Episode summary
Positive housing demand is reducing inventory growth
HousingWire Daily
· · 20 min · Hosts: Sarah Wheeler · Guests: Logan Mohtashami
Summary
Logan Mohtashami argued that housing demand has held up better than many bearish headlines suggest, even after the year’s rate shock and volatility tied to war and inflation concerns. He said the market was still supported by weekly pending sales, purchase applications, and new listings that have climbed back toward more normal seasonal levels. In his view, mortgage rates under 6.25% would unlock more transaction growth, but even above that level the market has avoided a major demand collapse.
He also pushed back on the idea that a national home-price crash is imminent. Logan said the combination of limited inventory growth, a lack of distressed selling, and still-strong wages means prices are more likely to stay roughly flat than fall sharply. He contrasted today’s market with the housing bubble era, when distressed listings surged vertically and credit expanded far more aggressively.
For the spring season, he said the tracker suggests demand is near its seasonal peak, while new listings are still below truly normal 80,000 to 100,000 weekly levels. Looking ahead, he said CPI, PPI, and Federal Reserve commentary will matter because the conflict and energy moves are influencing bond yields and mortgage rates.
Key takeaways
- Logan Mohtashami said mortgage rates under 6.25% could add hundreds of thousands of existing home sales, but the market has still held up above that level.
- He said inventory growth has slowed to 1.49% year over year, making a national nominal home-price crash unlikely without a big rise in distressed supply.
- Logan said weekly new listings have returned to 80,000 faster than last year, which supports a healthier spring market even if sales are not booming.
- He said the current housing cycle is being shaped by the 10-year yield, inflation data, and hawkish Fed commentary tied to the conflict and energy prices.
- Logan said a true housing break would show up first in new listings data going vertical, not in headline price-crash stories.
Notable quotes
“nominal home prices crashing is very rare. It's like a once in a-lifetime event”
“the supply and demand equilibrium changed midJune and now we're at the point where it's like a month away Sarah”
“when it starts to break that thing can go vertical and stay up for a very long time”
“as long as the conflict is still going on, uh you're probably going to get more hawkish people talking more”
How the episode opens
Welcome everyone. My guest today is lead analyst Logan Motoshami to talk about housing demand, housing inventory, existing home sales, and so much more. Before we dive in, I want to thank our sponsor, Total Expert, for making this episode possible. Logan, welcome back to the podcast.
It is wonderful to be here, Sarah. We had another eventful weekend of ceasefires and non- ceasefires and no, we don't like that. No, we're not going to give that up.
And uh as always, you know, Sunday night futures uh markets, you know, oil prices tend to go up and bond yields go up when there doesn't look like to be a deal, but we're kind of just hovering around kind of the 336 341 level on the 10-year yield and oil prices are around 100. So, here we are. Well, well, we have so much uh economic data this week with inflation, existing home sales, and a bunch of other stuff in Bed Speech.
So, we just got to kick it off this way.
Okay. Well, let's start with the tracker and then we'll get into existing home sales. So, demand again positive this week, last week.
Yes. And you know, so far, uh the housing market has handled the rate shock and the rate shock has to be, you know, a little bit different this year. But, you know, when we started 2026, the forecast was we can get 237,000 more existing home sales if mortgage rates could stay under six and a quarter.
Now, we had the, you know, December and January, uh, Christmas and New Year's, uh, impact, which always happens. Then we had the snowstorm and then we had the war. But even with all of that, the housing market data has has held firm enough, right, to not have any kind of big negative hits, even with 65 basis points move higher in mortgage rates this year from the lows to the highs where in the past that would have, you know, uh uh uh uh impact the demand a little bit more, not so much this time around.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- housing demand
- inventory growth
- existing home sales
- mortgage rates
- inventory yoy
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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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