by Calculated Risk on 11/13/2024 08:30:00 AM

From the BLS:

The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) increased 0.2 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis in October, the same increase as in each of the previous 3 months, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Over the last 12 months, the all items index increased 2.6 percent before seasonal adjustment.

The index for shelter rose 0.4 percent in October, accounting for over half of the monthly all items increase. The food index also increased over the month, rising 0.2 percent as the food at home index increased 0.1 percent and the food away from home index rose 0.2 percent. The energy index was unchanged over the month, after declining 1.9 percent in September.

The index for all items less food and energy rose 0.3 percent in October, as it did in August and September. Indexes that increased in October include shelter, used cars and trucks, airline fares, medical care, and recreation. The indexes for apparel, communication, and household furnishings and operations were among those that decreased over the month.

The all items index rose 2.6 percent for the 12 months ending October, after rising 2.4 percent over the 12 months ending September. The all items less food and energy index rose 3.3 percent over the last 12 months. The energy index decreased 4.9 percent for the 12 months ending October. The food index increased 2.1 percent over the last year.
emphasis added

The change in CPI was at expectations. I'll post a graph later today after the Cleveland Fed releases the median and trimmed-mean CPI.

by Calculated Risk on 11/13/2024 07:00:00 AM

From the MBA: Mortgage Applications Increase in Latest MBA Weekly Survey

Mortgage applications increased 0.5 percent from one week earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending November 8, 2024.

The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, increased 0.5 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index decreased 2 percent compared with the previous week. The Refinance Index decreased 2 percent from the previous week and was 43 percent higher than the same week one year ago. The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index increased 2 percent from one week earlier. The unadjusted Purchase Index decreased 2 percent compared with the previous week and was 1 percent higher than the same week one year ago.

“Mortgage rates continued to increase last week, driven by higher Treasury yields as financial markets digested the likely impacts of a Trump presidency. The Federal Reserve’s 25-basis-point rate cut was already anticipated and did little to move the markets,” said Joel Kan, MBA’s Vice President and Deputy Chief Economist. “The 30-year fixed rate was at 6.86 percent last week, its highest since July 2024. However, despite the increase in rates, applications increased for the first time in seven weeks.”

Added Kan, “Purchase applications picked up and remained close to levels from a year ago. FHA and VA purchase applications drove the stronger overall purchase activity, increasing 3 percent and 9 percent, respectively. FHA mortgage rates bucked the overall trend and were lower over the week, which likely helped some borrowers. Conventional purchase applications were also up slightly. Meanwhile, the upward climb in rates led to refinance activity falling to its lowest level since May 2024.”
...
The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming loan balances ($766,550 or less) increased to 6.86 percent from 6.81 percent, with points decreasing to 0.60 from 0.68 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent loan-to-value ratio (LTV) loans.
emphasis added

Click on graph for larger image.

The first graph shows the MBA mortgage purchase index.

According to the MBA, purchase activity is up 1% year-over-year unadjusted. 

Red is a four-week average (blue is weekly).  

Purchase application activity is up about 6% from the lows in late October 2023, but still about 12% below the lowest levels during the housing bust.  

The second graph shows the refinance index since 1990.

With higher mortgage rates, the refinance index increased as mortgage rates declined in September but has decreased as rates moved back up.

by Calculated Risk on 11/12/2024 07:46:00 PM

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

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

• At 8:30 AM, The Consumer Price Index for October from the BLS. The consensus is for a 0.2% increase in CPI, and a 0.3% increase in core CPI.  The consensus is for CPI to be up 2.6% year-over-year and core CPI to be up 3.3% YoY.

• At 11:00 AM, NY Fed: Q3 Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit

by Calculated Risk on 11/12/2024 02:00:00 PM

From the Federal Reserve: The October 2024 Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey on Bank Lending Practices

The October 2024 Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey on Bank Lending Practices (SLOOS) addressed changes in the standards and terms on, and demand for, bank loans to businesses and households over the past three months, which generally correspond to the third quarter of 2024.

Regarding loans to businesses over the third quarter, survey respondents reported, on balance, basically unchanged lending standards for commercial and industrial (C&I) loans to large and middle-market firms and tighter standards for loans to small firms.2 Meanwhile, banks reported weaker demand for C&I loans to firms of all sizes. Furthermore, banks reported tighter standards and weaker demand for all commercial real estate (CRE) loan categories.

For loans to households, banks reported, on balance, basically unchanged lending standards and weaker demand across most categories of residential real estate (RRE) loans. In addition, banks reported basically unchanged lending standards and demand for home equity lines of credit (HELOCs). Moreover, standards reportedly tightened for credit card loans and remained basically unchanged for auto and other consumer loans, while demand weakened for auto and other consumer loans and remained basically unchanged for credit card loans.
emphasis added

Click on graph for larger image.

This graph on Residential Real Estate demand is from the Senior Loan Officer Survey Charts.

This graph is for demand and shows that demand has declined.

The left graph is from 1990 to 2014.  The right graph is from 2015 to Q3 2024.

by Calculated Risk on 11/12/2024 12:03:00 PM

This graph shows heavy truck sales since 1967 using data from the BEA. The dashed line is the October 2024 seasonally adjusted annual sales rate (SAAR) of 477 thousand.

Heavy truck sales really collapsed during the great recession, falling to a low of 180 thousand SAAR in May 2009.  Then heavy truck sales increased to a new record high of 570 thousand SAAR in April 2019.

Click on graph for larger image.

Note: "Heavy trucks - trucks more than 14,000 pounds gross vehicle weight."

Heavy truck sales declined sharply at the beginning of the pandemic, falling to a low of 288 thousand SAAR in May 2020.  

Heavy truck sales were at 390 thousand SAAR in October, down from 476 thousand in September, and down 14.4% from 455 thousand SAAR in October 2023.  

Usually, heavy truck sales decline sharply prior to a recession.  This is just one month, and sales might have been impacted by the hurricanes (and could be revised up).

Meanwhile, as I mentioned earlier, light vehicle sales increased in October.

The second graph shows light vehicle sales since the BEA started keeping data in 1967.  Vehicle sales were at 16.04 million SAAR in October, up from 15.77 million in September, and up 4.5% from 15.34 million in October 2023.

by Calculated Risk on 11/12/2024 09:26:00 AM

Today, in the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter: 2nd Look at Local Housing Markets in October

A brief excerpt:

NOTE: The tables for active listings, new listings and closed sales all include a comparison to October 2019 for each local market (some 2019 data is not available).

This is the second look at local markets in October. I’m tracking over 40 local housing markets in the US. Some of the 40 markets are states, and some are metropolitan areas. I’ll update these tables throughout the month as additional data is released.

Closed sales in October were mostly for contracts signed in August and September when 30-year mortgage rates averaged 6.50% and 6.18%, respectively (Freddie Mac PMMS). These were the lowest mortgage rate in 2 years!
...
Here is a look at months-of-supply using NSA sales. Note the regional differences, especially in Florida (although October statistics in Florida were impacted by Hurricane Milton). This pickup in inventory is impacting prices in Florida.
...
Many more local markets to come!

There is much more in the article.

by Calculated Risk on 11/11/2024 08:24:00 PM

Tuesday:
• At 6:00 AM ET, NFIB Small Business Optimism Index for October.

• At 2:00 PM, Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey on Bank Lending Practices (SLOOS) for October.

by Calculated Risk on 11/11/2024 02:28:00 PM

Today, in the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter: Watch Months-of-Supply!

A brief excerpt:

Both inventory and sales are well below pre-pandemic levels, and I think we need to keep an eye on months-of-supply to forecast price changes. Historically nominal prices declined when months-of-supply approached 6 months - and that is unlikely any time soon - however, as expected, months-of-supply is above 2019 levels.

Months-of-supply was at 4.3 months in September compared to 4.0 months in September 2019. Even though inventory has declined significantly compared to 2019, sales have fallen even more - pushing up months-of-supply.

The following graph shows months-of-supply since 2017. Note that months-of-supply is higher than the last 5 years (2019 - 2023), and just below the level in September 2018. Months-of-supply was at 4.2 in September 2017 and 4.4 in September 2018. In 2020 (black), months-of-supply increased at the beginning of the pandemic and then declined sharply.

There is much more in the article.

by Calculated Risk on 11/11/2024 11:53:00 AM

After the election in November 2016, I pointed out that the economy was solid, that there were significant economic tailwinds and that it was unlikely that Mr. Trump would do everything he said during the campaign (emphasis added). See: The Future is still Bright! and The Cupboard is Full. I was pretty optimistic on the economic outlook!

By early 2019, I was becoming more concerned: "So far Mr. Trump has had a limited negative impact on the economy. ... Fortunately the cupboard was full when Trump took office, and luckily there hasn't been a significant crisis".  Unfortunately, the COVID crisis struck in early 2020 and Trump performed poorly.

Once again, the economy is in good shape (last week Fed Chair Powell called the economy "remarkable"), and it is unlikely Mr. Trump will do most of what he said during the campaign.  For example, he promised no taxes on tips or overtime, the return of $2 gasoline, repealing and replacing the ACA, and deporting 20+ million people.  All of that is unlikely.  There are many other proposals, such as revamping the Federal workforce and dramatically cutting the Federal budget, that are unclear.

Trump will likely renew the tax cuts for the wealthy, increase tariffs - especially on imports from China - limit legal immigration (Trump said the "Country is full"), and increase deportations (but not anywhere close to the 20 million he said during the campaign).  Note: I don't expect any tariffs on Canada and Mexico.

However, the economic tailwinds are more limited in 2024 than in 2016, so the margin for error is smaller.

For example, in 2016, I was positive on housing starts and new home sales.  

Click on graph for larger image.

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

The black arrow points to the election in 2016, and I was projecting further increases in housing starts.

It now seems likely that housing starts will move more sideways.

Also, in 2016, demographics were improving, and the largest cohort in US history was moving into their peak earning years.  Now, demographics are more neutral, and possibly even negative if legal immigration is limited.

Also, I don't expect any progress over the next four years on key long-term economic issues like climate change and income / wealth inequality (that will likely get worse).

Since Trump's policies will not be evidence based (he rejects data that doesn't fit his views), I expect generally bad results. However - as in his previous term - bad policies might mean higher deficits with little return - not an economic downturn. Until we see the actual policy proposals, it is hard to predict the impact. I will write more as policies are enacted.  However, I'm not sanguine.

by Calculated Risk on 11/11/2024 08:11:00 AM

Altos reports that active single-family inventory was down 1.9% week-over-week. 

Inventory will now decline seasonally until early next year.

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 2024.  The black line is for 2019.  

Inventory was up 27.3% compared to the same week in 2023 (last week it was up 29.8%), and down 19.2% compared to the same week in 2019 (last week it was down 19.4%). 

Back in June 2023, inventory was down almost 54% compared to 2019, so the gap to more normal inventory levels is almost two-thirds closed.

This second inventory graph is courtesy of Altos Research.

As of Nov 8th, inventory was at 722 thousand (7-day average), compared to 736 thousand the prior week. 

Mike Simonsen discusses this data regularly on Youtube.