by Calculated Risk on 8/05/2024 07:00:00 PM

From Matthew Graham at Mortgage News Daily: Lowest Mortgage Rates in More Than a Year

As of Friday, the average top tier 30yr fixed mortgage rate was merely at the lowest levels of 2024. A modest additional drop this morning brought that number to the lowest level since April 2023.
...
In the big picture, rates have been moving consistently lower due to an ongoing bond market rally that began in May. That rally is driven by softer inflation/economic data and an increased willingness on the part of the Fed to consider rate cuts. [30 year fixed 6.81%]
emphasis added

Tuesday:
• At 8:30 AM ET, Trade Balance report for June from the Census Bureau. The consensus is the trade deficit to be $72.6 billion.  The U.S. trade deficit was at $75.1 Billion the previous month.

• At 11:00 AM: NY Fed: Q2 Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit

by Calculated Risk on 8/05/2024 02:00:00 PM

From the Federal Reserve: The July 2024 Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey on Bank Lending Practices

The July 2024 Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey on Bank Lending Practices (SLOOS) addressed changes in the standards and terms on, and demand for, bank loans to businesses and households over the past three months, which generally correspond to the second quarter of 2024.

Regarding loans to businesses, survey respondents reported, on balance, tighter standards and basically unchanged demand for commercial and industrial (C&I) loans to firms of all sizes over the second quarter. Meanwhile, banks reported tighter standards and weaker demand for all commercial real estate (CRE) loan categories.

For loans to households, banks reported, on balance, basically unchanged lending standards and weaker demand across all categories of residential real estate (RRE) loans. In addition, banks reported basically unchanged lending standards and unchanged demand for home equity lines of credit (HELOCs). Moreover, standards reportedly tightened for credit card and other consumer loans but remained basically unchanged for auto loans, while demand weakened for auto and other consumer loans but remained basically unchanged for credit card loans.

While banks, on balance, reported having tightened lending standards further for most loan categories in the second quarter, the net shares of banks that reported having tightened lending standards are lower than in the first quarter across almost all loan categories.
emphasis added

Click on graph for larger image.

This graph on Residential Real Estate demand is from the Senior Loan Officer Survey Charts.

This graph is for demand and shows that demand has declined.

The left graphs are from 1990 to 2014.  The right graphs are from 2015 to Q2 2024.

by Calculated Risk on 8/05/2024 11:02:00 AM

Today, in the Real Estate Newsletter: ICE Mortgage Monitor: Existing Home Inventory Surges in Florida and Texas

Brief excerpt:

The local data I track is indicating that Florida and Texas inventory is above normal, whereas inventory is still low in most of the country.

• Nearly every major market (98%) is seeing more for-sale inventory than at this time last year, with the largest rises in Tampa (+98%), Orlando (+82%), North Port (+80%) and Palm Bay, Fla. (+79%) and Denver (+78%)

• One in four major markets has at least 50% more inventory than last year, with one in five now at (or above) pre-pandemic inventory levels

• Lakeland, Fla., for example, had 58% more homes for sale in June than it did, on average, during the same month from 2017 to 2019, with Austin and San Antonio running second and third at 38% and 35% above pre-pandemic levels

by Calculated Risk on 8/05/2024 10:09:00 AM

This graph shows heavy truck sales since 1967 using data from the BEA. The dashed line is the July 2024 seasonally adjusted annual sales rate (SAAR) of 485 thousand.

Heavy truck sales really collapsed during the great recession, falling to a low of 180 thousand SAAR in May 2009.  Then heavy truck sales increased to a new record high of 570 thousand SAAR in April 2019.

Click on graph for larger image.

Note: "Heavy trucks - trucks more than 14,000 pounds gross vehicle weight."

Heavy truck sales declined sharply at the beginning of the pandemic, falling to a low of 308 thousand SAAR in May 2020.  

Heavy truck sales were at 485 thousand SAAR in July, up from 452 thousand in June, and down 3.8% from 504 thousand SAAR in July 2023.  

Usually, heavy truck sales decline sharply prior to a recession.   Heavy truck sales are solid. 

by Calculated Risk on 8/05/2024 08:11:00 AM

Altos reports that active single-family inventory was up 1.0% week-over-week. Inventory is now up 38.4% from the February seasonal bottom.

Click on graph for larger image.

This inventory graph is courtesy of Altos Research.

As of August 2nd, inventory was at 684 thousand (7-day average), compared to 677 thousand the prior week.   

This is the highest level of inventory since June 2020; however, inventory is still far below pre-pandemic levels. 

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

The red line is for 2024.  The black line is for 2019.  

Inventory was up 39.9% compared to the same week in 2023 (last week it was up 39.4%), and down 28.9% compared to the same week in 2019 (last week it was down 29.4%). 

Back in June 2023, inventory was down almost 54% compared to 2019, so the gap to more normal inventory levels is slowly closing.

Mike Simonsen discusses this data regularly on Youtube.

by Calculated Risk on 8/04/2024 09:41:00 PM

Weekend:
• Schedule for Week of August 4, 2024

Monday:
• At 10:00 AM ET, the ISM Services Index for July.   The consensus is for a reading of 51.3, up from 48.8.

• At 2:00 PM, Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey on Bank Lending Practices (SLOOS) for July.

From CNBC: Pre-Market Data and Bloomberg futures S&P 500 are down 80 and DOW futures are down 356 (fair value).

Oil prices were lower over the last week with WTI futures at $73.53 per barrel and Brent at $76.92 per barrel. A year ago, WTI was at $83, and Brent was at $87 - so WTI oil prices are down about 11% year-over-year.

Here is a graph from Gasbuddy.com for nationwide gasoline prices. Nationally prices are at $3.44 per gallon. A year ago, prices were at $3.80 per gallon, so gasoline prices are down $0.36 year-over-year.

by Calculated Risk on 8/04/2024 08:11:00 AM

From STR: U.S. hotel results for week ending 27 July

The U.S. hotel industry reported lower performance results than the previous week and mixed comparisons year over year, according to CoStar’s latest data through 27 July. ...

21-27 July 2024 (percentage change from comparable week in 2023):

• Occupancy: 72.0% (-0.4%)
• Average daily rate (ADR): US$164.45 (+1.3%)
• Revenue per available room (RevPAR): US$118.37 (+0.9%)
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 2024, blue is the median, and dashed light blue is for 2023.  Dashed purple is for 2018, the record year for hotel occupancy. 

The 4-week average of the occupancy rate is tracking just behind last year and is below the median rate for the period 2000 through 2023 (Blue).

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

The 4-week average of the occupancy rate will increase seasonally for another week or two due to summer recreational travel.  

by Calculated Risk on 8/03/2024 02:11:00 PM

At the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter this week:

Click on graph for larger image.

• Case-Shiller: National House Price Index Up 5.9% year-over-year in May

• Inflation Adjusted House Prices 1.9% Below 2022 Peak

• Freddie Mac House Price Index Increased Slightly in June; Up 5.1% Year-over-year

• Fannie and Freddie: Single Family Serious Delinquency Rate Mostly Unchanged in June, Multi-family Increased

• Asking Rents Mostly Unchanged Year-over-year

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

by Calculated Risk on 8/03/2024 08:11:00 AM

This will be a light week for economic data.

The key report this week is the June Trade Deficit.

----- Monday, August 5th -----
10:00 AM: the ISM Services Index for July.   The consensus is for a reading of 51.3, up from 48.8.

2:00 PM: Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey on Bank Lending Practices (SLOOS) for July.

----- Tuesday, August 6th -----
8:30 AM: Trade Balance report for June from the Census Bureau.

This graph shows the U.S. trade deficit, with and without petroleum, through the most recent report. The blue line is the total deficit, and the black line is the petroleum deficit, and the red line is the trade deficit ex-petroleum products.

The consensus is the trade deficit to be $72.6 billion.  The U.S. trade deficit was at $75.1 Billion the previous month.

11:00 AM: NY Fed: Q2 Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit

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

----- Thursday, August 8th -----
8:30 AM: The initial weekly unemployment claims report will be released.  The consensus is for 240 thousand initial claims, down from 249 thousand last week.

----- Friday, August 9th -----
No major economic releases scheduled.

by Calculated Risk on 8/02/2024 07:05:00 PM

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

For deaths, I'm currently using 4 weeks ago for "now", since the most recent three weeks will be revised significantly.

Note: "Effective May 1, 2024, hospitals are no longer required to report COVID-19 hospital admissions, hospital capacity, or hospital occupancy data."  So I'm no longer tracking hospitalizations.

COVID Metrics
	Now	Week Ago	Goal
Deaths per Week🚩	421	383	≤3501
1my goals to stop weekly posts, 🚩 Increasing number weekly for Deaths ✅ Goal met.

Click on graph for larger image.

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

Although weekly deaths met the original goal to stop posting, I'm going to continue to post now that deaths are above the goal again.  

And here is a graph I'm following concerning COVID in wastewater as of August 1st:

This appears to be a leading indicator for COVID hospitalizations and deaths.

COVID in wastewater is increasing - especially in the West and South.