HousingWire Lead Analyst Logan Mohtashami appeared on CNBC‘s Squawk on the Street on Wednesday to talk about the health of the housing market, and more specifically about today’s pending home sales data.
Mohtashami explained how demand for existing homes is still trending near 21st-century lows. As long as mortgage rates stay near 23-year highs, Mohtashami believes we will see softness in data. The recent move lower in rates is a good thing for housing
“The American public just isn’t into the Fed’s housing policy,” he said on CNBC, in reference to homeowners who are not listing their property on the market. However, he remained optimistic, pointing to data points that the Fed considers positive: the growth rate of inflation is falling, so are job openings. Eventually, people will need to start buying homes again and creating households, he said.
Using weekly data from Altos Research, Mohtashami showed that new listings have been trending at their lowest levels in history for the past 12 months. However, he noticed another notable decline in listing since mortgage rates really peaked above the 7% range.
Mohtashami’s latest articles and podcasts on HousingWire include:
New listings take a hit, possibly due to higher mortgage rates
Should we expect more Fed rate hikes?
