by Calculated Risk on 10/23/2023 08:21:00 AM

Altos reports that active single-family inventory was up 1.4% week-over-week.

Click on graph for larger image.

This inventory graph is courtesy of Altos Research.

As of October 20th, inventory was at 554 thousand (7-day average), compared to 546 thousand the prior week.   

Year-to-date, inventory is up 12.9%.  And inventory is up 36.7% from the seasonal bottom 27 weeks ago.

The second graph shows the seasonal pattern for active single-family inventory since 2015.

The red line is for 2023.  The black line is for 2019.  Note that inventory is up from the record low for the same week in 2021, but below last year and still well below normal levels.

Inventory was down 3.1% compared to the same week in 2022 (last week it was down 3.5%), and down 40.7% compared to the same week in 2019 (last week down 42.3%). 

In 2022, inventory didn't peak until the last week in October, and it appears same week inventory will be below 2022 levels for the remainder of the year - depending on when inventory finally peaks this year!

Inventory is now slightly above the same week in 2020 levels (dark blue line).

Mike Simonsen discusses this data regularly on Youtube.

by Calculated Risk on 10/22/2023 06:14:00 PM

Weekend:
• Schedule for Week of October 22, 2023

Monday:
• At 8:30 AM ET, Chicago Fed National Activity Index for September. This is a composite index of other data.

From CNBC: Pre-Market Data and Bloomberg futures S&P 500 futures are mostly unchanged (fair value).

Oil prices were up over the last week with WTI futures at $88.08 per barrel and Brent at $92.16 per barrel. A year ago, WTI was at $85, and Brent was at $92 - so WTI oil prices were up slightly year-over-year.

Here is a graph from Gasbuddy.com for nationwide gasoline prices. Nationally prices are at $3.51 per gallon. A year ago, prices were at $3.78 per gallon, so gasoline prices are down $0.27 year-over-year.

by Calculated Risk on 10/22/2023 08:21:00 AM

Every year I track seasonal retail hiring for hints about holiday retail sales.  At the bottom of this post is a graph showing the correlation between October seasonal hiring and holiday retail sales.

Here is a graph of retail hiring for previous years based on the BLS employment report:

Click on graph for larger image.

This graph shows the historical net retail jobs added for October, November and December by year.

Retailers hired 509 thousand seasonal workers last year (using BLS data, Not Seasonally Adjusted), and 144 thousand seasonal workers last October.

Note that in the early '90s, retailers started hiring seasonal workers earlier - and the trend towards hiring earlier has continued.

The following scatter graph is for the years 2005 through 2022 and compares October retail hiring with the real increase (inflation adjusted) for retail sales (Q4 over previous Q4).

In general October hiring is a pretty good indicator of seasonal sales. R-square is 0.77 for this small sample. Note: This uses retail sales in Q4, and excludes autos, gasoline and restaurants. 

NOTE: The dot in the upper right - with real Retail sales up over 10% YoY is for 2020 - when retail sales soared due to the pandemic spending on goods (service spending was soft).

When the October employment report is released on November 3rd, I'll be looking at seasonal retail hiring for hints on what the retailers actually expect for the holiday season.

by Calculated Risk on 10/21/2023 02:11:00 PM

At the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter this week:

• September Housing Starts: Near Record Number of Multi-Family Housing Units Under Construction

• NAR: Existing-Home Sales Decreased to 3.96 million SAAR in September; New Cycle Low

• NMHC: "Apartment Market Continues to Loosen"

• Preliminary 2024 Housing Forecasts

• 30-Year Mortgage Rates Hit 8.0%

• Lawler: Early Read on Existing Home Sales in September

This is usually published 4 to 6 times a week and provides more in-depth analysis of the housing market.

You can subscribe at https://calculatedrisk.substack.com/

by Calculated Risk on 10/21/2023 08:11:00 AM

The key reports this week are the advance estimate of Q3 GDP and September New Home sales.

Another key indicator is Personal Income and Outlays and PCE prices for September.

For manufacturing, the Richmond and Kansas City Fed manufacturing surveys will be released this week.

----- Monday, October 23rd -----
8:30 AM ET: Chicago Fed National Activity Index for September. This is a composite index of other data.

----- Tuesday, October 24th -----
10:00 AM: Richmond Fed Survey of Manufacturing Activity for October.

----- Wednesday, October 25th -----
7:00 AM ET: The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) will release the results for the mortgage purchase applications index.

10:00 AM: New Home Sales for September from the Census Bureau.

This graph shows New Home Sales since 1963. The dashed line is the sales rate for last month.

The consensus is for 679 thousand SAAR, up from 675 thousand in August.

4:35 PM: Speech, Fed Chair Jerome Powell, Introductory Remarks, At the 2023 Moynihan Lecture in Social Science and Public Policy, Washington, D.C.

----- Thursday, October 26th -----
8:30 AM: The initial weekly unemployment claims report will be released. The consensus is for 205 thousand initial claims, up from 198 thousand last week.

8:30 AM: Gross Domestic Product, 3rd quarter 2022 (advance estimate). The consensus is that real GDP increased 4.1% annualized in Q3, up from 2.1% in Q2.

8:30 AM ET: Durable Goods Orders for September from the Census Bureau. The consensus is for a 0.6% increase in durable goods orders.

11:00 AM: Kansas City Fed Survey of Manufacturing Activity for October.

10:00 AM: Pending Home Sales Index for September. The consensus is 1.0% increase in the index.

----- Friday, October 27th -----
8:30 AM ET: Personal Income and Outlays for September. The consensus is for a 0.4% increase in personal income, and for a 0.3% increase in personal spending. And for the Core PCE price index to increase 0.3%. PCE prices are expected to be up 3.4% YoY, and core PCE prices up 3.7% YoY.

10:00 AM: University of Michigan's Consumer sentiment index (Final for October). The consensus is for a reading of 63.2.

by Calculated Risk on 10/20/2023 08:08:00 PM

Note: Mortgage rates are from MortgageNewsDaily.com and are for top tier scenarios.

Due to changes at the CDC, weekly cases are no longer updated.

For deaths, I'm currently using 3 weeks ago for "now", since the most recent two weeks will be revised significantly.

Recently hospitalizations have more than doubled from a low of 5,150 in June 2023, but have declined over the last few weeks.

Hospitalizations are far below the peak of 150,000 in January 2022.

COVID Metrics
	Now	Week Ago	Goal
Hospitalized2	13,533	14,724	≤3,0001
Deaths per Week2	1,254	1,311	≤3501
1my goals to stop weekly posts, 2Weekly for Currently Hospitalized, and Deaths 🚩 Increasing number weekly for Hospitalized and Deaths ✅ Goal met.

Click on graph for larger image.

This graph shows the weekly (columns) number of deaths reported.

Weekly deaths have more than doubled from a low of 469 in early July.  Weekly deaths are far below the weekly peak of 26,000 in January 2021.

by Calculated Risk on 10/20/2023 02:46:00 PM

Today, in the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter: NMHC: "Apartment Market Continues to Loosen"

A brief excerpt:

Apartment market conditions continued to weaken in the National Multifamily Housing Council's (NMHC) Quarterly Survey of Apartment Market Conditions for October 2023, as the Market Tightness (21), Sales Volume (24), Equity Financing (18), and Debt Financing (9) indexes all came in well below the breakeven level (50).
...
• The Market Tightness Index came in at 21 this quarter—below the breakeven level (50)—indicating looser market conditions for the fifth consecutive quarter. Nearly two-thirds of respondents (64%) reported markets to be looser than three months ago, while only 6% thought markets have become tighter. Meanwhile, 27% of respondents thought that market conditions were unchanged over the past three months.

There is more in the article. You can subscribe at https://calculatedrisk.substack.com/

by Calculated Risk on 10/20/2023 12:53:00 PM

The preliminary estimate of Q3 GDP will be released next Thursday, Oct 26th. The consensus estimate is real GDP increased at a 4.1% annualized rate in Q3.

From BofA:

Overall, the data flow since our last weekly pushed up our 3Q US GDP tracking estimate from 3.8% to 4.3% q/q saar. [Oct 20th estimate]
emphasis added

From Goldman:

We left our Q3 GDP tracking estimate unchanged at +4.0% (qoq ar). [Oct 19th estimate]

And from the Altanta Fed: GDPNow

The GDPNow model estimate for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the third quarter of 2023 is 5.4 percent on October 18, unchanged from October 17 after rounding. [Oct 18th estimate]

by Calculated Risk on 10/20/2023 10:21:00 AM

From STR: U.S. hotel results for week ending 14 October

U.S. hotel performance increased from the previous week, and year-over-year comparisons remained mixed, according to CoStar’s latest data through 14 October.

8-14 October 2023 (percentage change from comparable week in 2022):

• Occupancy: 68.5% (-2.3%)
• Average daily rate (ADR): US$164.25 (+3.2%)
• Revenue per available room (RevPAR): US$112.51 (+0.8%)
emphasis added

The following graph shows the seasonal pattern for the hotel occupancy rate using the four-week average.

Click on graph for larger image.

The red line is for 2023, black is 2020, blue is the median, and dashed light blue is for 2022.  Dashed purple is for 2018, the record year for hotel occupancy. 

The 4-week average of the occupancy rate is tracking close to last year, and just above the median rate for the period 2000 through 2022 (Blue).

Note: Y-axis doesn't start at zero to better show the seasonal change.

The 4-week average of the occupancy rate will start to decline seasonally. 

by Calculated Risk on 10/20/2023 08:32:00 AM

Realtor.com has monthly and weekly data on the existing home market. Here is their weekly report from Danielle Hale: Weekly Housing Trends View — Data Week Ending Oct 14, 2023

• Active inventory declined, with for-sale homes lagging behind year ago levels by 2.7%. For 17 straight weeks, the number of homes available for sale has registered below that of the previous year.

• New listings–a measure of sellers putting homes up for sale–were down again this week, by 4.4% from one year ago. Since mid-2022, new listings have registered lower than prior year levels, as the mortgage-rate lock-in effect freezes homeowners with low-rate existing mortgages in place. Although the year over year declines are smaller now than the double-digit pace seen earlier in 2023, declines from the pre-pandemic period are still substantial.

Here is a graph of the year-over-year change in inventory according to realtor.com. 

Inventory was down 2.7% year-over-year - this was the seventeenth consecutive week with a YoY decrease following 58 consecutive weeks with a YoY increase in inventory.  

The YoY decline in inventory has generally been getting smaller recently but might stay down YoY for the remainder of 2023 since inventory was increasing late into the year last year.  However, I expect inventory to be up YoY soon - but still historically very low.

New listings really collapsed a year ago, so the YoY comparison for new listings is easier now - and new listings remain historically very low.