Lawler on Existing Home Sales, Population Projections and Household Slowdown

Today, in the CalculatedRisk Real Estate Newsletter: Lawler on Existing Home Sales, Population Projections and Household Slowdown

Excerpt:

Census’ new long-term US population projections released last Friday were massively lower than the previous long-term projection released in 2017. In a report earlier this week I highlighted the how the projected components of population change (births, deaths, and net international migration) differed in the two forecasts. Today I’m going to highlight a few “issues” with the latest projections over the next few years.

First, the “projected” components of change from July 1, 2022, to June 30, 2023, differ significantly from likely components of change based on existing information.

For deaths, the latest projection shows deaths from July 1, 2022, to June 30, 2023, of 2,861,510, a whopping 298,232 lower than CDC provisional data for that period show (this latter number will be revised upward slightly). In looking at deaths by age, mortality rates are “too low” in the latest long-term projection for almost all age groups, but especially for young to middle-aged adults.

For net international migration (NIM), the latest projection shows NIM from July 1, 2022, to June 30, 2023, of 853,220, or a sizeable 157,703 below the estimated NIM from July 1, 2021, to June 30, 2022, in the Vintage 2022 population estimates. Yet the admittedly limited data available on immigration trends suggest the NIM INCREASED from 2022 to 2023, and my best estimate in that NIM from July 1, 2022, to June 30, 2022, was about 1,200,000 – 346,780 higher than the assumption in the latest long-term population projection.

Finally, births in the latest long-term population projection from July 1, 2022, to June 30, 2023, are 18,788 below provisional CDC data for this period.

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