What Does the US Housing Market Have in Store for Us?

​​#USA #mortgage #real estate #economy #inflation

The US housing market continues to revive

The American housing market has adapted to high rates at the moment and continues to revive slowly. The laying of new single-family houses in May sharply increased by 18.5% mom, the annual dynamics remained negative -5% YoY. The number of construction permits issued grew modestly +5.4% mom and -8.1% yoy.

Sales of single-family homes on the secondary market did not change much in May (-0.3% mom), since the fall of 2022, the decline has stopped here. Sales of new single-family homes in May soared to 763 thousand per year., giving an increase of 12.2% mom and 25.9% yoy. The shortage of ready-made housing remains an actual story, housing stocks for sale cover only 3 months of sales in the secondary market, overstocking is higher in the primary market, but has decreased very sharply (6.7 month of sales).

Prices on the US secondary market in May showed an annual drop of 3.4% yoy, but this is rather the effect of the base of last year, the current price dynamics indicates that the decline has stopped and prices are rising. Zillow for May counted a price increase of 0.5% mom and 2% YoY, S&P today published a report for April, where an increase of 0.5% mom and a fall of -0.2% yoy, in the 20 largest cities +0.9% mom and -1.7% yoy.
In fact, at the moment prices returned, albeit to inactive, but growth, against the background of a shortage of ready-made housing, despite the fact that mortgage rates are 6.5-7%. Considering that Zillow and other sources indicate that rent growth has resumed at a rate of 0.5-0.6% mom, it turns out that even in this segment of the economy (extremely sensitive to rates), price pressure will not go away so quickly. The Fed will have to strain even more now …

PS: And consumer confidence has grown. @ESG_Stock_Market