Episode summary
Interpreting the latest housing data on demand and inventory
HousingWire Daily
· · Hosts: Sarah Wheeler · Guests: Logan Mohtashami
Summary
Logan Mohtashami argues that the latest housing data is best understood as a continuation of a trend that began in mid-June, not as evidence of a sudden housing crash. He says holiday effects and the January snowstorm distorted short-term readings on sales and demand, which led some people to overreact to one existing-home-sales report. In his view, weekly pending sales, purchase applications, and the recent rebound in demand all fit the same broader pattern, while inventory growth has slowed and price-cut percentages have eased rather than surged.
He says the market is entering a more normal setup as mortgage rates hover near 6% and the 10-year yield sits near the bottom of its range. That backdrop, he argues, is much less volatile than the shock conditions of 2020-2022 and should allow buyers and sellers to operate more predictably. He also says spreads matter: when yields drop quickly, mortgage spreads can worsen even if headline rates fall. Overall, his forecast is for a boring but healthier housing market, with no sign of the runaway price escalation or crash that some commentators expected.
Key takeaways
- Logan Mohtashami says the key housing trend started in mid-June, and the recent data mostly reflects that longer arc, not a crash.
- He says holiday timing and the January snowstorm distorted weekly sales and demand readings, so one weak report should not be overinterpreted.
- Mohtashami says inventory growth has slowed and price-cut percentages are down almost 1%, which is inconsistent with a collapse narrative.
- He argues mortgage rates near 6% and a 10-year yield near the bottom of its range create a steadier backdrop for the spring market.
- Mohtashami says mortgage spreads can worsen when yields fall quickly, so headline rate moves do not translate one-for-one into borrower costs.
Notable quotes
“the inventory growth is not much this year. the price cut percentages are now down almost 1%”
“not to put so much weight onto one report or one data line, especially when you have holiday and snow variables into place and just take the trend”
“what happened in mid June is that the growth rate of inventory started to slow down”
“It's just, it's not that year so far. So, now we're in midFebruary”
“The very very savagely unhealthy housing market of 2020 to early 2022 is over balance. boring”
How the episode opens
Welcome everyone. My guest today is lead analyst Logan Motoshami who's going to walk us through the weekly data to see what's actually happening as we're heading into the spring housing market. Before we dive in, I want to thank our sponsor, Trust and Will, for making this episode possible. Logan, welcome back to the podcast.
It is wonderful to be here. Uh very interesting weekend uh with the tracker data and I think a lot of people are are confused because again a lot of people put way too much weight on that last existing home sales report which many many many many months ago we said would be
When you have the slow thing of Christmas and New Year's and then on top of that you're going to have to deal with some of the snow impact. But what happened is the inventory growth is not much this year. the price cut percentages are now down almost 1%.
Places like Florida, like Jacksonville, there's a, you know, almost double digit year-over-year declines in inventory. So there's a there's a lot of confusing things, but my job here today is just to kind of make it understandable and simple. Uh, and not to put so much weight onto one report or one data line, especially when you have holiday and snow variables into place and just take the trend.
And the trend is now, you know, we we are now almost eight months of a certain trend and we just kind of want to go with that until that trend kind of goes away. So, uh, today is just about clarifying a lot of things.
I think it's interesting because the, you know, the headline on the tracker was kind of like the stability, right? And really this whole year has been like mortgage rates have stabilized.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- housing demand
- mortgage rates
- housing inventory
- housing market data
- mortgage market conditions
Watch the episode
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Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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