Mike Simonsen

1 month ago | housingwire.com | Mike Simonsen

I’ll still play an advisory role and will continue to contribute to HousingWire with a monthly column on the market. If you’re not a HousingWire subscriber, please join us. I will also continue to share regular insights on the housing market via my own social channels, including Twitter and LinkedIn.Make sure you’re following me there if you’d like to keep up with these. I’ll also be sharing details about a fun new project I’m working on very soon, so watch out for that.

1 month ago | housingwire.com | Mike Simonsen

The weekly pending home sales picked up this week as expected, with 2.6% more pending home sales contracts started than a year ago. If you’re following the data closely, you know that home sales are still running at or below last year’s pace. Year to date, through the first week of May, we count 3% fewer total sales than in 2024. But in May and June, the yearly comparisons get easier because last year at this time was really dry due to the highest mortgage rates of the year.

1 month ago | housingwire.com | Mike Simonsen

Weekly pending home sales disappointed in the last week of April, with 10% fewer than the same week in 2024. To be specific, single-family home sales came in 8% fewer than the same week last year, and condo sales came in 19% fewer. Nationally, weekly pending home sales saw only a small rebound after the Easter holiday from two weeks ago. It’s not only in the transaction count. Prices looked soft last week too. The median price of the weekly pending sales came in below the same week last year.

2 months ago | housingwire.com | Mike Simonsen

Last week’s pending home sales slipped to 68,000 single-family contracts — an expected Easter holiday lull that marks the first sub-2024 weekly tally in six weeks. Buyers remain mortgage rate-sensitive, of course. April’s tariff-fueled spike in U.S. Treasury yields pushed borrowing costs higher, but that’s subsiding just a bit and a typical mortgage payment is roughly 4% cheaper compared to last year.

2 months ago | housingwire.com | Mike Simonsen

Available inventory of unsold homes grew by 17,000 this week. That’s the biggest single-week inventory gain in nearly three years. The supply of homes on the market continues to grow. Three years ago was when mortgage rates were spiking as we exited the pandemic economy. Inventory climbs when interest rates climb. This spring, mortgage rates have stayed higher for longer than expected, and the inventory of unsold homes on the market continues to expand.