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.
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).
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.
Why the MBS Roll-off from Fed’s Balance Sheet Will Speed Up by Wolf Richter • Feb 8, 2023 • 146 Comments It was half the maximum pace. But rising home sales and, lo-and-behold, rising mortgage refis are about to change that.
Cut the Price by 20% and They Will Come: Homebuilder Meritage Explains New Era after Sales Orders Collapse by 46% by Wolf Richter • Feb 5, 2023 • 154 Comments Cutting construction costs by “aggressively rebidding” projects, and “walking away” from land deals: executives in their own words.
What is the Actual Housing Vacancy Rate, Reported by the Census Bureau? No, not 0.8% and not 5.8% by Wolf Richter • Feb 2, 2023 • 75 Comments A deep dive into the gritty data and formulas that produce these vacancy rates by the Census Bureau.
The Most Splendid Housing Bubbles in America, January Update: Now Phoenix, Las Vegas, San Francisco, Seattle, San Diego Plunge Fastest by Wolf Richter • Jan 31, 2023 • 240 Comments This takes some doing: San Francisco Bay Area house prices plunged faster from the peak than they’d spiked to the peak.
Prices of Existing Homes Fall 11% from Peak. Sales Hit Lockdown Low. Cash Buyers and Investors Pull Back Hard by Wolf Richter • Jan 20, 2023 • 302 Comments Priced right, any home will sell. But sellers are not wanting to price their homes right.
