Mortgage Rates – increased this week as the price of Mortgaged-Backed Securities (MBS) declined after nearly 3 months of steady gains. Rates are up approximately 1/8% from this time last year.
Inflation – the Fed’s preferred inflation index, the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE), rose 0.3% in August and ticked up from 2.6% to 2.7% year over year. When you exclude food and energy, which the Fed cares more about, the year over year rate of increase is at 2.9%
Delinquencies – ICE released their mortgage delinquency rates report showed a 3.43% national delinquency rate, up 2.92% year over year. The total foreclosure rate is still quite low at 0.38% (remember that only 2/3rd of homes in the US have mortgages).
Existing Home Sales – NAR reported that sales of existing homes remained flat in August staying at a pace of 4M annualized sales. The Southern region continues to lead, making up 46% of home sales while the West accounts for 18%. There were 1.53M units for sale at the end of August down 1.3% from July and up 11.7% year over year. There is a 4.6m supply of homes for sale and they typically last 31 days on the market (up from 28 in July and 26 last year).
New Home Sales typically represent 10% of the market. They rose nearly 21% to an 800K-unit annualized pace (20% of the market). On a year over year basis sales are up 15%. The median home price is $414,000 up 5% from last month and 2% year over year. There were 490,000 new homes for sale in August with 7.4m of inventory.
Mortgage Applications – to purchase home were flat from last week while refinances increased 1%. Even though rates are up slightly from this time last year applications are up 30%.