by Calculated Risk on 5/18/2025 06:16:00 PM

Weekend:
• Schedule for Week of May 18, 2025

Monday:
• No major economic releases scheduled.

From CNBC: Pre-Market Data and Bloomberg futures S&P 500 are down 43 and DOW futures are down 267 (fair value).

Oil prices were up over the last week with WTI futures at $62.49 per barrel and Brent at $65.41 per barrel. A year ago, WTI was at $82, and Brent was at $82 - so WTI oil prices are down about 24% year-over-year.

Here is a graph from Gasbuddy.com for nationwide gasoline prices. Nationally prices are at $3.14 per gallon. A year ago, prices were at $3.57 per gallon, so gasoline prices are down $0.43 year-over-year.

by Calculated Risk on 5/18/2025 08:12:00 AM

What this means: On a weekly basis, Realtor.com reports the year-over-year change in active inventory and new listings. On a monthly basis, they report total inventory. For May, Realtor.com reported inventory was up 30.6% YoY, but still down 16.3% compared to the 2017 to 2019 same month levels. 

 Now - on a weekly basis - inventory is up 30.6% YoY.

Realtor.com has monthly and weekly data on the existing home market. Here is their weekly report: Weekly Housing Trends View—Data for Week Ending May 10, 2025

• Active inventory climbed 30.6% year over year

The number of homes actively for sale remains on a strong upward trajectory, now 30.6% higher than this time last year. This represents the 79th consecutive week of annual gains in inventory. There were more than 1 million homes for sale last week, the highest inventory level since December 2019.

• New listings—a measure of sellers putting homes up for sale—rose 11.2% year over year

New listings rose again last week, up 11.2% compared with the same period last year. The momentum that began earlier this spring remains strong, signaling a vibrant market as we head into late spring and early summer.

• The median list price remained flat

After three consecutive weeks of gains, the national median list price remained flat year over year last week. Ongoing affordability challenges, along with growing concerns about personal finances and job security, continue to pose significant hurdles for many buyers. Nearly 4 in 5 home shoppers believe it’s a bad time to buy, which is dampening demand.

Here is a graph of the year-over-year change in inventory according to realtor.com. 

Inventory was up year-over-year for the 79th consecutive week.  

New listings were solid.

Median list prices were unchanged year-over-year.

by Calculated Risk on 5/17/2025 02:11:00 PM

At the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter this week:

Click on graph for larger image.

• Housing Starts Increased to 1.361 million Annual Rate in April

• MBA: Mortgage Delinquencies Increased Slightly in Q1 2025

• Part 2: Current State of the Housing Market; Overview for mid-May 2025

• Lawler: Early Read on Existing Home Sales in April

• 3rd Look at Local Housing Markets in April

• Q1 NY Fed Report: Mortgage Originations by Credit Score, Delinquencies Increase, Foreclosures Increase

• 2nd Look at Local Housing Markets in April

This is usually published 4 to 6 times a week and provides more in-depth analysis of the housing market.

by Calculated Risk on 5/17/2025 08:11:00 AM

The key reports this week are April New and Existing Home Sales.

----- Monday, May 19th -----
No major economic releases scheduled.

----- Tuesday, May 20th -----
No major economic releases scheduled.

----- Wednesday, May 21st -----
7:00 AM ET: The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) will release the results for the mortgage purchase applications index.

10:00 AM: State Employment and Unemployment (Monthly) for April 2025

During the day: The AIA's Architecture Billings Index for April (a leading indicator for commercial real estate).

----- Thursday, May 22nd -----
8:30 AM: The initial weekly unemployment claims report will be released. The consensus is for initial claims of 232 thousand, up from 229 thousand last week.

8:30 AM ET: Chicago Fed National Activity Index for April. This is a composite index of other data.

10:00 AM: Existing Home Sales for April from the National Association of Realtors (NAR). The consensus is for 4.15 million SAAR, up from 4.02 million.

The graph shows existing home sales from 1994 through the report last month.

Housing economist Tom Lawler expects the NAR to report sales of 3.98 million SAAR.

----- Friday, May 23rd -----
10:00 AM: New Home Sales for April from the Census Bureau.

This graph shows New Home Sales since 1963. The dashed line is the sales rate for last month.

The consensus is for 700 thousand SAAR, down from 724 thousand SAAR in March.

by Calculated Risk on 5/16/2025 07:03:00 PM

Note: Mortgage rates are from MortgageNewsDaily.com and are for top tier scenarios.

For deaths, I'm currently using 4 weeks ago for "now", since the most recent three weeks will be revised significantly.

Note: "Effective May 1, 2024, hospitals are no longer required to report COVID-19 hospital admissions, hospital capacity, or hospital occupancy data."  So, I'm no longer tracking hospitalizations.

COVID Metrics
	Now	Week Ago	Goal
Deaths per Week	358🚩	346	≤3501
1my goals to stop weekly posts. 🚩 Increasing number weekly for Deaths. ✅ Goal met.

Click on graph for larger image.

This graph shows the weekly (columns) number of deaths reported since Jan 2023.

Although weekly deaths met the original goal to stop posting in June 2023 (low of 314 deaths), I've continued to post since deaths were above the goal again - and I'll continue to post until weekly deaths are once again below the goal for several weeks.

Weekly deaths were steadily decreasing following the winter pickup, however, weekly deaths increased this week.

And here is a graph I'm following concerning COVID in wastewater as of May 15th:

This appears to be a leading indicator for COVID hospitalizations and deaths.  This is moving towards the lows last May.

Nationally COVID in wastewater is "Low".

by Calculated Risk on 5/16/2025 12:35:00 PM

From BofA:

We initiated our 2Q GDP tracking after the April retail sales print. It moved up two-tenth to 2.2% q/q saar from our official forecast of 2.0% q/q saar. Meanwhile, our 1Q GDP tracking moved up a tenth to -0.3% q/q saar since our last weekly publication [May 16th estimate]
emphasis added

From Goldman:

We lowered our Q2 GDP tracking estimate by 0.1pp to +2.1% (quarter-over-quarter annualized) and our Q2 domestic final sales estimate by the same amount to +0.1%. Our past-quarter GDP tracking estimate stands at -0.5%. [May 16th estimate]

And from the Atlanta Fed: GDPNow

The GDPNow model estimate for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the second quarter of 2025 is 2.4 percent on May 16, down from 2.5 percent on May 15. After this morning’s housing starts report from the US Census Bureau and the release of import and export price indexes from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the nowcast of second-quarter real residential fixed investment growth decreased from 0.4 percent to -3.0 percent. [May 1st estimate]

by Calculated Risk on 5/16/2025 09:28:00 AM

Today, in the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter: Housing Starts Increased to 1.361 million Annual Rate in April

A brief excerpt:

Total housing starts in April were at expectations and starts in February and March were revised up, combined.

The third graph shows the month-to-month comparison for total starts between 2024 (blue) and 2025 (red).

Total starts were down 1.7% in April compared to April 2024. Year-to-date (YTD) starts are down 1.6% compared to the same period in 2024. Single family starts are down 7.1% YTD and multi-family up 13.4% YTD.

There is much more in the article.

by Calculated Risk on 5/16/2025 08:30:00 AM

From the Census Bureau: Permits, Starts and Completions

Housing Starts:
Privately-owned housing starts in April were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,361,000. This is 1.6 percent above the revised March estimate of 1,339,000, but is 1.7 percent below the April 2024 rate of 1,385,000. Single-family housing starts in April were at a rate of 927,000; this is 2.1 percent below the revised March figure of 947,000. The April rate for units in buildings with five units or more was 420,000.

Building Permits:
Privately-owned housing units authorized by building permits in April were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,412,000. This is 4.7 percent below the revised March rate of 1,481,000 and is 3.2 percent below the April 2024 rate of 1,459,000. Single family authorizations in April were at a rate of 922,000; this is 5.1 percent below the revised March figure of 972,000. Authorizations of units in buildings with five units or more were at a rate of 431,000 in April.
emphasis added

Click on graph for larger image.

The first graph shows single and multi-family housing starts since 2000.

Multi-family starts (blue, 2+ units) increased month-over-month in April.   Multi-family starts were up sharply year-over-year.

Single-family starts (red) decreased in April and were down 12.0% year-over-year.

The second graph shows single and multi-family housing starts since 1968.

This shows the huge collapse following the housing bubble, and then the eventual recovery.

Total housing starts in April were at expectations; and starts in February and March were revised up, combined.

I'll have more later …

by Calculated Risk on 5/15/2025 08:26:00 PM

Note: Mortgage rates are from MortgageNewsDaily.com and are for top tier scenarios.

Thursday:
• At 8:30 AM ET, Housing Starts for April. The consensus is for 1.360 million SAAR, up from 1.324 million SAAR in March.

• At 10:00 AM, University of Michigan's Consumer sentiment index (Preliminary for May).

by Calculated Risk on 5/15/2025 05:08:00 PM

From STR: U.S. hotel results for week ending 10 May

The U.S. hotel industry reported negative year-over-year comparisons, according to CoStar’s latest data through 10 May. ...

4-10 May 2025 (percentage change from comparable week in 2024):

• Occupancy: 64.6% (-2.3%)
• Average daily rate (ADR): US$162.57 (-0.7%)
• Revenue per available room (RevPAR): US$105.08 (-3.0%)
emphasis added

The following graph shows the seasonal pattern for the hotel occupancy rate using the four-week average.

Click on graph for larger image.

The red line is for 2025, blue is the median, and dashed light blue is for 2024.  Dashed purple is for 2018, the record year for hotel occupancy. 

The 4-week average of the occupancy rate is tracking below both last year and the median rate for the period 2000 through 2024 (Blue).

Note: Y-axis doesn't start at zero to better show the seasonal change.

The 4-week average will mostly move sideways until the summer travel season.  We will likely see a hit to occupancy during the summer months due to less international tourism.