by Calculated Risk on 4/21/2025 02:03:00 PM

From housing economist Tom Lawler:

Based on publicly-available local realtor/MLS reports released across the country through today, I project that existing home sales as estimated by the National Association of Realtors ran at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.06 million in March, down 4.7% from February’s preliminary pace and down 1.5% from last March’s seasonally adjusted pace.

Local realtor/MLS reports suggest that the median existing single-family home sales price last month was up by about 2.6% from a year earlier.

CR Note: The NAR is scheduled to release March Existing Home sales on Thursday, April 24th at 10:00 AM. The consensus is for 4.14 million SAAR, down from 4.26 million. Last year, the NAR reported sales in March 2024 at 4.12 million SAAR.

by Calculated Risk on 4/21/2025 02:01:00 PM

Container traffic gives us an idea about the volume of goods being exported and imported - and usually some hints about the trade report since LA area ports handle about 40% of the nation's container port traffic.

The following graphs are for inbound and outbound traffic at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach in TEUs (TEUs: 20-foot equivalent units or 20-foot-long cargo container).

To remove the strong seasonal component for inbound traffic, the first graph shows the rolling 12-month average.

Click on graph for larger image.

On a rolling 12-month basis, inbound traffic increased 0.8% in March compared to the rolling 12 months ending the previous month.   Outbound traffic decreased 0.9% compared to the rolling 12 months ending the previous month.

The 2nd graph is the monthly data (with a strong seasonal pattern for imports).

Usually imports peak in the July to October period as retailers import goods for the Christmas holiday and then decline sharply and bottom in the Winter depending on the timing of the Chinese New Year.  

Imports were up 12% YoY in March and exports were down 9% YoY.    

Recently importers rushed to beat the tariffs.  And port traffic will likely slow sharply in coming months.

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.

...
In 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.

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.

Click 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.

This 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

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.

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.

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.

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

At the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter this week:

Click 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.

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.

10:00 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.

10:00 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.

by Calculated Risk on 4/18/2025 06:42:00 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	419	474	≤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 just under double the low of last June.

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

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 4/18/2025 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.

The 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?