Growth in total active inventory has been my favorite story for housing in 2025, but that inventory growth has slowed recently, and today’s Housing Market Tracker will focus on why. Inventory growth was running at 33% year over year a few months ago, but it dropped to 17.66% last week. Let’s find out what happened. […]
Why has housing inventory growth slowed? Read More »
Mortgage spreads are the hero of housing in 2025, quietly helping housing demand pick up even when nobody else notices. What are mortgage spreads? In the slow dance between the 10-year yield and 30-year mortgage rates since 1971, the mortgage spread is the distance between them — the key variable keeping them close or distant.
Mortgage spreads are the hero of the 2025 housing market Read More »
Mortgage rates fell to almost 6% just before the Fed announcement on rate cuts, then rose slightly to close out the week. Have lower mortgage rates already changed the housing market? Yes. Housing data started to change in our weekly Housing Market Tracker in mid-June and I’m writing this weekend’s tracker a bit differently to
Have lower mortgage rates already changed the housing market? Read More »
Now that jobs week is over, we are all left with one truth: it really is about the labor market over inflation data when it comes to mortgage rates, which hit a fresh year-to-date low after Friday’s terrible jobs numbers. The question now is whether mortgage rates can drop below 6% and stay there with
Can mortgage rates get below 6% with this Federal Reserve? Read More »
Have lower mortgage rates altered the dynamics of the housing market based on our data? Now that August has come to an end, it’s clear that they have — and the results have surprised me. In recent years, it has typically taken sustained mortgage rates of around 6% to impact housing data. However, I noticed
Lower mortgage rates pushed inventory lower in August Read More »
Housing inventory growth has been slowing down since the last two weeks of June, as mortgage rates have been trending lower. However, last week we saw an actual decline week to week, which is rare for this time of year compared to recent years. What does this mean? Has active inventory peaked? Our new listings
Did lower mortgage rates already lower housing inventory? Read More »
Mortgage rates fell 0.18% last week, breaking below the key threshold of 6.64%. Why is this important? Because in the last three years, when mortgage rates fell from 6.64% to 6%, housing demand has improved. Now the question is: can rates go lower? 10-year yield and mortgage rates In my 2025 forecast, I anticipated the
How much lower can mortgage rates go after Friday’s jobs report? Read More »
Housing inventory growth is starting to stall, despite elevated mortgage rates. As new listings begin their seasonal decline, we might have already reached our peak percentage growth rate for 2025. The recent stalling has already gradually reduced the year-over-year growth percentage by a slight amount. For the rest of the year I’ll be watching to
Housing inventory growth is starting to stall Read More »
In a week marked by discussions of the potential firing of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and inflation data, mortgage rates remained relatively calm, thanks to improvements in mortgage spreads. Mortgage spreads have improved significantly since 2023, leaving us just 0.49% from normal levels, based on the data we use. This means we can achieve
Mortgage spreads are almost back to normal Read More »
Housing inventory decreased last week, while purchase application data grew 25% year-over-year! What is happening in the housing market? In the two weeks leading up to the July 4th holiday week, our weekly Housing Market Tracker showed that housing data was stabilizing as mortgage rates approached their lowest levels of the year. However, with July
Housing inventory actually fell last week. What is going on? Read More »