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Monday, April 21, 2025

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

by Calculated Risk on 4/21/2025 10:45:00 AM

Today, in the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter: California Home Sales Up 4.9% YoY in March; 4th Look at Local Housing Markets

A brief excerpt:

From the California Association of Realtors® (C.A.R.): Elevated interest rates and economic uncertainty ease March home sales, C.A.R. reports
March’s sales pace fell 2.3 percent from the 284,540 homes sold in February and was up 4.9 percent from a year ago, when a revised 264,200 homes were sold on an annualized basis.
...
Months of SupplyIn March, sales in these markets were down 3.0% YoY. Last month, in February, these same markets were down 6.1% year-over-year Not Seasonally Adjusted (NSA).

Important: There were the same number of working days in March 2025 (21) as in March 2024 (21). So, the year-over-year change in the headline SA data will be close to the change in the NSA data (there are other seasonal factors).
...
Several local markets - like Illinois, Miami, New Jersey and New York - will report after the NAR release.
There is much more in the article.

Housing April 21st Weekly Update: Inventory up 2.4% Week-over-week, Up 33.4% Year-over-year

by Calculated Risk on 4/21/2025 08:11:00 AM

Altos reports that active single-family inventory was up 2.4% week-over-week.

Inventory is now up 15.2% from the seasonal bottom in January and is increasing.  

Usually, inventory is up about 6% or 7% from the seasonal low by this week in the year.   So, 2025 is seeing a larger than normal pickup in inventory.

The first graph shows the seasonal pattern for active single-family inventory since 2015.

Altos Year-over-year Home InventoryClick on graph for larger image.

The red line is for 2025.  The black line is for 2019.  

Inventory was up 32.6% compared to the same week in 2024 (last week it was up 33.4%), and down 16.7% compared to the same week in 2019 (last week it was down 17.5%). 

Inventory will pass 2020 levels in the next two weeks, and it now appears inventory will be close to 2019 levels towards the end of 2025.

Altos Home InventoryThis second inventory graph is courtesy of Altos Research.

As of April 18th, inventory was at 719 thousand (7-day average), compared to 702 thousand the prior week. 

Mike Simonsen discusses this data regularly on Youtube

Sunday, April 20, 2025

Sunday Night Futures

by Calculated Risk on 4/20/2025 06:37:00 PM

Weekend:
Schedule for Week of April 20, 2025

Monday:
• No major economic releases scheduled.

From CNBC: Pre-Market Data and Bloomberg futures S&P 500 are down 20 and DOW futures are down 128 (fair value).

Oil prices were up over the last week with WTI futures at $64.68 per barrel and Brent at $67.96 per barrel. A year ago, WTI was at $84, and Brent was at $88 - so WTI oil prices are down about 23% year-over-year.

Here is a graph from Gasbuddy.com for nationwide gasoline prices. Nationally prices are at $3.12 per gallon. A year ago, prices were at $3.66 per gallon, so gasoline prices are down $0.54 year-over-year.

TSA: Airline Travel up 1% YoY

by Calculated Risk on 4/20/2025 10:00:00 AM

This is something to watch with less international travel.


Here are the daily travel numbers from the TSA.

This data is as of April 16, 2025.

TSA Traveler Data Click on graph for larger image.

This data shows the 7-day average of daily total traveler throughput from the TSA (Blue).

Air travel is up about 1.3% YoY.

The red line is the percent of 2019 for the seven-day average.  Air travel - as a percent of 2019 - is up about 7% from pre-pandemic levels.

Saturday, April 19, 2025

Real Estate Newsletter Articles this Week: Housing Starts at 1.324 million Annual Rate in March

by Calculated Risk on 4/19/2025 02:11:00 PM

At the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter this week:

New vs existing InventoryClick on graph for larger image.

Housing and Demographics

Housing Starts Decreased to 1.324 million Annual Rate in March

Watch Inventory and Why Measures of Existing Home Inventory appear Different

3rd Look at Local Housing Markets in March

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

Schedule for Week of April 20, 2025

by Calculated Risk on 4/19/2025 08:11:00 AM

The key reports scheduled for this week are March New and Existing Home sales.

For manufacturing, the April Richmond and Kansas City manufacturing surveys will be released.

----- Monday, April 21st -----

No major economic releases scheduled.

----- Tuesday, April 22nd -----

10:00 AM: Richmond Fed Survey of Manufacturing Activity for April.

----- Wednesday, April 23rd -----

7:00 AM ET: The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) will release the results for the mortgage purchase applications index.

New Home Sales10:00 AM: New Home Sales for March 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 680 thousand SAAR, up from 676 thousand in February.

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

2:00 PM: the Federal Reserve Beige Book, an informal review by the Federal Reserve Banks of current economic conditions in their Districts.

----- Thursday, April 24th -----

8:30 AM: The initial weekly unemployment claims report will be released. Initial claims were at 215 thousand last week.

8:30 AM: Durable Goods Orders for March from the Census Bureau. The consensus is for a 0.8% increase in durable goods orders.

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

Existing Home Sales10:00 AM: Existing Home Sales for March from the National Association of Realtors (NAR). The consensus is for 4.14 million SAAR, down from 4.26 million.

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

11:00 AM: the Kansas City Fed manufacturing survey for April.

----- Friday, April 25th -----

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

Friday, April 18, 2025

April 18th COVID Update: COVID Deaths Continue Declining

by Calculated Risk on 4/18/2025 06:42:00 PM

Mortgage RatesNote: 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
 NowWeek
Ago
Goal
Deaths per Week419474≤3501
1my goals to stop weekly posts.
🚩 Increasing number weekly for Deaths.
✅ Goal met.

COVID-19 Deaths per WeekClick 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 just under double the low of last June.

And here is a graph I'm following concerning COVID in wastewater as of April 17th:

COVID-19 WastewaterThis appears to be a leading indicator for COVID hospitalizations and deaths.  This has been moving down.

Nationally COVID in wastewater is "Low".

Housing and Demographics

by Calculated Risk on 4/18/2025 11:39:00 AM

Today, in the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter: Housing and Demographics

A brief excerpt:

I’ll return to the above graph and discuss some of the implications for the next decade, but first, here is a similar graph for July 2010.

Starts 2024 vs 2025The arrow points to the large cohort moving into the key renter age group in 2010. It was fifteen years ago that we started discussing the turnaround for apartments. Then, in January 2011, I attended the NMHC Apartment Strategies Conference in Palm Springs, and the atmosphere was very positive. The drivers were 1) very low new supply, and 2) strong demand (favorable demographics, and people moving from owning to renting).

Looking at demographics helped me call the bottom for rents and multi-family construction. And sure, enough multi-family starts bottomed around 2010.
...
What are the implications for the next decade?

Q1 GDP Tracking: Near Zero Growth

by Calculated Risk on 4/18/2025 08:30:00 AM

From BofA:

1Q GDP tracking increased three tenths to 0.7% q/q saar after the upward revisions to Jan and Feb core control retail sales. [Apr 17th estimate]
emphasis added
From Goldman:
We left our Q1 GDP tracking estimate unchanged at +0.4% (quarter-over-quarter annualized). [Apr 17th estimate]
GDPNowAnd from the Atlanta Fed: GDPNow
The GDPNow model estimate for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the first quarter of 2025 is -2.2 percent on April 17, unchanged from April 16 after rounding. The alternative model forecast, which adjusts for imports and exports of gold as described here, is -0.1 percent. After this morning’s housing starts report from the US Census Bureau, both the standard model’s and the alternative model’s nowcasts of first-quarter real residential fixed investment growth decreased from 3.7 percent to 2.9 percent. [Apr 17th estimate]

Thursday, April 17, 2025

Friday: Markets Closed for Good Friday

by Calculated Risk on 4/17/2025 08:31:00 PM

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

Friday:
• All US markets will be closed in observance of Good Friday.

• AT 10:00 AM ET, State Employment and Unemployment (Monthly) for March 2025