re: New Housing Sales Down 16%

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With that said, the change is at the higher end price points that I keep up with where I am (550-800)


Yes, I'm keeping an eye in the 400-700 range and thats where I'm seeing a def shift, as is my realtor. She said things have most certainly changed

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Which makes sense given the effect of interest rates on monthly payments.

Assuming a 30 year fixed with 20% down the monthly payments with about 2.8% versus 5.5% changes your pool of potential buyers significantly (pricing out more middle and lower upper class families)

400k house from about $1,600 to about $2,100

550k house from about $2,200 to about $2,900

700k house from about $2,800 to about $3,700

800k house from about $3,200 to about $4,200

I think people at this stage don't care as much about the interest rate - the supply is still jack shite and they are just trying to get their hands on whatever they can.

Over time the interest rates will factor in more-heavily.

We’re still several years away from adequate inventory. Prices will continue to rise albeit at a lower annual percentage than we’ve seen the past couple of years.

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We’re still several years away from adequate inventory. Prices will continue to rise albeit at a lower annual percentage than we’ve seen the past couple of years.

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That's a well-worn fallacy. Inventories are now where they were in 2007 and the linear curve is now steeper this go round. Add factor loadings for inflation and the FED going medieval with rates to get back to something historically normal, and you've got housing roadkill.

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the supply is still jack shite and they are just trying to get their hands on whatever they can.

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But the supply you mentioned is actually shite. People are more likely to buy shite at 2% then 5%.

All of the highly coveted properties were bought at incredibly low rates so why would they leave?

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In your opinion where should the most reliable data on housing data including inventory be found? And what data sources do you think people are using that is inaccurate?

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FRED (above ) is the US Federal Reserve, who use Census data, HUD data, and Federal construction data. There are other sources that show different raw inventory numbers, but the trend lines are all the same shape and size. I suppose I don't split hairs on data sources unless I were to find something egregious that doesn't match the overall trend. With the FED data (above) you can dig into their sources and methods and have an understanding of how their charts are created, and most people are using the FED "sheet music" in my experience.

Hard to have home sales when there is no inventory

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I commonly hear the narrative about the younger generation but not the boomers. In fact, it looks like a lot of boomers bought additional homes since the 2020 stimulus.

Does the FRED data shed light on those two generations?

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Yes, but I've never looked that up. It might be necessary to use the FRED API and write some simple code to scrape and graph the age data broken down into age categories. Home ownership % Rate, and even Home Ownership % Rate by Race & Home Ownership % Rate by Regions are easily accessible.

There are also Release Tables (see below), where the data has already been sliced into categories. I'm not seeing age/home ownership % but I'm sure it exists. Just dig around on the site. You may have to register but the accounts are free.

Ding ding

I use Python and an open source Python program. You can find what I use here:

GitHub - Python API for FRED

You'll need Pandas as well for output (its in the description as well):

Pandas

Get an API key from the link above (you'll need an account, which is free). From there, just use the program. The code lines are simple and the program description is explanatory. You can replace the datasets given in the description with the datasets you want to import and evaluate. You just have to look up the names of the datasets. It may take a couple of hours to get the hang of it but the code is no more complex than Excel macros or SPSS code, its just a different syntax. You can also Google "FRED API code examples" and the like and you should get examples of other peoples work. Then you can just replace their datasets with what you want to look at.

I'm not a programmer/developer but I've used SPSS extensively for research. I also suck at using Excel macros. FYI, at the very bottom of the description, the creator has a bunch more code/output examples in a link he provides.