- 18 hours ago
On today’s episode, Editor in Chief Sarah Wheeler talks with Lead Analyst Logan Mohtashami about housing demand, inventory, existing home sales and mortgage rates.
Related to this episode:
Positive housing demand leads to inventory almost going negative YOY
https://www.housingwire.com/articles/positive-housing-demand-leads-to-inventory-almost-going-negative-yoy/
HousingWire | YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXDD_3y3LvU60vac7eki-6Q
More info about HousingWire
https://lnk.bio/housingwire
To learn more about Total Expert visit totalexpert.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.
Related to this episode:
Positive housing demand leads to inventory almost going negative YOY
https://www.housingwire.com/articles/positive-housing-demand-leads-to-inventory-almost-going-negative-yoy/
HousingWire | YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXDD_3y3LvU60vac7eki-6Q
More info about HousingWire
https://lnk.bio/housingwire
To learn more about Total Expert visit totalexpert.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.
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NewsTranscript
00:09Welcome, everyone. My guest today is lead analyst Logan Motoshami to talk about housing demand,
00:15housing inventory, existing home sales, and so much more. Before we dive in, I want to thank
00:20our sponsor, Total Expert, for making this episode possible. Logan, welcome back to the podcast.
00:26It is wonderful to be here, Sarah. We had another eventful weekend of ceasefires and not ceasefires.
00:32And no, we don't like that. No, we're not going to give that up. And as always, you know, Sunday
00:38night
00:38futures markets, you know, oil prices tend to go up and bond yields go up when there doesn't look
00:43like to be a deal. But we're kind of just hovering around kind of the 336, 341 level on the
00:4910-year
00:50yield. And oil prices are around 100. So here we are. Well, we have so much economic data this week
00:57with inflation, existing home sales, and a bunch of other stuff in Fed speech. So we just got to kick
01:03it off this way. Okay, well, let's start with the tracker, and then we'll get into existing home
01:06sales. So demand, again, positive this week, last week. Yes. And, you know, so far, the housing market
01:14has handled the rate shock, and the rate shock has to be, you know, a little bit different this year.
01:22But, you know, when we started 2026, the forecast was we can get 237,000 more existing home sales
01:30if mortgage rates could stay under six and a quarter. Now, we had the, you know, December and
01:37January, Christmas and New Year's impact, which always happens. Then we had the snowstorm,
01:43and then we had the war. But even with all of that, the housing market data has held firm enough,
01:50right, to not have any kind of big negative hits, even with 65 basis points move higher
01:57in mortgage rates this year from the lows to the highs, where in the past that would have,
02:03you know, impacted demand a little bit more. Not so much this time around. So if we can just get
02:11back
02:12to under six and a quarter, less volatility, you know, the spreads are better now than they were in
02:18previous years, you know, you could get a couple hundred thousand more home sales. And the supply
02:24and demand equilibrium game change starting from mid-June of 2025. And that's, what's that done is
02:30similar to a degree what happened in 2023. Its inventory growth is now down to 1.49%.
02:37Right. And I think for some people who don't track data weekly or versed on it, they see these
02:44headlines. Like this morning, we're at it again, right? Twitter is posting, there's the biggest
02:50amount of sellers ever in history. Home prices are crashing. And then all of a sudden, you know,
02:55ICE mortgage monitor comes out and says, two-year high in price growth this year. So the reason the
03:02tracker was created and all of us now at HousingWires, we could easily say this, we have a
03:07HousingWire app and we have HousingWire intelligence. And how I talk about the tracker and economics of
03:14housing for the national data, you can now use for your local stuff. And the supply and demand
03:20equilibrium changed mid-June. And now we're at the point where it's like a month away, Sarah,
03:25wouldn't it be crazy if right in mid-June of 2026, inventory goes negative? And we're all like,
03:31homies, we told you all, it's going to take six to nine months for people to figure it out. And
03:35I think a lot of people have got things that look different this year than last year.
03:38Okay. So the inventory part is so interesting to me. So I woke up to different headlines from
03:43very different places. The Daily Mail, of course, a tabloid was like, 380 markets in the US are
03:51crashing and here's where prices are going to crash. And then the Wall Street Journal was talking
03:56about like, is the spring housing market a dud and all these things. And I'm like, I don't know how
04:00you have prices crashing if you have less inventory. So maybe talk a little bit about
04:06that whole premise when it comes to home prices and inventory.
04:11So again, the history of housing economics, we have over 80 years of it. National nominal home
04:16prices crashing is very rare. It's like a once in a lifetime event. But what spawned after 2008 is
04:25that people just because so many people own homes that that's what they generate and want to see
04:29so much wealth is tied up to housing. We don't have a lot of history. But again, this means you
04:36read
04:36books, Sarah Wheeler. Do you know where I get the reading books from? You know, you ever see Indiana
04:42Jones, the last crusade? Yes, yes. Okay, we're Sean Connery, right? Sean Connery is Indiana Jones's
04:48father. And the Nazis capture him in the tank. And the Nazi guy is taking his glove and he's slapping
04:55him around. He's like, why do you guys? Why'd you come back for the book? Why'd you come back for
04:59the
04:59book? The map is then in a... And then the last slap attempt, Sean Connery grabs his hand and says,
05:06you morons, maybe you should stop burning or maybe you should read books instead of burning them.
05:13So if people just read the tracker or read 80 years plus of data, nominal home price crashes is rare.
05:22Nominal home prices falling is even rare. So to get a crash, you would need not only excess amount of
05:30inventory, you need new listings data to grow, you need distressed sales. We do have history that shows
05:36national prices can fall in a bigger fashion than normal when you have distressed sales.
05:41But I think it's very confusing because the Wall Street Journal or other outlets just don't have
05:46live data to track. And I think the Florida thing is still really confusing people because Florida's
05:52inventory is noticeably down. But Florida was working from an elevated level. So the supply and
05:57demand equilibrium change with housing economics in June of 2025 has even filtered itself to a state even
06:03like Florida. And now we've gone from 33% year-over-year growth now to 1.49%. So if you
06:09just
06:10take the slope of the curve, that's what we always talk about. The slope of the curve will get you
06:14probably some negative, but we are working from much more elevated levels with affordability and
06:19issue. So you don't have to worry about prices escalating out of control, but you don't have to worry
06:24about a national nominal home price crash. So both things are not in the works this year,
06:29but you have to meticulously follow someone who just tracks weekly fresh data and tells you the
06:37truth. And unfortunately, we live in a society where you don't really get rewarded. You get rewarded for
06:43doom porn trash. And we dealt with it again over the weekend. We dealt with it this morning on Monday.
06:49And
06:50it's been a joy actually like refuting this with our charts.
06:56I do think, you know, you talk about how, you know, in the track, you're like, it's not like
07:01sales are booming. No one's saying sales are booming, but the demand and the level that we have
07:06and what we see in inventory is like, it's not a terrible year for housing. We'd all like it to
07:11be
07:11better. It would be better if it was closer to six, but the demand so far has held up.
07:16Yeah. I mean, we're used to like rate shocks taking above seven and then having the slope
07:20or the curve of the demand, you know, from an increased fall down. But, you know, it's just,
07:27we had the existing home sales report today. Existing home sales is backward looking to us.
07:31You know, we are always, our weekly tracker data, especially our pending sales is 30 to 60 days out.
07:37And then the purchase application data looks out 30 to 90 days. So we like to tag the weekly pending
07:42contracts with the purchase application data and merge them together with a 10-year yield and create
07:47a channel where demand actually grows. You know, six and a quarter and under looks good. But also,
07:52we have to remember days on market are longer now. You know, we're almost kind of back to the normal
07:57NARs, 30 to 45 days. And that means transactions can sometimes flip over to one month and the other.
08:03I have noticed that there are more revisions being done on the NAR reports. Like last month's,
08:08a negative number was already revised up. So every single month this year has been over 4 million.
08:16But if you could just get down to six and a quarter and under and keep it with less volatility,
08:20you get a little bit more transaction growth because the affordability issue is still here.
08:24That's not a problem. But our new listings data got to 80,000 faster this year than last year. So
08:31the seller's growth isn't big, but most home sellers are buyers. We're getting that in there.
08:36There's some volatility in the data that we've got to work around with, with the snowstorm and
08:41the war. But it's fine. As long as wages are outgrowing home prices, it's a positive year of
08:47my book because I'm realistic to how much sales can grow in this environment. If mortgage rates
08:53were under 5.75%, it'd be a different equation for me. But it's crazy because the builder's purchase
09:02application data just hit a post-COVID high. And people are like, what is that? How is that?
09:07Well, I said, yeah, that's at a high, but is new home sales at a million? No. So housing data
09:14could
09:14be a bit funky. But this is why we created the tracker. And in late 2022, mid-2024, and mid
09:21-2025,
09:22we're like, okay, things are changing. You got to go with it. And this is why we want to teach
09:27people
09:27how to read it. If you read the tracker, people who read the tracker are ahead of 99.9%
09:33of the
09:33people on planet Earth. So you don't really have to worry about them. But everyone else
09:38has to maybe play a little bit of catch up. Anything else you get out of looking at the
09:42existing home sales today? Not really. I mean, the older I get, the more I just realize the
09:48tracker is a little bit more efficient. The NER's pending home sales data is a little bit too wild for
09:54us. But the existing home sales is getting a little bit more revisions than I'm used to.
10:00And always remember, home prices rose again year over year. But let's speak, context is key now.
10:06The comps are getting easier to show home price growth. So the 2026 forecast for me was for a
10:14negative 0.62% decline in national format, which is rare for it to happen. But in this case,
10:21we're getting slight growth on a year over year basis in there. And that's kind of just more of
10:27a comp story as well. Because to me, not much is really happening on the price side, which is
10:33another positive factor for 2026. Where in 2023, inventory actually went negative. Rates went from
10:416% to 8% within that year. Home sales had a good start. But then when rates went up,
10:46sales declined.
10:47But home prices were up almost 6% in 2020. See, that's not a good thing. There's no advantage
10:55you gain in that because prices rose faster in some cases versus the previous decade when rates
11:05were lower. So very, very healthy year this year. But if you want to get growth, you know what rate
11:12level to get. But demand is multi-year highs and weekly pendings, purchase applications up. The
11:17volume curve is moving up a little bit higher. New listings data. That's what I was really excited
11:23about. We got back up to $80,000. I just need one more week above $80,000 to get that
11:29back-to-back
11:29$80,000. That's where like normal. I mean, we're not back to the $80,000 to $100,000, but we're
11:35getting
11:35to levels to where those sellers, right? You know, because mortgage rate lockdown. Who do you think
11:41are listing these homes? You think it's first-time homebuyers, Sarah? Nope. They don't have a home.
11:46They don't have a. I mean, majority of these people are silent generations, baby boomers,
11:54Gen X, elder millennials, because most home sellers or buyers, you get back to a normal curve,
11:5880 to 100,000. That's good. I mean, you look at the seasonal increase. So I'm very happy with this
12:05year as I was with last year because price growth cooled down a lot and allows wages. So it makes
12:11housing a little bit more affordable. But sticking with the call for this year, I needed six and a
12:16quarter and under to get that 237. So the war changed that variable. But for what it's worth,
12:21boy, housing held up firm considering the war shock and the rates going up.
12:25Okay. Well, let's talk about rates. That was next on my list anyway. You know, there's really not that
12:31much to say about like the latest peace treaty or we got, I mean, until we see something actually work
12:38for days on end, I just feel like it's not even, you know, necessarily worth talking about. I do think
12:43it's interesting to think about how the markets are reacting now. So we didn't, I mean, the 10-year yield
12:50compared to oil prices, what do you think about that?
12:53Well, here's the interesting aspect. Whenever there's a ceasefire, the 10-year yield goes to
12:57424 in the past. It doesn't really do that anymore. Like it gets down to 435. I think they
13:05want a little bit more conviction. But also we have a lot more hawks now that are very vocal.
13:13On the Federal Reserve, you mean?
13:15Yeah, on the Federal Reserve. There's not a lot of, there's not enough hawks to raise rates. And
13:20Kevin Warsh is going to be the Fed chairman soon. But there's enough to keep the market kind of
13:25thinking, you know, and again, for me personally, it's 65 to 75% of where the 10-year yield of
13:30mortgage
13:31rate is Fed policy. This one was, you had a lot more hawks. We have inflation week, but
13:36you just can't operate while the conflict goes on because everybody is saying, well, inflation is
13:42going to get worse if the conflict goes on. You obviously know the White House is thinking about
13:47this because they reduced the tariffs on beef. Sarah Wheeler, why would you reduce the tariff on
13:54beef?
13:56Fertilizer prices?
13:57No, it's to help with the cost.
14:00Oh, right, right, right. Yes.
14:02So you reduce the tariff because food inflation, right, with fertilizer, you know, diesel prices,
14:08all these things coming up, you know, hey, listen, let's help out a little bit and reduce the tariffs
14:14temporarily on beef because, you know, again, the midterms are coming up. And I just, I don't,
14:21I hope, I hope a deal comes very soon. But boy, we just, we have political economic cycles for two
14:29years here voting. You know, Iran doesn't necessarily have to worry about that, nor does
14:33Russia or China. So they have that advantage or just waiting out or trying to get the best deal by
14:42just prolonging things is something that we don't have the luxury because we have political cycles
14:49there. And reducing the tariffs to beef today wasn't a shock in my mind considering, you know,
14:55diesel prices going up so much recently.
14:57Okay. Well, when you look at the data, you talked about getting over 80,000, right, new listings
15:02per week, which is what we want to see. Are we at the peak for our tracker data? Are we
15:07at the peak
15:08of what we're going to see for this spring home buying season? So our, our weekly pending sales
15:14data that we show, you could see the seasonal curve. We're kind of at the peak area of here. So
15:20when, when we see multi-year high in demand, context is key, right? We know, you know, so we're working
15:26from a very, very low base effect. So we get a little bit of growth on a year over year
15:31basis.
15:31Just remember that that's not saying too much. I think the closer you get to early 2022 data,
15:38then you get to actually see some growth, but we're kind of at the seasonal, near the seasonal
15:44peak of the weekly pending home sales. And then that starts to decline. The new listings data has
15:49just a few more weeks. And again, always remember the new listings data normal is 80 to a hundred
15:54thousand. It's actually rare to be even over a hundred thousand. We had a few times in the last
15:59decade, but when housing was breaking, um, uh, back in, uh, the housing will crash again, this was
16:07running at 250 to 400,000 per week for years. That's so much years. Why distress sellers that
16:15were not going to be buyers. So what was coming into the marketplace was forced. You, we've always
16:21stressed this when, when, when you see something breaking in housing, our new listings data will go
16:26vertical and homies who is going to know about that first on Friday night. It's the chart daddy.
16:32Cause that's what he does on Friday night. He sits there and looks at the data and writes the tracker
16:36and waits for Sarah to edit it, you know, and Sarah comes in and goes, that's too long. That's right.
16:40No, that's wrong to me. You know? So you'll be the first to know, but when it starts to break,
16:46that thing can go vertical and stay up for a very long time. But again, what happened during the
16:51housing bubble crash years, you had a credit boom in your credit bus. We never had a credit boom
16:55for the last 15 years. If you look at like purchase application data, you know, getting up to 300
17:01took the entire decade. I think it was at 500. That index was at 500 adjusting to inflation. Credit
17:07debt was booming. Can't have that anymore. With qualified mortgage and the bankruptcy reform laws,
17:12you can't have credit expand like that. So we're not going to have that kind of, but when it does,
17:17there's going to be a time where housing does crack. You'll see the new listings data go vertical.
17:22And that's why if you want to look in the housing wire intelligence, look in your area,
17:26take about a few years and look at the new listings data, but then also go back in time
17:31and see what it looked like back then. So it gives you an idea of something to have a reference
17:37with.
17:37So you could be the expert in your area. Again, my job is to teach the general economics.
17:42And now this is the third time since late 2022, where the tracker forward looking gets a little
17:48shift, but now you can do it for yourself. Love that so much. Anything else happening this
17:52week as far as data you're looking at? Oh, I mean, we have a ton of data, inflation data,
17:57inflation data with Fed governors talking. Those are going to be very, very critical going out because
18:07as long as the conflict is still going on, you're probably going to get more hawkish people talking
18:13more because they're going to say inflation is embedded. So I think that's going to be a very
18:19interesting aspect on inflation week. Like we have, we have CPI, we have PPI inflation,
18:23and we have Fed governors talking. Warsh is going to come into play soon. You know, that's going to be
18:29just so much fun. End of this week, right? End of this week he's scheduled.
18:32So it's just going to be a whole new regime, but we're starting out with a real civil war here.
18:38And
18:40the longer this goes with the conflict, the more hawks they can get, you know, and eventually,
18:46you know, the doves like Michelle Bowman or Christopher Waller or Mary Daly, you know,
18:53people that are still, you know, counting on maybe two rate cuts in, it's harder to keep them onto the
19:00side of it. But we'll see, you know, again, until this conflict ends, we just have just this one
19:08cloud over a lot of data because we're tied to the 10-year yield and mortgage rates in this sector
19:13where other sectors, not so much. So it'll be something we track a lot every single day. How
19:18does the bond market react to inflation and governors and everything? Well, Logan, we are so thankful for
19:23you staying up on Friday night, being up on Sunday night, looking at all those charts for us. We
19:29appreciate it. Everyone needs a nerdy friend in their lives. You might as well have to try to be
19:33your nerdy friend. We are lucky. Talk to you again soon.
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