Housing Inventory

Mortgage spreads are almost back to normal

In a week marked by discussions of the potential firing of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and inflation data, mortgage rates remained relatively calm, thanks to improvements in mortgage spreads. Mortgage spreads have improved significantly since 2023, leaving us just 0.49% from normal levels, based on the data we use. This means we can achieve […]

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Housing starts rebounded in June on apartment construction

US housing starts rebounded in June on the strength of multifamily building, while weakness in the larger single-family market pointed to ongoing struggles with bloated inventories and affordability constraints. New residential construction increased 4.6% to an annualized rate of 1.32 million homes last month, picking up after an almost 10% slide in May, according to

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Phillip Cantrell’s book offers blueprint for real estate entrepreneurship

Veteran entrepreneur Phillip Cantrell distills four decades of hard-won business wisdom into his newly released book, “Failing My Way to Success: Lessons from 42 Years of Winning (and Losing) in Business,” which officially launched July 15. The founder and CEO of Benchmark Realty — who sold the company to United Real Estate in 2020 —

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Housing inventory actually fell last week. What is going on? 

Housing inventory decreased last week, while purchase application data grew 25% year-over-year! What is happening in the housing market?  In the two weeks leading up to the July 4th holiday week, our weekly Housing Market Tracker showed that housing data was stabilizing as mortgage rates approached their lowest levels of the year. However, with July

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Zillow: US housing shortage hit 4.7 million in 2023

The U.S. faced a shortfall of 4.7 million homes in 2023 — the largest housing deficit on record — according to a new Zillow analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data. Persistent inventory shortages continue to drive the national housing affordability crisis, limiting access to homeownership and forcing millions of people to share homes with non-relatives.

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Agents say Cape Coral’s housing market is correcting, not crashing

Headlines that call Cape Coral, Florida, the “worst housing market in America” and liken it to precursors of the 2008 financial crisis have garnered discussions across the real estate industry. But local experts and data suggest the reality is far more nuanced. While a recent article from The Wall Street Journal highlighted falling home prices,

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Why mortgage purchase apps are on a 22-week growth streak

One of the most surprising pieces of housing economic data for 2025 is that purchase apps for the existing home sales market have shown 22 weeks of year-over-year growth. And that includes nine consecutive weeks of double-digit year-over-year growth in recent weeks. Normally, this would be a significant news story, but the confusion surrounding this

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NAHB’s top economist weighs tariffs, immigration, economics

NAHB’s top economist weighs tariffs, immigration, economics

Economic uncertainty and tariff negotiations have left home builders that lenders increasingly partner with feeling blue.  Builder confidence in June sank to a low akin to the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, according to the sector’s latest monthly index. The homebuilding industry is dealing with the high mortgage rates suppressing stronger housing demand, and unique

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Mayors back Realtor.com’s campaign to address the housing crisis

The U.S. Conference of Mayors formally endorsed a bipartisan statement to support the Let America Build campaign — a housing policy initiative backed by Realtor.com — during the organization’s annual meeting in Tampa on Sunday. The resolution — introduced by Austin Mayor Kirk Watson — acknowledges the mounting housing affordability crisis, and it calls for

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Have slightly lower mortgage rates stabilized the housing market?

Mortgage rates have been slowly decreasing, but is this drop significant enough to influence our weekly housing data? Keep in mind that our weekend tracker reports provide insights months ahead of the reports most Americans typically read. Therefore, we closely monitor changes in our data trends whenever mortgage rates fluctuate. The last two weeks have

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