2026 spring housing market stability

HousingWire

On today’s episode, Editor in Chief Sarah Wheeler talks with Lead Analyst Logan Mohtashami about the spring housing market and why he’s excited to see stability as we go into this important home-buying season.   Related to this episode:   Rising inventory brings balance to the 2026 U.S. housing market  https://www.housingwire.com/articles/2026-housing-inventory-trends/  HousingWire | YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXDD_3y3LvU60vac7eki-6Q  More info about HousingWire  https://lnk.bio/housingwire   To learn more about Trust & Will visit 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.

Transcript

00:00Welcome, everyone. My guest today is lead analyst Logan Motoshami to talk about the spring housing

00:11market and why he's so excited to see stability as we go into this very important home buying

00:16season. Before we get started, I want to thank our sponsor, Trust & Will, for making this episode

00:22possible. Welcome back to the podcast, Logan. You are geared up for cold weather, looks like.

00:28I am, with my fellow brothers and sisters across the country, gearing myself up because

00:34here in Southern California, it's slightly sunny, 71 degrees, but I hear it's going to be really

00:41cold. I saw a bunch of negatives in the Midwest, and I'm like, wait, I'm going to Boise next

00:48week. What is it going to be like? When I was there last year, it was like 4 and 11 degrees,

00:53and I swear, I look out the window, and I was like, there's White Walkers walking. This

00:58is not normal.

00:59No, so I'm in Colorado, and it's like, I mean, it's cold for them. It's like 9 degrees, but

01:05Dallas is bracing for the storm that's supposed to come. We're recording this on Friday, so

01:10who knows what happens there? Hope the grid holds up. Hope everything goes well in Texas.

01:15Well, and speaking of that, whenever you track weekly data, I always say like jobless claims

01:25data, whenever there's a hurricane, jobless claims tend to spike because people fall for

01:30unemployment benefits, and it takes like one or two weeks, and then that spike comes down.

01:34For weekly housing data, of course, we had a holiday week to start off, so you're missing

01:40one day, so that already takes the data, but then you have a storm, and everyone's getting

01:45ready for storm, you know, and these things do impact economic data that you do have to

01:50adjust to, right? And I think that's, you know, the context you have to bring with tracking

01:55weekly data is that you don't want to make too much about one week if there's other variables

02:01that are not normal. I thought we did a good job of, you know, talking about the pending

02:05home sales data because, you know, we outlined it months before and said, hey, listen, but

02:10that existing home sales report actually finished at yearly highs, so it was a very high bar to keep,

02:17and then, you know, you add the Christmas and New Year's and in the middle of the week, but here,

02:23holiday, you got a major storm across the country, so be a little bit mindful of the data for this

02:31month in that, and then if there's any rebound effect, be mindful of that as well, and that's,

02:38you know, we try to average that out to make it a little bit more smoothly going ahead.

02:43I also think you do a good job in the tracker of, like, you know, noting that, like, listen,

02:48here's this big drop or here's this big spike, but let's remember why, and you really walk people

02:54through that and go, I would give this, you know, a lot of merit or no, don't, you know,

03:00don't pay attention to this one week. It's not going to, it doesn't mean anything.

03:03Yeah, and I think that's, you know, one of the things we talked about going into 2026, you know,

03:09once everything's out of the Christmas and New Year's, things look fine. You know, purchase

03:16application data has actually had the best start in many years. Weekly pending home sales are positive

03:22year over year, but holiday week, you know, Monday was, so, you know, you just make some adjustments

03:27and you just go, go with the trend, but also remember the trend gets hit a few times. So the

03:32upside and downside, just make sure to put it in context. And we just roll with the housing data

03:38all year long. That's what we do here every weekend. We do. And okay, so Davos is over. We have all this

03:44as the dust settles, what actually changed there? What, what kind of housing policy changes did we

03:50actually see? You know, not, nothing too much. You know, there's a lot of talk, but you know what,

03:56I, I think some of the housing policies might need Congress to sign off on. And, um, whenever you're

04:05dealing with government shutdown stuff and, and that, you know, supposedly it's, it's not going to

04:11happen that, you know, sometimes things get incorporated into shutdowns that, uh, are kind of

04:16last second ideas, but in general, at least from what was said, uh, Trump wasn't too keen on the 401k,

04:25uh, usage. Uh, also there, you know, all there was, was the, a coded institutional, you know,

04:33make it harder for them to, to, uh, uh, buy homes again. Uh, they probably need some legal things from

04:41Congress to get, get something like that signed. Uh, mortgage backed securities was already, uh,

04:46kind of in play, but, uh, no real sense about what the capital gains story is. So a lot of ideas,

04:53but just remember it's the midterms, you know, and, uh, I think part of the things are a little

04:59bit more comfortable that rates are near 6%. Then, you know, if rates were seven and a half percent,

05:05you know, it's, it's a little bit of a different story, but now that demand's picking up just a

05:09little bit, it kind of alleviates the pressure to a degree. Um, and, you know, people, people laughed

05:15where president Trump talked about, well, you know, I can make housing really affordable by

05:19crushing home prices. And a lot of people say, well, you know, uh, we need to make housing less

05:26affordable to crush prices. So eventually in time, if anybody studied the history of home prices,

05:31whether rates were at 18%, 12%, 5%, nominal home price crashes are just really rare, uh, out there.

05:40And, uh, uh, and part of a lot of that is, you know, sellers can't, you know, if they're underwater,

05:46they can't sell their homes in the open market, you know, they have to go through a short sale.

05:49So there's all these things that, you know, my, my response to everything is probably not the most

05:54popular one just endure, right? The growth rate of pricing slowing down is good. Inventory rising is

06:00good. Housing affordability got better on its own. When rates fall a little bit, affordability

06:05improves in that sense. And that's how we've dealt it. But I think the problem is when you have

06:10three years of the lowest home sales ever, and in every survey, everybody's angry about something

06:15that people tend to like, try to push something again. I, you know, 50 year mortgage, that's

06:20obviously not hopping. You don't hear anything about portable mortgages or, you know, there's all

06:24these ideas that were thrown out and it's a, it's a midterms and stuff. So, uh, like we

06:30stress from the beginning, don't take anything seriously until you get something signed as a

06:35law. Then after that, you could go into the, uh, um, what, what can, or what can't happen.

06:41I tell you what, I always so appreciate the data that we have and the way that we approach

06:45this. So today in the daily mail, right? Like, um, which we can make fun of all the daily

06:50mail, but like lots of people get their, uh, news from social, from sites like the daily

06:56mail from social on those sites, whatever, or people sharing it. And their headline is

07:00Florida, Texas, and California lead America's housing crash as other sunbelt states start

07:06to crack as values plunge 7.6%. And that's from the Dallas, uh, their, uh, Dallas number

07:147.6% over a year. And I'm like, that doesn't seem like a crash for me. And I live in Dallas.

07:19What is your take on 7.6%? Doom porn sells. I know. If we, if we have not, I mean, I've

07:28dealt with this crew since 2012. We were like, you know, we're, we're, we always like to rehash,

07:32uh, everything, but when, when people try to take one bit of data line and try to make it

07:38into economics done right is just boring. It's just nobody. I mean, especially in this day

07:43and age, especially now with AI and everything. I mean, I'm trying to like make it as entertaining

07:47as possible, but like, I'm going to give you something there. There's a show Saks Realty.

07:53I mean, if you ever wanted to do a, an anti-American propaganda garbage website, Saks Realty is it.

08:00And that's one guy I just want to light up in front of everyone, but that guy had Harry Dent

08:05on and Harry Dent is just absolute garbage. But Harry Dent said there's going to be a 90% crash

08:10in stocks and there's an 80% crash in home prices. I mean, even if you're intoxicated with like

08:17crazy drugs, that's even a stretch, but you know, a hundred thousand views, you know,

08:23because it sells it's the, the, you're supposed to get the attention of the person by doing this.

08:29And then when you, when you look at it, but it's the world we live in, we've always said myself

08:34and a few others, we've, we've taken a crusade against, you know, this kind of anti-American stance

08:40about, you know, everybody's terrible. The whole economy is worse. And, and we all lay it back

08:45to one group of people. So it's always the anti-central bank people. It's always the skulls

08:50and bones of the new world order and all that stuff. And, and nothing is going to change.

08:55These people are, these people are elderly Gen Xers or baby boomers are all good to the grave,

09:00just bleep posting for the rest of their lives. So it is what it is. This is just a world we live

09:06in. All we can do is try to get the proper information out as, as much as possible and counteract

09:12the doom porn, but there it's just so much volume, so much attention and so much height,

09:19but we stick to the tracker and we go with it. And like last year was supposed to be the first

09:24and second biggest home price crash post world war. You never happened. Right. And they don't care

09:29because the more incorrect they are, the more attention they get. That's just the word, the world

09:33we live in. So what are you looking at for the tracker this week?

09:36So to me, I mean, for our economics summit in Dallas, Texas on February 10th,

09:43by the time that comes, we get a good idea of how the year is starting off with. And usually,

09:50you know, the new listings data, I'm really keeping an eye on new listings data and price

09:54cut percentages. Cause you know, if you ever had like a, a, a vertical impulse to housing,

10:00showing cracks, those data lines would actually kick out really early because by May and June,

10:05you get an idea of if there is anything called seller stress, seller induced stress out there,

10:11but I really just want to have new listings get above 80,000 and just hover around 80 to a hundred

10:18thousand. Like we used to in the old days, cause most sellers are home buyers. And I'm hoping now

10:23that, you know, affordability got a little bit better rates are a little bit lower demands up a

10:27little bit. So, you know, you get people more comfortable, but I think the stability of rates,

10:31you know, going out for the spring, it, we haven't had that in years. We have not had stability in

10:39rates going into years. So I am, I cannot wait to see how the data looks like if we just hang around

10:45in the low sixes and don't have these violent spikes up, up and out. And that part of me was

10:51when the mortgage backed security thing was, was announced, that was to me more of a defensive

10:56mechanism than an offensive mechanism. Cause the spreads were almost back to normal anyway,

11:00but it's to create a little bit more stability. If somebody had mentioned that to the white

11:06house, create a little bit more stability. And in that stability, the backdrop can be a little

11:12bit better, uh, uh, going into the spring and summer. And then you get a little bit more of

11:16a functioning housing market. So that's, that's what I'm looking for is always early on. You want

11:21to see the new listings data out there, uh, and, and, and anything, uh, it picks up. And by the time

11:26it's spring comes, cause what happened in 2022 was 2022 was the craziest housing year ever out of

11:31all the things I've ever seen in my life. There was almost three housing cycles within one calendar

11:36year. Uh, uh, and then you, you had, uh, home prices escalating out of control early on. That

11:41was very, that was the whole savagely unhealthy housing market was based on that principle that

11:46it was very, very bad 2022. Then rates started to go up, but we needed rates to go up higher than

11:52what we were normally accustomed to try to create some balance. And then home sales started to crash

11:57and then comes November 9th, right? November 9th. We're thinking, okay, now we're, we're, we're kind

12:03of think we can get down to 4 million. If the forward looking data gets better, which, uh, you

12:08know, it's showing, and then we get to 4 million, we should bounce. And now we're here in 2026

12:13and that 4 million level held, right? The supply and demand equilibrium changed and we're just doing

12:19this tug of war. So I'm just, I'm fascinated to see how the new listings and how buyers and sellers

12:24work with stability, right? And stability is the key. And I got, I I'm biased. They don't want a 50

12:30year mortgage, portable mortgage, any of this stuff. I just wanted the marketplace to just kind of let

12:35it, let it do its thing. Uh, but as of right now it's doing its thing and it's, it's so much healthier

12:41now than what we've had to deal with in the past. And that's why I'm excited about the spring. I want

12:46to keep an eye on that with a tracker going out. Uh, if any, which, what we don't want to see is

12:52new listings data, not grow like in 2023, we did not want to see the second, second half of 2022,

12:58where we saw new listings data basically go down to all time lows. And that sort of continued into

13:042020. That would not be a healthy thing. So I'm rooting for new listings data to get back to normal.

13:10So we had a good start of the year and that's something we'll go over with the tracker over the

13:14weekend. I love it. So guys look at the tracker. We made it so easy for you guys and come to the

13:19housing economic summit. You do not want to miss out on that thing. Yes. And always remember all

13:23these headlines about housing and everything. Just remember, wait until something is signed.

13:29Okay. It might not even be, uh, uh, enforceable until like next year out there, but, uh, uh,

13:36whatever it is, we're in a better spot in 2026 going into the spring because of the fed policy

13:43is less, uh, uh, uh, less strict, uh, spreads are getting better. Spreads have a little bit of a

13:49backup protection on it. Inventories of price growth is cooling down. All the things that made

13:55the housing market unhealthy in 2020, all of 2021 and early 20, those things are gone. Right. And

14:03with less volatility and rates positive for everyone, you see, see how excited I am. You know,

14:08you know, it's, it's, it's, this is the balance, right? The whole unhealthy housing market. We

14:13need higher rates. All these things came to this fruition, this backdrop, and this is what a normal

14:19housing market looks like without the drama in there. So we need, okay. I'm all for that. Logan,

14:24thank you so much for being on. And maybe by the next time we speak, we'll have a new fed chair.

14:28It could happen at any moment. Who knows? Who knows? Yes. All right. Thank you.

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