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The awesome power of high mortgage rates

Housing Wire

Bad for sellers Prospective home sellers may not notice incremental changes in mortgage rates. percentage points—sellers take notice. Facing these realities, many would-be sellers decide to stay put. This is clear in the chart below, which shows the year-over-year percent change in the four-week average of new listings.

Mortgage 441
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Why purchase application data is below 2008 levels

Housing Wire

In the previous expansion, one of my long-term calls was that the MBA purchase application data will never hit the volume level of 300 until the years 2020-2024. Right on cue, 2020 came and we hit the 300 level. The years 2020-2024 were going to be the time when total home sales could finally reach 6.2 We are up 43% since 2020.

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Are we seeing a mortgage rate lockdown?

Housing Wire

Typically we have a natural set of new listings each year; inventory rises in the spring and summer and then falls in the fall and winter. It wasn’t the rate move that caught my attention — it was the new listing data. As you can see below, that sharp move to 6.25% caused new listing data to stall at first.

Mortgage 520
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DataDigest: Where for-sale inventory went and when it’s coming back

Housing Wire

With mortgage rates briefly topping 8% and home prices breaking records throughout the year, many would-be sellers simply decided not to bother listing their homes, exacerbating already tight inventories. New data from the U.S. When inventory bounces back The extremes of the 2020s have dealt big blows to for-sale inventories.

Inventory 432
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Have we found the bottom in existing home sales?

Housing Wire

From NAR : “In essence, the residential real estate market was frozen in November, resembling the sales activity seen during the COVID-19 economic lockdowns in 2020,” said NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun. Mortgage rates spiked in March, and then the new listing data started to decline at the end of June.

Inventory 528
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Lower mortgage rates are stabilizing the housing market

Housing Wire

These were forced credit sellers, which means these sellers don’t sell to buy a home like a traditional seller does. Since they were distressed forced sellers, inventory skyrocketed in 2006 and stayed very elevated in 2007 and 2008. As we can see below, none of that is happening today because the seller isn’t stressed.

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Housing Market Tracker: Spring inventory grows

Housing Wire

Weekly housing inventory Since new listing data was trending at all-time lows in 2023, some feared we wouldn’t see the typical spring inventory increase. After the last few weeks , we can put that fear aside: we are finally getting the seasonal increase in active listing. didn’t go into recession until 2008.

Inventory 520