With all the housing drama lately going on, one truth has stayed constant for years: new home sales are holding up due to rate buy-downs, but housing permits are still at recession levels! What gives here? First and foremost, new home sales have outperformed the existing home sales market for many years now, and they […]
New home sales still at multiyear highs Read More »
Single-family housing starts ticked up in December, but were down about 7.0% year-over-year in 2025. According to the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), new residential construction is expected to stay relatively flat this year, but could rebound in 2027 if mortgage rates inch lower and pent-up demand enters the housing market. Census data released
2025 housing starts fell 7%, but builders glimpse clues of an uptick Read More »
Jobs Friday came and went without much reaction in bond yields because the labor market isn’t breaking, nor is it getting stronger. Mortgage rates dropped into the 5s for a short time on Friday as a result of Trump’s earlier announcement directing the GSEs to buy $200 billion in mortgage backed securities. The 10-year yield
December jobs data continues to support lower mortgage rates Read More »
Residential construction fell to its lowest point since May 2020, according to an October U.S. Census Bureau report that was delayed by last year’s government shutdown. Widening air pockets of demand over the past year led to an overbuild of speculative homebuilder inventory in — formerly booming — Sun Belt and Mountain West markets. Builders
Housing starts fall to lowest point since 2020, led by a stall in the Sun Belt Read More »
Homebuilders in America are cheering, not because of the disappointing housing permit data released today, but because mortgage rates are near 6%. We have seen four consecutive months of job losses in residential construction labor, as mortgage rates have been elevated and builders’ inventory has been piling up. Housing permits, which have been declining since early 2022,
Disappointing housing permits show why we need 6% mortgage rates Read More »
Today’s housing starts report from the Census Bureau shows that Federal Reserve policy remains too restrictive for housing production to grow, which in the long run impacts the fight against inflation. This is why the data on single-family construction is not improving; in fact, it is getting worse. The unfortunate part is that we don’t need
Single-family construction is getting worse due to rates Read More »
New home sales missed sales estimates significantly in Wednesday’s report and we have negative revisions to the previous months. The builders’ profit margins are dwindling, which means housing construction, which has been at early COVID-19 recession levels for some time, could worsen if mortgage rates stay elevated or head even higher. So, instead of focusing
US housing construction is dead with current mortgage rates Read More »