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Housing inventory falls under 1M again as sales collapse

Housing Wire

On Friday NAR reported that total housing inventory levels broke under 1 million in December, dropping to 970,00 units for a population of 330 million people. million in January down to about 4 million in December, We now have total inventory levels near all-time lows again. Unsold inventory sits at a 2.9-month months in Nov.

Inventory 540
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US home prices continued to rally in July 2023

Housing Wire

. “This is about the same rate of price growth that occurred during the 2002 through 2006 period when subprime lending drove exuberant housing demand. “But that is where the similarities end.

Inventory 450
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How home-price growth has damaged the housing market

Housing Wire

Since 2014, we’ve not seen the credit housing boom that we saw from 2002-2005. The housing market can’t replicate the type of massive credit expansion we saw from 2002-2005, so the price-growth story has more to do with inventory collapsing to all-time lows. This is because the biggest buyers of homes are mortgage buyers.

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The housing market is now savagely unhealthy

Housing Wire

Inventory has broken to all-time lows, but it doesn’t look like the year-over-year data will be positive at all this year unless demand softens up. NAR Research : Unsold inventory sits at a 1.7-month NAR Research : Unsold inventory sits at a 1.7-month However, negative year-over-year inventory is not what we want to see.

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Lower mortgage rates are stabilizing the housing market

Housing Wire

As you can see from the chart above, the last several years have not had the FOMO (fear of missing out) housing credit boom we saw from 2002-2005. Since they were distressed forced sellers, inventory skyrocketed in 2006 and stayed very elevated in 2007 and 2008. Total inventory levels. NAR: Total Inventory levels 1.22

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Why home-price growth is still up 18% year over year

Housing Wire

While the growth rate is cooling monthly, we are still in a savagely unhhealthy housing market trying to get national inventory levels back to pre-COVID-19 levels. Housing inventory issue with no booming demand. However, we haven’t had a credit sales boom like the one we saw from 2002-2005. million listings.

Inventory 382
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This savagely unhealthy housing market needs higher rates

Housing Wire

This is something that I said would change the tone of housing, and we are seeing that result this year as sales decline and inventory picks up. We were told that population growth is slowing, we were told that Americans would panic sell and that massive inventory would hit the marketplace once rates got to 4%. Wait, what? I use the 1.52-1.93