by Calculated Risk on 4/26/2025 02:11:00 PM

At the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter this week:

Click on graph for larger image.

• NAR: Existing-Home Sales Decreased to 4.02 million SAAR in March; Down 2.4% YoY

• New Home Sales Increase to 724,000 Annual Rate in March

• NMHC on Apartments: Market conditions Tightened in Q1 pre-Tariffs

• Lawler: Early Read on Existing Home Sales in March

• California Home Sales Up 4.9% YoY in March; 4th Look at Local Housing Markets

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

Weekly Schedule

by Calculated Risk on 4/26/2025 08:11:00 AM

The key report scheduled for this week is the April employment report.

Other key reports include the advance estimate of Q1 GDP, March Personal Income and Outlays, February Case-Shiller house prices, and April vehicle sales.

For manufacturing, the April Dallas Fed manufacturing survey, and the ISM index will be released.

----- Monday, April 28th -----
10:00 AM: the Q1 2025 Housing Vacancies and Homeownership from the Census Bureau.

10:30 AM: Dallas Fed Survey of Manufacturing Activity for April.

----- Tuesday, April 29th -----
9:00 AM: S&P/Case-Shiller House Price Index for February.

This graph shows the nominal seasonally adjusted National Index, Composite 10 and Composite 20 indexes through the most recent report (the Composite 20 was started in January 2000).

The consensus is for a 4.8% year-over-year increase in the Comp 20 index for February, up from 4.7% YoY.

9:00 AM: FHFA House Price Index for February. This was originally a GSE only repeat sales, however there is also an expanded index.

10:00 AM ET: Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey for March from the BLS.

This graph shows job openings (black line), hires (dark blue), Layoff, Discharges and other (red column), and Quits (light blue column) from the JOLTS.

Jobs openings decreased in February to 7.57 million from 7.76 million in January.

The number of job openings (black) were down 10% year-over-year.

----- Wednesday, April 30th -----
7:00 AM ET: The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) will release the results for the mortgage purchase applications index.

8:15 AM: The ADP Employment Report for April. This report is for private payrolls only (no government). The consensus is for 130,000 payroll jobs added in April, down from 155,000 added in March.

8:30 AM: Gross Domestic Product, 1st quarter 2025 (Advance estimate). The consensus is that real GDP increased 0.4% annualized in Q1, down from 2.4% in Q4.

9:45 AM: Chicago Purchasing Managers Index for April. The consensus is for a reading of 45.5, down from 47.6 in March.

10:00 AM: Personal Income and Outlays, March 2025. The consensus is for a 0.4% increase in personal income, and for a 0.6% increase in personal spending. And for the Core PCE price index to increase 0.1%.  PCE prices are expected to be up 2.6% YoY, and core PCE prices up 2.2% YoY.

10:00 AM: Pending Home Sales Index for March. The consensus is for a 1.0% increase in the index.

----- Thursday, May 1st -----
8:30 AM: The initial weekly unemployment claims report will be released. The consensus is for initial claims of 218 thousand, down from 222 thousand last week.

10:00 AM ET: ISM Manufacturing Index for April. The consensus is for the ISM to be at 48.1, down from 49.0 in March.

10:00 AM: Construction Spending for March. The consensus is for a 0.3% increase in construction spending.

All day: Light vehicle sales for April. The consensus expectation is for light vehicle sales to be 16.8 million SAAR in April, down from 17.8 million in March (Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate).

This graph shows light vehicle sales since the BEA started keeping data in 1967. The dashed line is the sales rate for the previous month.

The WardsAuto estimate is for sales of 17.4 million SAAR in April.

----- Friday, May 2nd -----
8:30 AM: Employment Report for April.   The consensus is for 130,000 jobs added, and for the unemployment rate to be unchanged at 4.2%.

There were 228,000 jobs added in March, and the unemployment rate was at 4.2%.

This graph shows the jobs added per month since January 2021.

by Calculated Risk on 4/25/2025 06:55:00 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	442	444	≤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 are above the goal again - and I'll continue to post until weekly deaths are once again below the goal.

Weekly deaths are now decreasing following the winter pickup and are heading towards the lows of last June.

And here is a graph I'm following concerning COVID in wastewater as of April 24th:

This appears to be a leading indicator for COVID hospitalizations and deaths.  This has been moving down.

Nationally COVID in wastewater is "Low".

by Calculated Risk on 4/25/2025 03:53:00 PM

From the Philly Fed:

The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia has released the coincident indexes for the 50 states for March 2025. Over the past three months, the indexes increased in 43 states, decreased in four states, and remained stable in three, for a three-month diffusion index of 78. Additionally, in the past month, the indexes increased in 39 states, decreased in seven states, and remained stable in four, for a one-month diffusion index of 64. For comparison purposes, the Philadelphia Fed has also developed a similar coincident index for the entire United States. The Philadelphia Fed’s U.S. index increased 0.6 percent over the past three months and 0.2 percent in March.
emphasis added

Note: These are coincident indexes constructed from state employment data. An explanation from the Philly Fed:

The coincident indexes combine four state-level indicators to summarize current economic conditions in a single statistic. The four state-level variables in each coincident index are nonfarm payroll employment, average hours worked in manufacturing by production workers, the unemployment rate, and wage and salary disbursements deflated by the consumer price index (U.S. city average). The trend for each state’s index is set to the trend of its gross domestic product (GDP), so long-term growth in the state’s index matches long-term growth in its GDP.

Click on map for larger image.

Here is a map of the three-month change in the Philly Fed state coincident indicators. This map was all red during the worst of the Pandemic and also at the worst of the Great Recession.

The map is mostly positive on a three-month basis.

Source: Philly Fed.

And here is a graph is of the number of states with one month increasing activity according to the Philly Fed. 

This graph includes states with minor increases (the Philly Fed lists as unchanged).

In March, 41 states had increasing activity including minor increases.

by Calculated Risk on 4/25/2025 01:00:00 PM

Yesterday, in the CalculatedRisk Real Estate Newsletter on March existing home sales, NAR: Existing-Home Sales Decreased to 4.02 million SAAR in March; Down 2.4% YoY, I noted:

On a month-over-month basis, median prices increased 1.7% from February and are now down 5.4% from the June 2024 peak. This is less than the normal seasonal increase in the median price for March. Typically, the NAR median price increases in the Spring, and tends to peak seasonally in the June report.

Seasonally, median prices typically peak in June (closed sales are mostly for contracts signed in April and May).

And seasonally, prices usually bottom the following January (contracts signed in November and December). 

Here is a table of the seasonal percentage increases from January to March, and from January to June (the usual seasonal peak), over the last several years.

The last row shows the seasonal decline from June to January of the following year.  

In 2020, prices continued to increase in the 2nd half of the year and didn't peak seasonally until October.  And prices only declined slightly in the 2nd half of 2021.

	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022	2023	2024	2025
Jan to Mar	3.7%	4.1%	5.4%	7.5%	7.1%	4.0%	3.8%	2.6%
Mar to Jun	9.6%	9.9%	4.9%	12.4%	9.1%	9.3%	8.7%	NA
Jan to Jun	13.7%	14.4%	10.6%	20.8%	16.8%	13.7%	12.8%	NA
Jun to Jan	-8.9%	-6.7%	3.1%	-3.4%	-12.8%	-7.7%	-7.8%	NA

The 2025 increase in median prices from January to March was less than the normal seasonal increase.

Normally we'd expect median prices to increase about 9% to 10% over the next three months, before declining in the 2nd half of the year.  With more and more inventory, and economic uncertainty, the seasonal increase from March to June will probably be less than 9% this year.

by Calculated Risk on 4/25/2025 10:13:00 AM

The advance estimate of Q1 GDP is scheduled to be released on Wednesday, April 30th. The consensus is for a 0.2% increase in real GDP, quarter-over-quarter annualized - or essentially no growth in Q1.

From BofA:

We expect 1Q advance GDP to print at a weak 0.4% q/q saar, largely on the back of an import surge driven by front loading ahead of the tariffs. We look for a rise in 1Q inventory accumulation as well, but not enough to offset higher imports. The risks to our inventory tracking and 1Q GDP print are to the downside, since inventories are susceptible to measurement issues. [Apr 17th estimate]
emphasis added

From Goldman:

we lowered our Q1 GDP tracking estimate by 0.3pp to -0.2% (quarter-over-quarter annualized). [Apr 24th estimate]

And from the Atlanta Fed: GDPNow

The GDPNow model estimate for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the first quarter of 2025 is -2.5 percent on April 24, down from -2.2 percent on April 17. The alternative model forecast, which adjusts for imports and exports of gold as described here, is -0.4 percent. After recent releases from the US Census Bureau and the National Association of Realtors, both the standard model’s and the alternative model’s nowcasts of first-quarter real gross private domestic investment growth decreased from 8.9 percent to 7.1 percent. [Apr 24th estimate]

by Calculated Risk on 4/25/2025 08:11:00 AM

From ICE: ICE First Look at Mortgage Performance: Delinquencies Improved Seasonally in March but Continue to Trend Modestly Higher

Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. (NYSE:ICE) ... today released its March 2025 First Look, which reveals that while delinquency rates edged up slightly year over year (YoY), they remain below pre-pandemic levels.

The ICE First Look reports on month-end delinquency, foreclosure and prepayment statistics sourced from its loan-level database, which covers a majority of the U.S. mortgage market.

Key takeaways from this month’s findings include:

• While serious delinquencies (SDQs) also improved seasonally, they are up 14% (+60K) YoY, with the rise driven entirely by FHA delinquencies, which increased by +63K YoY.

• Higher SDQs, along with the lifting of a VA foreclosure moratorium, fueled a modest bump in foreclosure inventory and sales, which both rose annually for the first time in nearly two years.

• Disaster events, such as hurricanes and wildfires, have led to YoY delinquency increases across several states, including Florida (+44 bps), South Carolina (+17 bps), Georgia (+14 bps) and California (+10 bps).

• Monthly prepayment activity, measured by single-month mortality, jumped to 0.59% – a +30.4% increase over February and the highest level of prepayment activity since November.
emphasis added

Click on graph for larger image.

Here is a table from ICE.

by Calculated Risk on 4/24/2025 08:46:00 PM

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

Friday:
• AT 10:00 AM ET, University of Michigan's Consumer sentiment index (Final for April). The consensus is for a reading of 50.8.

by Calculated Risk on 4/24/2025 04:48:00 PM

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 March, Realtor.com reported inventory was up 28.5% YoY, but still down 20.2% compared to the 2017 to 2019 same month levels. 

 Now - on a weekly basis - inventory is up 30.0% 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 April 19, 2025

• Active inventory climbed 30.0% from a year ago

The number of homes actively for sale remains significantly higher than last year, continuing a 76-week streak of annual gains.

• New listings—a measure of sellers putting homes up for sale—fell this week due to the Easter holiday, by 1.6% from a year ago

After 14 consecutive weeks of growth, the number of newly listed homes has dipped below last year’s level. However, this decline is largely attributed to the timing of the Easter holiday, which fell later this year than last. Looking ahead, we expect new listings to rebound in the coming week—a typical pattern that follows the end of a holiday. In fact, the recent momentum in listings made this March the most active March for new inventory in three years.

• The median list price was up 0.6% year-over-year

The national median list price rose by 0.6% year-over-year, marking the first notable price increase after a stretch of declining or flat trends since last June. While this uptick may signal a warming trend at the national level, local markets may tell a different story. In areas where home shoppers rely on stock market funds for down payments, ongoing uncertainty and volatility in the financial market could tighten buyer budgets, dampen demand, and potentially put downward pressure on prices.

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

Inventory was up year-over-year for the 76th consecutive week.  

New listings have generally increased but remain below typical pre-pandemic levels.

Median list prices are up slightly year-over-year.

by Calculated Risk on 4/24/2025 01:55:00 PM

From STR: U.S. hotel results for week ending 19 April

As expected due to the Easter and Passover holidays, the U.S. hotel industry reported negative year-over-year comparisons, according to CoStar’s latest data through 19 April. ...

13-19 April 2025 (percentage change from comparable week in 2024):

• Occupancy: 61.4% (-8.1%)
• Average daily rate (ADR): US$158.00 (-1.3%)
• Revenue per available room (RevPAR): US$97.06 (-9.3%)
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.