Did home sales just break out?

HousingWire

On today’s episode, Editor in Chief Sarah Wheeler talks with Lead Analyst Logan Mohtashami about home sales and how to interpret the latest data.   Related to this episode:   ⁠Weekly home sales look stronger than normal, but there’s a catch⁠  https://www.housingwire.com/articles/volatile-housing-data-2025/  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠HousingWire | YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXDD_3y3LvU60vac7eki-6Q  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠More info about HousingWire⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  https://lnk.bio/housingwire   To learn more about Trust & Will, click ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  https://trustandwill.com/   The HousingWire Daily podcast brings the full picture of the most compelling stories in the housing market reported across HousingWire. Each morning, listen to editor in chief Sarah Wheeler talk to leading industry voices and get a deeper look behind the scenes of the top mortgage and real estate stories. Hosted and produced by the HousingWire Content Studio.

Transcript

00:00Welcome, everyone. My guest today is lead analyst Logan Motoshami to talk about home sales

00:11and the wild data that seems to show home sales breaking out. First, I want to say thank you to

00:16our sponsor, Trust in Will, for making this episode possible. Logan, welcome back to the

00:21podcast. Yes, I am very ecstatically happy because I've been waiting for inventory to get back to a

00:28yearly high and I thought maybe I might have a chance because it was shut down. Maybe things

00:33close. And then here I am. First thing I look at is I get the inventory data Friday night and I'm

00:40thinking, okay, this is good. And then I look at the price cut percentage and the price cut

00:44percentage fell and I'm like, okay. Then I go look at the pending home sales and I just went, whoa,

00:53whoa, holy Toledo. What just happened there? Straight vertical. And always with any weekly

01:01data, you have to learn how to manage it around holidays. So the week before it slowed down

01:07noticeably. So I was expecting a little bit of pickup, but not that. And then I was like, wait

01:12a second. Is something happening? Rates are lower. Maybe transactions were getting in because these

01:19are pending contracts. They don't close until 30 to 60 days out. And then I looked at the new listings

01:26data and then the new listings data went vertical. So then I was like, wait a second. This looks a

01:31little bit funky to me. Like the trend is correct, right? I 100% agree with the trend, but it was a

01:37really strong move. And there's always the two week holiday that we work off of. We've seen this

01:42before, but also the AWS, the outage, you know, messed up some of the data where it looks like it

01:51captured an extra day. So there's an extra day of data in there. I don't care. I'm still going to

01:57take the highest inventory thing victory anyway, you know, even if it falls next week. And, you know,

02:01inventory growth is kind of, of course, in mid June, we tagged the housing market as the supply

02:07and demand equilibrium was starting to change then. And then rates started to fall and demand started to

02:12pick up a little bit more. And, and, uh, but I quite didn't buy into the, you know, inventory

02:17peaked in August yet because last year we saw better demand and inventories rising. This is what I call

02:23the, the chef kiss, Sarah. This is where I kiss every baby and go, God bless America, rising inventory,

02:30rising sales, price growth, not breaking out anything. It's like the perfect, we had a little bit of that

02:36last year and this is a little bit of this. So I was very happy with the track. I think there's just a

02:42little bit, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, awkward data collecting, but wow, what a nice, nice kind of

02:49second half of the year starting in mid June. Again, I would just, whoever you, if you're listening

02:55to this, how many people were telling you mid June, something was happening. And, uh, we have two more

03:01months left for the year. We get ready for 2026. Yeah. It's going to be exciting. I think this is why

03:07it's so great that you track the data weekly in our housing market tracker, because if you weren't

03:12doing it weekly, you wouldn't maybe know exactly what that data was telling you. And this is where

03:17we get some of those really bad headlines. And some of the, the things are taken out of context

03:22because people aren't used to looking at that same data every week. They can't get the data every

03:26week. It's, it's, uh, our data, right? So I think that that was really interesting. Cause I, I,

03:32when you first called me on Friday night, when you saw the numbers, you were so happy and you're still

03:36happy, but you're like, Oh, now I see what happened. Now, Sarah, speaking of headlines.

03:41Oh, I already know where this is going. Okay. So it wasn't just that Redfin did the whole

03:47biggest seller versus buyer gap. Every, that every doomer fell for it's the cancellation rates at

03:54all time highs too. So I know now I feel a little bit bad for all these doomers. They were completely

03:59do because all weekend people are saying, Logan, look, it's the highest inventory, biggest buyer gap

04:04and the highest cancellation prices are crashing. Then I was like, then you show them the median

04:09sales price chart of Redfin's data. They're like, what, what happened? You know, wait a second that

04:14I said, yeah, y'all got duped. They, they, they flew one past you. They go, Oh my God, these men don't

04:20read. Logan is right. We're going to put these charts and these datas out there. They're going to

04:25completely take it out of context and they're going to spread it around and people are going to read

04:29the articles. So kudos to the marketing team for Redfin because they duped everyone. So I had to spend the

04:34whole weekend, like trying to teach these people, no, this, this doesn't mean that this doesn't

04:37Redfin's highest percentage of cancellation. It happens every year. They revise the data lower

04:42the next year. You know, if that data was running at like 18 to 22%, that's, that's like a material

04:49change, but it's very, pretty much been the same. So in any case, it's just to me as 2025 is such a

04:58healthy year, knowing that, you know, we are working from very low levels of sales and we just need

05:03inventory to go up. Price growth is cooling down. It all goes back to what we wrote in

05:08February of 2021, right? Where we said we need higher rates. This is not, this is not a good,

05:16because inventory was so low that if flat demand will create accelerated home price growth.

05:22And it took a few more years than probably people wanted, but we're now in a much healthier buyer

05:29versus seller data. Home prices aren't crashing nationally. There's no massive foreclosures or

05:35anything like that. It's just a healthier balance. And here it is, even with rates just going down

05:41half a percent to 75 basis points, the curve of the demand shifted. You know, you're not having

05:48these deflationary collapses or these, you know, foreclosures or anything like that. Home price

05:54growth is slowing down. Wages are above pro price growth. Again, these are all healthy things that

05:59the foundation of the call back in February of 2021 was like, we need higher rates to get this

06:05back into balance. And then you have a, you got a normal housing market again, you know, normal

06:09inventory, normal price growth, all these things that were very, very lacking as soon as, you know,

06:152020 came because housing broke out before COVID hit us. And then inventory broke to all time.

06:20Those are the worst, worst time ever because of our demographics and everything and rates. It's just

06:24like, whatever. We had to deal with that savagely unhealthy housing market, but now good. It's better.

06:30It's, it's, it's, it's, it's what you, it's what you want to see in, in, in an existing home sales

06:35marketplace. What, um, you know, if, if something was happening in housing, that was bad, what is the

06:41very first line that you would see it? And would it be new listings? Would it be inventory?

06:45New listings would go vertical, man. New listings. And, um, you know, when you, there's a natural

06:53progression of new listings, the seasonality of it, it rises all the way to like May, June, and July,

06:59then then peaks and declines. But what's happened the last three years were the lowest new listings

07:05data ever recorded history. 2023, 2023 was not a good year because that was the lowest ever,

07:09but 2024 and 2025 new listings data is growing, right? Most home sellers are buyers. That seller

07:17that wants to sell that house. It doesn't matter if mortgage rates are eight, seven, or six,

07:22they're ready to go. Cause once that house bought, then they go buy another house and the whole

07:25transaction model grows. That's why mortgage demand is very key to the housing market because that

07:30promotes sales growth and people moving and buying all, all these things that we've been doing for

07:36decades and decades. But if new listings data all of a sudden broke out from the historical norms,

07:42I'm basically like 80 to a hundred thousand would be normal. May, June, or July that, that period in

07:48time, that's what it would be. Um, the highest we got was in 2022 was 91,000. Just to give you

07:57everyone some perspective during the housing bubble crash years, this thing was running at 250 to 400,000

08:01per week. This is why I usually put it in the tracker all the time. So everybody sees context.

08:06If I took the highest level of the last five years and doubled it, we wouldn't even get to the low end

08:12of what was happening back then. Those were forced credit sellers into an underwater marketplace that

08:17weren't going to be buyers. Everything unhealthy you could possibly have in housing was that period.

08:22This period was the exact opposite. You've now had five years of the lowest new listings data ever,

08:27even when mortgage rates were at 3% in 2021 and demand was higher. But even now, you know, we

08:35cut above 80,000. I was so happy to see that early on, but it just didn't grow anymore after that. And

08:41we just been slowly declined. But I did like the recent data that it was stabilizing because people

08:46are like, Hey, rates are lower now. Yeah. I want to put my house on the market, sell and go buy another

08:51one. These are all positives. But if you did, if you did see stress, boy, this thing would go vertical.

08:57And I've always, I've always said this for years and years, when new listings goes vertical, it's never

09:01a good thing. It's like when days on market is a teenager, nothing good is happening in housing. If the

09:07days on market is a teenager, the NAR data 30 to 45 days is normal, normal all year long. You have 30 to

09:1545 days. God, we got down to like a teenager stage. That's never a good thing. Either you have a massive

09:20credit sales boom that can't last, or you simply have too many people chasing too few homes.

09:27It's like your hungry, hungry hippos illustration, which I love. So I've been at a ton of conferences.

09:33I am yet at another one today. This is the focus on excellence that the builders daily puts on. Of

09:39course we bought the builders daily this summer. So this is going to be a really fun conference,

09:44but everywhere I go, I meet people who listen to this podcast. They have a, I love when you guys come

09:49up to me, when you come up to Logan, tell us about yourselves and tell us that you listen every day.

09:54I love that. Um, one of the guys I met, uh, two conferences ago, so this was an MBA annual

09:59came up and he, and he was talking, he said, you know, he really appreciated the fact that you sort

10:04of break down what you're hearing from the quote unquote doomers, because he said, even though that

10:09seems ridiculous to people in the industry, sometimes it's like, that's what the consumers,

10:14that's what their clients are hearing. Right. And this made me laugh because what did your dad ask you?

10:19Was it last week? This, and to me, this is just so classic because to us, it's like,

10:23of course the housing market's not crashing. Of course it's whatever. But what did your dad say?

10:28Clearly my father has never read my work, nor he ever listens to me. That's, and this is like

10:33year 12 now. Um, and you know, part of the thing is, you know, when I used to deal with the Russian

10:38trolls in the last decade, they had trolling camps, right? There's, these are people with fake

10:43Facebook accounts and everything. You could clearly see there are Russians. They're completely lying,

10:47class warfare, get the left and the right fighting. You couldn't debate these people because they can't

10:51come online because they're not real. But here, the doomers are all American. The doomers here in

10:56America are mostly anti-central bank people. These people are just gone from reality. But in any case,

11:02my father sent me, and he does this two or three times a year. And I always put it on Twitter and

11:08social media. Like this is my dad doesn't clearly listen or read any of my work. He says, I got a mail

11:14saying that I'm get ready for the massive distressed real estate market. Is this true? And I'm like,

11:21pops, you know what? And my, my, my, like now I'm questioning, is this my dad? Cause my dad was

11:28balding when he was in his thirties. Right. And I've got this great head of hair at 50 still.

11:33So I'm thinking, you know, maybe there was a mixed up because I mean, how many years do we got to do

11:38this? And you're the baby boomer that keeps on falling for this stuff. And what happens is

11:42doom porn is very good in creating a volume and attention because if it bleeds, it leads. I mean,

11:50literally if I took these people serious, some of the worst macro housing people have really big

11:54fallings, but they're completely wrong. Right? So the only way you deal with them, you get their

11:58name, you get their face, you get their forecast, you force them to show you, show you their models.

12:02And the last three years were, were great. Cause some of the biggest doomers were home price crash

12:07people in 2013, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22. But in 2022, they all went in because they all

12:15believe in this principle. Uh, Danielle DeMar Booth pushed this on everyone that prices follow volume.

12:21So you have the biggest home sale crash ever. So prices should crash. And then 22, 23, 24, 25,

12:26there were, and the national nominal home price didn't happen. Why these are not housing people.

12:32They have no working models. If you had a working model, you have to show it. Then it'd be too

12:37boring. Nobody would want to listen to your stuff. Like I'm able to try to make it as fun as possible,

12:42but I don't think these people can do it. Like, you know, their whole business model is based on

12:47doom, but my father falls for it every year, right? Every year I get two or three things of these and

12:52I was like, Oh man, you get nothing for Christmas, man. Come on. Just one of these podcasts. If you listen

12:57to them and you know what, I can say this right now and it doesn't matter. Cause I know he's not

13:01listening and that I'm making fun of them, but that's just, that's the way it is.

13:05It's so funny. Well, I appreciate the fact that you, um, you keep everybody in the loop. And so

13:11they know how to answer all of those things that, that they hear all the time.

13:15Visuals Wheeler. I'm telling you those charts, like everywhere I go, like at the last, uh,

13:19when I spoke last, I told people Sarah Wheeler, when I tell her, when I die, you're going to make

13:25sure it says chart daddy on my grave. And then you're going to put the foreclosure chart

13:30on my tombstone. Right. And the, the housing credit market was breaking in 2005, six, seven,

13:36and eight new listings data took off. There's all these things that were here. None of this was

13:41happening in the last 14 years, but if people visually get to see, and then all of a sudden

13:46they're like, wait a second. Yeah. That looked really bad. That doesn't look really bad. It's

13:50good. They're like hyperventilating with this little thing, tiny little thing here. These are not

13:56serious people, man. So, so it's good. It's good to teach people in that image. You got to make it

14:01somewhat entertaining and funny and all that stuff and challenge these people to live debates and

14:05force them into the fighting. You're, you're, you're entertaining for sure. I do think it's

14:10funny that, um, I, I, I feel flattered that you think that I'm going to, you know, be around, uh,

14:15I'm older than you. So like, but I I'll make sure whatever you need on your, I gave you that

14:19little benefit of doubt. Okay. So let's talk about mortgage rates and the 10 year yield,

14:27because we did have, um, it went below the 10 year yield went below 4% again, but nothing really

14:32bad happened. You know, it's, it's, it's Monday morning. And I think, you know, uh, we it's,

14:35it's fed week. Um, we have bond auctions and everything. It's so different this year than last

14:41year. And again, if you, if you believe in the principle that I've always tried to, you know,

14:45profess, you know, in these podcasts and in the articles that 65 to 75% of where the 10 year

14:50yield can range is fed policy in waves and models and channels, right? Uh, uh, you don't target

14:57mortgage rates. Like some of these people have like mortgage rates will be 6.4% in Q3 of 2026.

15:04It will be 6.4% in Q4. What is that? You want to teach people the economics of this flows every day.

15:12There's something new. Something happens. It is go up and down, but here, um, bond auction,

15:19fine. Right. You know, uh, stocks are up, you know, the China, uh, uh, punt trade deal, you know,

15:27Besson is a farm soy farmer. Now it's totally good. Right. There we go. He felt his pain. And, uh,

15:34uh, we moved that along and the 10 year yield is still here, right? Where last year, I think

15:38fed cut rates and the rates went up. So a lot of people just thought, well, the same thing is going to

15:42happen. Well, what's the difference? One and a quarter rate cuts ordinance system. It looks like

15:47we're going to get another one this week. Looks like we'll get another one in units. The spreads

15:51are much better, right? We always say hug a mortgage spread, take a selfie with it. So the,

15:56the structural dynamics are different this year because fed policy is a little bit different

16:01this year. And then that's why I would say that you just kind of move off that. And then the whole

16:05battle is labor overinflation, but you know, the higher rates camp or, you know, uh, um, deficit

16:11spending was inflationary rates have to go up. That never mattered ever. Um, the treasury supply

16:17was too much rates can't be below 5%. That obviously was a terrible call. Um, uh, and that

16:23the marketplace was going to overweight the inflation data, but the federal reserve didn't

16:28right. And I think this is the key for everyone. Jerome Powell once said, we're not hiking rates

16:34because of inflation. If the fed was hiking rates because of tariffs, that's a different thing,

16:39but here we are 3%. And, and again, tariffs, I think are still somewhat confusing. Always remember

16:44there's a, there's a bunch of suppliers here in America that have a bunch of inventory that did

16:48not get hit with tariffs. Okay. So the goods pricing is starting to pick up on the tariff side. Now

16:54we're collecting a lot of revenue, but going out in the future, you you're getting a lot of new stuff

16:59that's going to be hit with tariffs. So that's something we look at for, for the future out there.

17:03And this is why I thought the president needed lower rates, lower energy prices, right? The

17:08trinity effect and a lower dollar for this to all work, uh, out here. And again, uh, somebody asked

17:15me, how do you know if Q3 GDP is running at 3%? Well, the Atlanta fed has a live input tracking,

17:22uh, GDP model where every new data gets put in. Uh, they incorporate that and, uh, their Q3 GDP today

17:29is at 3.9%, right? The labor market is getting softer because the sectors of the economy that

17:35are rate sensitive have been underperforming. But hopefully now that the 10 year yield,

17:40Powell, just take the layup. Just do not do what you did in 2023. I'm just hoping he doesn't do what

17:46he did in 20. My sense is Powell does what he did in 20 and just becomes Hawk, Hawk, man from Buck

17:52Rogers. BD, BD, BD. Remember Buck Rogers and that little, little robot. Yeah. That was a cheap

17:58robot for the 21st century, man. Y'all that's all we could create up then. But, um, in any case,

18:05uh, it's, we'll, we'll, we'll see, but so much different this year than last year. And again,

18:10no matter what happens because of rate cuts, the spreads at arms, home buyers will all have access

18:15to sub 6% mortgage rates for the first time in many years. And we're starting to see that flow

18:20into the, uh, NBA data where arm loans are starting to pick it up. And I get, I never thought this would

18:26be the case where we have declining rates on the long end and you see arm growth, but for some

18:32reason, the sub 6% mortgage market is much better for everyone. The builders have lived off of it for

18:37so long, but the existing home sales market will have the first time they can do this.

18:41Ooh, big week. Uh, thank you, Logan, for being with us.

18:45Sarah, you know, what else is this week? Oh, Halloween. Halloween, right? So, uh,

18:50what you going for Halloween? Okay. So I, it's like a picture little red riding hood. Only it's

18:56purple. That that's what I am. Well, what's that? Is that a Barney, uh, uh, red riding hood?

19:04Is that, is Barney still alive? I don't know. I don't know. I mean, I'm sure there've been

19:09multiple Barneys, but that's not real. The Barney is not really the look I'm going for, but it's just,

19:13I'm really just dressing up because cute little kids will come and I can give them candy. So I just want

19:18to make them smile. So I have like this wig and I have a, you know, I think it's like a witch only.

19:24It's like purple. Okay. What about you? Purple witch me? I don't know. I still, I still love my

19:31John wicks pencil, Halloween costume from years ago, but, uh, maybe I'll pull out an oldie. Maybe

19:38I'll be Zorro, the economic Zorro, you know, labor over inflation and I'll get a sword and I'll just,

19:44you know, I'll chart up the 10 year yield with my, uh, Zorro hat and then, uh, having the little

19:50eye mask. With, with all of your AI things. I don't know if people can even tell anymore. It's

19:55like, whatever you could do whatever you want with AI, but sometimes the real thing is better,

20:02Sarah. So get an old Zorro hat and the old mask. I think you're a good vampire. You're kind of a

20:07natural vampire. Don't you think the natural vampire, which kind the old, the old Bram Stoker's

20:13Dracula or the true blood version? You know, there's so many different vampires in the old days. Uh,

20:20I don't know. Let's start. Let's say the, the old, uh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And rice, uh,

20:25the Anne Rice stories. All right. Well, we will talk to you again soon before Halloween. Um,

20:31thank you again. Pleasure.

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