{"id":3877,"date":"2023-02-06T18:27:50","date_gmt":"2023-02-06T18:27:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/frankbuysphilly.com\/housing-market-tracker-inventory-and-purchase-applications-data-fall-together\/"},"modified":"2023-02-06T18:27:50","modified_gmt":"2023-02-06T18:27:50","slug":"housing-market-tracker-inventory-and-purchase-applications-data-fall-together","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/frankbuysphilly.com\/housing-market-tracker-inventory-and-purchase-applications-data-fall-together\/","title":{"rendered":"Housing Market Tracker: Inventory and purchase applications data fall together"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n<\/p>\n
Despite mortgage rates briefly falling below the 6% threshold, both housing inventory and mortgage demand fell last week. Let’s dive into the trend lines of the housing market. <\/p>\n
First, here is a quick housing market rundown from last week<\/strong>:<\/p>\n We took a step backward last week with a 10% decline in purchase apps from the prior week. That\u2019s after positive growth of 25% and 3% over the prior two weeks, respectively. It’s disappointing but I ask you to remember a key date \u2013 Nov. 9, 2022. Once you make seasonal adjustments with purchase application data, that’s where the data line begins to show improvement. <\/p>\n We are well into the seasonal demand increase for purchase applications if demand grows; this means the heavy volume period on this data line is between the second week of January and the first week of May. After May, total volumes traditionally fall. We are working from a shallow bar in this index \u2013 seven years of growth were taken away in one year in 2022. The bar is so low we can trip over it! However, with that said, purchase apps have started to improve from the waterfall dive on Nov. 9, 2022. <\/strong>I put more weight on the year-over-year data, <\/strong>and not only has the bleeding stopped in this data trend line, but even with the 10% weekly decline last week, we have also been able to bounce from the lows created recently.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/strong>The show-me part of the housing market starts with this bounce from an extreme bottom. Purchase application data is forward looking for 30-90 days; the bleeding stopping from a low base is a good start. However, we are going to see if 6% mortgage rates are good enough to create some growth in the future or if the housing market needs rates near 5%. Last year, when rates dropped to 5%, we saw some demand pick back up. But that 5% level didn\u2019t last long, and then rates spiked back up to 7.37%. We might see volatility in this data line until it stabilizes, so I cautioned people to read big positive or negative moves with some grain of salt on the weekly data until things settle down. However, one thing is for sure, the housing market found a working bottom, and the weekly tracker is more critical than ever.<\/p>\n A few weeks ago, I was encouraged that we had a slight increase in inventory and a small decline the following week. We have had back-to-back weeks of noticeable decline in the Altos weekly inventory data. This week inventory fell 8,664 units<\/strong> from the previous week.<\/p>\n\n
Purchase Application Data<\/h2>\n
Weekly Housing Inventory<\/h2>\n