by Calculated Risk on 8/19/2025 09:15:00 AM

Today, in the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter: Housing Starts Increased to 1.428 million Annual Rate in July

A brief excerpt:

Total housing starts in July were well above expectations and starts in May and June were revised up.

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

Total starts were up 12.9% in July compared to July 2024. Note that July was the weakest month in 2024, so this was an easy comparison.

Year-to-date (YTD) starts are up 1.6% compared to the same period in 2024. Single family starts are down 4.2% YTD and multi-family up 18.1% YTD.

There is much more in the article.

by Calculated Risk on 8/19/2025 08:30:00 AM

From the Census Bureau: Permits, Starts and Completions

Housing Starts:
Privately-owned housing starts in July were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,428,000. This is 5.2 percent above the revised June estimate of 1,358,000 and is 12.9 percent above the July 2024 rate of 1,265,000. Single-family housing starts in July were at a rate of 939,000; this is 2.8 percent above the revised June figure of 913,000. The July rate for units in buildings with five units or more was 470,000.

Building Permits:
Privately-owned housing units authorized by building permits in July were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,354,000. This is 2.8 percent below the revised June rate of 1,393,000 and is 5.7 percent below the July 2024 rate of 1,436,000. Single-family authorizations in July were at a rate of 870,000; this is 0.5 percent above the revised June figure of 866,000. Authorizations of units in buildings with five units or more were at a rate of 430,000 in July.
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 July.   Multi-family starts were up 24.1% year-over-year.

Single-family starts (red) increased in July and were up 7.8% year-over-year.

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

Total housing starts in July were well above expectations and starts in May and June were revised up.

I'll have more later …

by Calculated Risk on 8/18/2025 08:31:00 PM

From Matthew Graham at Mortgage News Daily: Rates Trickle to Another Higher Low

Mortgage rates are as high as they've been on almost any other day this month. You'd have to go back to August 1st to see anything higher. On the other hand, rates are still noticeably lower than almost any other day of the past 10 months. It's really only the past 2 weeks that have been any better and the gap between recent highs and lows is very small. [30 year fixed 6.59%]
emphasis added

Tuesday:
• At 8:30 AM ET, Housing Starts for July. The consensus is for 1.300 million SAAR, down from 1.321 million SAAR in June.

• At 10:00 AM, State Employment and Unemployment (Monthly) for July 2025

by Calculated Risk on 8/18/2025 03:28:00 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).

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

Click on graph for larger image.

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 8% YoY in July and exports were down 3% YoY.    

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

On a rolling 12-month basis, inbound traffic increased 0.7% in July compared to the rolling 12 months ending the previous month.   

Outbound traffic decreased 0.3% compared to the rolling 12 months ending the previous month.

This is the 8th consecutive month with exports down YoY.

by Calculated Risk on 8/18/2025 12:26:00 PM

Today, in the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter: 3rd Look at Local Housing Markets in July

A brief excerpt:

First, here are some comments from the Houston Association of REALTORS®: HOUSTON HOME PRICES EASE IN JULY AS SUPPLY HITS RECORD HIGH

According to the Houston Association of Realtors' July 2025 Housing Market Update, single-family home sales increased 9.2 percent year-over-year. A total of 8,300 homes were sold compared to 7,601 last year, when Hurricane Beryl temporarily halted market activity for several days.

July marked the largest year-over-year decline in home prices since 2023. The median price was down 3.1 percent to $339,000. The average price was $434,664, which is 1.9 percent below last year’s level.

Active listings reached an all-time high in July, exceeding 40,000 available homes in the Houston area. This represents a 38.2 percent increase from the same time last year.
emphasis added

Active listings hit an all-time high in Houston leading to some price declines. This is something we are seeing everywhere inventory has increased sharply. Note that sales were partially up year-over-year in Houston due to the hurricane depressing sales last year.
...
In July, sales in these markets were down 0.6% YoY. Last month, in June, these same markets were up 4.3% year-over-year Not Seasonally Adjusted (NSA).

Important: There were the same number of working days in July 2025 (22) as in July 2024 (22). So, the year-over-year change in the headline SA data will be similar to the NSA data.
...
More local markets to come!

There is much more in the article.

by Calculated Risk on 8/18/2025 10:00:00 AM

The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) reported the housing market index (HMI) was at 32, down from 33 last month. Any number below 50 indicates that more builders view sales conditions as poor than good.

From the NAHB: Builder Confidence Plateaus at Relatively Low Level

Elevated mortgage rates, weak buyer traffic and ongoing supply-side challenges continued to act as a drag on builder confidence in August, as sentiment levels remain in a holding pattern at a low level.

Builder confidence in the market for newly built single-family homes was 32 in August, down one point from July, according to the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB)/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI) released today. Builder sentiment has now been in negative territory for 16 consecutive months and has hovered at a relatively low reading between 32 and 34 since May.

“Affordability continues to be the top challenge for the housing market and buyers are waiting for mortgage rates to drop to move forward,” said NAHB Chairman Buddy Hughes, a home builder and developer from Lexington, N.C. “Builders are also grappling with supply-side headwinds, including ongoing frustrations with regulatory policies connected to developing land and building homes.”

“Housing affordability is central to the outlook for economic growth and inflation,” said NAHB Chief Economist Robert Dietz. “Given a slowing housing market and other recent economic data, the Fed’s monetary policy committee should return to lowering the federal funds rate, which will reduce financing costs for housing construction and indirectly help mortgage interest rates.”

In further signs of a soft housing market, the latest HMI survey also revealed that 37% of builders reported cutting prices in August, down from 38% in July. This share has remained at 37% or 38% for the past three months. Meanwhile, the average price reduction was 5% in August, the same as it’s been every month since last November. The use of sales incentives was 66% in August, up from 62% in July and the highest percentage in the post-Covid period.
...
The HMI index gauging current sales conditions fell one point in August to a level of 35 while the component measuring sales expectations in the next six months held steady at 43. The gauge charting traffic of prospective buyers posted a two-point gain to 22 but remains at a very low level.

Looking at the three-month moving averages for regional HMI scores, the Northeast fell one point to 44, the Midwest gained one point to 42, the South dropped one point to 29 and the West declined one point to 24.
emphasis added

Click on graph for larger image.

This graph shows the NAHB index since Jan 1985.

This was below the consensus forecast.

by Calculated Risk on 8/18/2025 08:11:00 AM

Altos reports that active single-family inventory was up 0.1% week-over-week.

Inventory is now up 37.7% from the seasonal bottom in January.   Usually, inventory is up about 22% from the seasonal low by this week in the year.   So, 2025 was a larger than normal increase 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 23.2% compared to the same week in 2024 (last week it was up 24.0%), and down 9.9% compared to the same week in 2019 (last week it was down 10.1%). 

Inventory started 2025 down 22% compared to 2019.  Inventory has closed more than half of that gap, and it appears inventory will be close to 2019 levels at the end of 2025.

This second inventory graph is courtesy of Altos Research.

As of August 15th, inventory was at 860 thousand (7-day average), compared to 859 thousand the prior week. 

Mike Simonsen discusses this data and much more regularly on YouTube

by Calculated Risk on 8/17/2025 07:16:00 PM

Weekend:
• Schedule for Week of August 17, 2025

Monday:
• At 10:00 AM ET, The August NAHB homebuilder survey. The consensus is for a reading of 34, up from 33. Any number below 50 indicates that more builders view sales conditions as poor than good.

From CNBC: Pre-Market Data and Bloomberg futures S&P 500 are up 10 and DOW futures are up 72 (fair value).

Oil prices were down over the last week with WTI futures at $62.66 per barrel and Brent at $65.61 per barrel. A year ago, WTI was at $78, and Brent was at $81 - so WTI oil prices are down about 19% year-over-year.

Here is a graph from Gasbuddy.com for nationwide gasoline prices. Nationally prices are at $3.09 per gallon. A year ago, prices were at $3.40 per gallon, so gasoline prices are down $0.31 year-over-year.

by Calculated Risk on 8/17/2025 09:01:00 AM

From Goldman:

On net, we boosted our Q3 GDP tracking estimate by 0.2pp to +1.4% (quarter-over-quarter annualized) and our Q3 domestic final sales estimate by 0.3pp to +0.2%. We left our past quarter GDP tracking estimate unchanged at +3.1%.
emphasis added [August 15th estimate]

And from the Atlanta Fed: GDPNow

The GDPNow model estimate for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the third quarter of 2025 is 2.5 percent on August 15, unchanged from August 7 after rounding. After recent releases from the US Census Bureau, US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Federal Reserve Board of Governors, and Treasury's Bureau of the Fiscal Service, the nowcast of third-quarter real personal consumption expenditures growth increased from 2.0 percent to 2.2 percent, while the nowcast of third-quarter real gross private domestic investment growth decreased from 7.3 percent to 6.6 percent. [August 15th estimate]

by Calculated Risk on 8/16/2025 02:11:00 PM

At the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter this week:

Click on graph for larger image.

• Part 1: Current State of the Housing Market; Overview for mid-August 2025

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

• Lawler: Early Read on Existing Home Sales in July; Update on Mortgage/MBS Yields and Spreads

• MBA: Mortgage Delinquencies Decreased Slightly in Q2 2025

• 2nd Look at Local Housing Markets in July

• August ICE Mortgage Monitor: Home Prices Continue to Cool

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