feb 24 2023, 1:19 PM
New home sales edged a little further out of a lengthy slump in January, topping 600,000 units for the second straight month. The U.S. Census Bureau a...
Tue, Feb 21 2023, 2:21 PM
Existing home sales data was released this morning by the National Association of Realtors for the month of January. It was fairly close to forecasts...
Thu, Feb 16 2023, 2:35 PM
It seems that most of the stories I write on home sales and construction numbers begin with a slightly different iteration of the same core thought: t...
Wed, Feb 15 2023, 1:35 PM
The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB)/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI) shot higher in February, achieving a second monthly gain. NAHB...
Fri, Jan 27 2023, 2:51 PM
For those in the housing and mortgage market, there's certainly been a shift in the tone over the past few weeks. I can't speak for everyone in that ...
Thu, Jan 26 2023, 2:50 PM
The Census Bureau's regularly scheduled monthly report on New Home Sales was released this morning. The annual pace of 616k was right in line with th...
Fri, Jan 20 2023, 12:20 PM
Existing home sales fell back for the 11th straight month in December according to the National Association of Realtors® (NAR) The month’s sales of ...
Wed, Jan 18 2023, 11:02 AM
On top of the solid report on mortgage volume earlier today, comes another hopeful report from the construction industry. The National Association of ...
Wed, Jan 4 2023, 8:22 AM
The end-of-year holiday season took its usual toll on mortgage applications. The Mortgage Brokers Association (MBA) report this morning recapped the p...
Wed, Dec 28 2022, 3:02 PM
Stop me if you've heard this one before: home sales numbers continue to suffer due to a perfect storm of higher rates, lofty prices, and tighter purse...
Fri, Dec 23 2022, 11:52 AM
New home sales in November were a bit of a surprise, but a downward revision to October numbers accounted for much of the unexpected increase. The U.S...
Wed, Dec 21 2022, 1:08 PM
"No one" is a relative term when it comes to economic data. There are actually about 4 million people per year buying existing homes based on the ann...
Mon, Dec 19 2022, 2:31 PM
The Housing Market Index (HMI) from the National Association of Homebuilders (NAHB)--typically referred to simply as "builder confidence"--is argued t...
Wed, Dec 7 2022, 1:37 PM
Fannie Mae’s Home Purchase Sentiment Index (HPSI) showed some signs of life in November, posting its first increase in nine months. The index, which d...
Wed, Nov 30 2022, 10:19 AM
October saw contracts to purchase existing homes fall for the fifth straight month. The National Association of Realtors® (NAR) said its Pending Home...
Fri, Nov 18 2022, 11:58 AM
The state of the housing market in 2022 is well known by now. The sharpest rate spike in 40 years to the highest rates in 20 years combined with the ...
Wed, Nov 16 2022, 12:28 PM
The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB)/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI) fell another 5 points in November. NAHB said this measure of b...
Wed, Nov 2 2022, 8:42 AM
A bit of easing in mortgage rates prompted a tiny uptick in refinancing during the week ended October 28, but overall mortgage application volume con...
Tue, Nov 1 2022, 12:39 PM
Annual home price growth remained in double digits in September even as home sales and purchase mortgage volume continued their months’ long declines....
Fri, Oct 28 2022, 11:37 AM
Inflation and the resulting increase in interest rates continued to dent home sales activity into the fall. The National Association of Realtors® (NAR...
Thu, Oct 20 2022, 4:08 PM
If anything, today's Existing Home Sales data is a bit of a bright spot in an otherwise gloomy housing market. Sure, the annual pace of sales is as l...
Wed, Oct 19 2022, 1:49 PM
The U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development reported a small improvement in the number of permits issued in September a...
Wed, Oct 19 2022, 8:18 AM
Mortgage application activity fell again during the week ended October 14 as mortgage interest rates hit their highest level in 20 years. The Market B...
Tue, Sep 27 2022, 5:27 PM
The monthly New Home Sales data from the Census Bureau is usually just "there"--one of several monthly housing-related reports that makes no promises ...
Wed, Sep 21 2022, 12:42 PM
Seven straight months of slowing sales has reduced existing home transactions by nearly 20 percent from the same point in 2021. The National Associat...
Mon, Sep 19 2022, 1:32 PM
The National Association of Home Builder’s (NAHB’s) index measuring the confidence of builders in the new home market has fallen for the ninth straigh...
Wed, Aug 24 2022, 11:20 AM
In last Thursday's Existing Home Sales press release, the NAR's chief economist said "we're witnessing a housing recession in terms of declining home ...
Tue, Aug 23 2022, 12:29 PM
The headline conveys the thesis quite well when it comes to the New Residential Sales data just released by the Census Bureau. July's total fell to a ...
Thu, Aug 18 2022, 3:16 PM
Homes are still selling in record time, but affordability and low inventories are driving sales lower. The National Association of Realtor® (NAR) says...
Mon, Aug 15 2022, 10:51 AM
What a difference 4 months make! In April, the National Association of Homebuilders (NAHB) recorded a Housing Market Index (aka "builder confidence")...
Wed, Jul 27 2022, 1:47 PM
Pending home sales broke out of a seven-month slump in May, gaining 0.7 percent. If this were baseball, we might now call it a “balk.” The National As...
Tue, Jul 26 2022, 11:33 AM
New home sales fell again in June, more than wiping out the increase posted for May. The U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban De...
Wed, Jul 20 2022, 2:52 PM
The National Association of Realtors (NAR) reported that June saw the 5th consecutive monthly decline in Existing Home Sales today. The annual pace o...
Wed, Jul 6 2022, 11:52 AM
The two-year explosion in home prices appears to be cooling a bit. Black Knight says annual appreciation was down in May for the second straight month...
Mon, Jun 27 2022, 3:43 PM
Pending Home Sales hit their most recent peak in October according to data reported in November, 2021 by the National Association of Realtors (NAR). ...
Fri, Jun 24 2022, 12:56 PM
Last month's New Home Sales data from the Census Bureau was a real downer. It showed sharp declines in sales and a puzzlingly abrupt jump in inventor...
Tue, Jun 21 2022, 4:17 PM
April, May, and June of 2020 were the only 3 months where Existing Home Sales suffered as a result of the pandemic. During those three months, the an...
Wed, Jun 15 2022, 6:06 PM
Builders are increasingly nervous about the impact inflation and higher interest rates might have on prospective home buyers in coming months. The Nat...
Wed, Jun 8 2022, 3:48 PM
It's a fairly sobering headline any way you word it: mortgage applications hit the lowest levels in 22 years last week according the the Mortgage Bank...
Mon, Jun 6 2022, 3:36 PM
In stark contrast to the recent New Home Sales data, a new white paper from Black Knight suggests that, by the time we include existing homes, there a...
Thu, May 26 2022, 10:43 AM
The National Association of Realtors® (NAR) says its Pending Home Sales Index (PHSI) in April represents a sixth consecutive monthly decline. The Inde...
Tue, May 24 2022, 1:43 PM
The housing market has been keeping its head down, keeping calm, and carrying on in the face of the biggest rate spike since the 1980s. The ability t...
Tue, May 10 2022, 9:46 AM
Consumers opinion about the wisdom of buying a home went underwater in April 2021 and continues to sink. Fannie May says the question about whether it...
Wed, Apr 27 2022, 2:43 PM
Today brought 2 new scheduled data releases for the housing market. Both were fairly logical given the variables in play. So far in 2022, one of the...