Spring Selling Season Starts Ominously: Mortgage Applications to Purchase a Home Plunge to Lowest since 1995 by Wolf Richter • Feb 22, 2023 • 188 Comments Prospects of 7% Mortgages Return. Surge in activity in January from very low levels has fizzled.
Mortgage Rates Near 7% for Spring Selling Season: Prices of Existing Homes Fall 13% from Peak, on Lowest Sales since 2010 by Wolf Richter • Feb 21, 2023 • 164 Comments Market is still frozen, potential sellers sit on vacant properties, hoping this too shall pass. Cash Buyers, investors, second-home buyers pull back further.
How the CPI “Weights” Changed and Moved CPI: Meet the Surprises by Wolf Richter • Feb 21, 2023 • 91 Comments In numbers and charts: The weight changes in the major CPI categories pushed up overall CPI.
How Many People Were Actually Laid Off So Far in California? The Counties & Companies with the Biggest Layoffs by Wolf Richter • Feb 20, 2023 • 124 Comments Still not many layoffs, but concentrated in the San Francisco Bay Area. Workers found new jobs quickly, and employment in California still rose.
Why the Fed Can Let the Housing Bust Rip: Mortgages, HELOCs, Delinquencies, Foreclosures, and Who’s on the Hook by Wolf Richter • Feb 17, 2023 • 272 Comments Mostly taxpayers, not the banks.
San Francisco Bay Area Housing Market Crashes, Prices Plunge 35% from Crazy Peak: Where’s Demand Supposed to Come From? by Wolf Richter • Feb 17, 2023 • 244 Comments In the first 10 months of Housing Bust 2 (now), the median price plunged a lot faster than in the first 10 months of Housing Bust 1 (2007-11).
Where Households Are on their Credit Card Balances, Credit Limits, Available Credit, Delinquencies, and Collections by Wolf Richter • Feb 16, 2023 • 95 Comments Credit cards are used as payment method and mostly paid off monthly. But some people use them as borrowing method – and get in trouble.
The Most Splendid Housing Bubbles in Canada: February Update on the Housing Bust by Wolf Richter • Feb 16, 2023 • 114 Comments Hangover after a drunken party instigated by the Bank of Canada’s money-printing and interest-rate repression that turned buyers’ brains to mush.
Consumers in No Mood for a Landing: Retail Sales and Seasonal Adjustments by Wolf Richter • Feb 15, 2023 • 102 Comments “Not seasonally adjusted” sales plunged from the big record in December, but not as much as in pre-pandemic Januaries.
Annual Services Inflation Rages at New Four-Decade High, Monthly Overall CPI Hottest since June by Wolf Richter • Feb 14, 2023 • 179 Comments Price drops in durable goods stalled. Food and energy prices rose. Core CPI has jumped by 14.6% in two years.
