Current Affairs
July 27, 2023
Housing Has Bottomed Out?
“The Housing Recession Is Over”: Pending Home Sales Post First Increase Since February
by Tyler Durden
Thursday, Jul 27, 2023 – 10:15 AM
The housing market may be paralyzed, with the gap between bids and asks wide enough for an army of Hummers to drive though, but where the rare transasction is still taking place, buyers have been aggressively chasing offers as recent existing home sales and the just released pending home sales data revealed.
In June, pending home sales registered a modest increase of 0.3% the previous month – the first increase since February – according to the National Association of Realtors, beating estimates of a -0.5% drop and following last month’s -2.5% decline. The modest sequential increase raised the annual drop to -14.8%, an improvement from the -20.7% drop in May.
Regionally, the South and West posted monthly losses, while sales in the Northeast and Midwest grew. All four U.S. regions saw year-over-year declines in transactions.
“The recovery has not taken place, but the housing recession is over,” said the always cheerful NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun, “The presence of multiple offers implies that housing demand is not being satisfied due to lack of supply. Homebuilders are ramping up production and hiring workers.”
Still, when one looks at both the pending and existing home sales index, it is difficult to share Larry’s enthusiasm. Also notable is the record disconnect between existing/pending transactions and new home sales which have been storming higher in recent months.
The Pending Home Sales Index – a forward-looking indicator of home sales based on contract signings – rose 0.3% to 76.8 in May. Year over year, pending transactions fell by 15.6%. An index of 100 is equal to the level of contract activity in 2001.
NAR forecasts that the 30-year fixed mortgage rate will hit 6.4% this year and then decline to 6.0% in 2024, while the unemployment rate will rise slightly to 3.7% in 2023 before increasing to 4.1% in 2024.
“With consumer price inflation calming close to the Federal Reserve’s desired conditions, mortgage rates look to have topped out,” Yun added. “Given the ongoing job additions, any meaningful decline in mortgage rates could lead to a rush of buyers later in the year and into the next.”
NAR expects existing-home sales to decrease 12.9% from 2022 to 2023, settling at 4.38 million, before climbing 15.5%, to 5.06 million in 2024. Compared to last year, national median existing-home prices will remain steady – declining 0.4%, to $384,900, before rebounding by 2.6% next year, to $395,000. The West – the country’s most expensive region – will see reduced prices while the more affordable Midwest region is likely to see a small, positive increase. Housing starts will drop 5.3% from 2022 to 2023, to 1.47 million, before increasing to 1.55 million, or 5.4%, in 2024.
“It is critical to expand supply as much as possible to widen access to homebuying for more Americans,” Yun said. “Home prices will be influenced by how much inventory is brought to market. Increased homebuilding will tame price growth, while limited construction will lead to home price appreciation outpacing income growth.”
Newly constructed home sales will increase from last year by 12.3% in 2023, to 720,000 – due to additional inventory in this segment of the market – and increase by another 13.9% in 2024, to 820,000. The national median new home price will decrease by 1.9% this year, to $449,100, and then improve by 4.2% next year, to $468,000.
June 27, 2023
New Home Sales Soar Higher
US New Home Sales Unexpectedly Explode Higher In May
by Tyler Durden
Tuesday, Jun 27, 2023 – 10:09 AM
New home sales have been dramatically outperforming existing- and pending-home sales as unprecedentedly low inventories send buyers into the arms of incentivizing homebuilders. However, expectations were for a 1.2% MoM decline in May but instead new home sales exploded 12.2% MoM!!!
Source: Bloomberg
That is the 3rd straight month of MoM gains and sends new home sales up 20% YoY!!!
New home sale completely decoupled from existing-home sales, now at their highest since Feb 2022…
Source: Bloomberg
The median home sale price $416,300 which was an increase from last month but only after huge downward revisions for past 4 months
Housing activity has seen a resurgence this year, as anticipated by a very simple leading indicator: the change in the level of mortgage rates…
Source: Bloomberg
As Bloomberg’s Simon White notes, while longer-term yields are still much higher than they were a few years ago, they have essentially gone nowhere in the last nine months. Thus the change in mortgage rates has been falling.
That’s been enough to give housing and other interest-rate sensitive sectors such as autos a boost. But that impulse will soon start to fade unless yields and mortgage rates start to fall.
https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/us-new-home-sales-unexpectedly-explode-higher-may
June 18, 2023
Blood Types Explained
These Are The Most Common Blood Types Around The World
by Tyler Durden
Saturday, Jun 17, 2023 – 11:15 PM
World Blood Donor Day is organized every June 14 by the World Health Organization with the aim of raising public awareness about the need for safe blood, plasma and platelets as well as to celebrate the many people who save lives through their blood donations.
There are four different types of blood: A, B, O and AB. Each of these can either be positive or negative, depending on whether a protein known as the “Rh factor” is present in the red blood cells. Each blood type has slightly different qualities. For instance, those with type O- are universal donors. This means they can give blood to anyone. AB+ on the other hand is a universal acceptor, so they can receive donations from anyone. Only around seven percent of the world are Rh negative.
As Statista’s Anna Fleck shows in the following map, the most common blood group worldwide is O positive.
You will find more infographics at Statista
Europe tells a slightly different story, however, with the majority of its countries’ populations having A positive blood. Only two countries in the World Population Review’s records have a greater share of B positive blood types: Pakistan and Bangladesh.
While this chart is useful for getting an overview of regional patterns, it hides some of the finer details, such as how evenly split countries are by blood type. For instance, in China and India a fairly high share of the population has B+ blood. Meanwhile, in Europe many countries are fairly closely tied between O+ and A+. There are of course slight differences and exemptions, with the Nordic countries representing a slightly greater share of people having A+ versus O+, according to World Population Review. The U.S. is also fairly closely split, with 37.4 percent of the population having type O+ and 35.7 percent A+, while only 8.5 percent are B+ in the country.
The countries with the clearest prevalence of a given blood group are Ecuador, Peru and Zimbabwe, with 75 percent, 70 percent and 63 percent of O+ blood respectively.
According to the American Red Cross, the opposite rules apply when it comes to the universality of plasma transfusions. In that case, O- blood types can only donate plasma to other O- patients, while the universal plasma donor type is AB blood.
https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/these-are-most-common-blood-types-around-world
June 15, 2023
I-95 Bridge Collapse & Impact on Freight
June 15, 2023
U.S. Auto Sales
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