July Inventory shows welcome increase

There has been a sharp increase in the number of properties for sale in the last four months, but while this takes inventory of SFHs above the year ago level, it remains below that of 2020:

Single Family Homes

Housing Inventory

 

Condos
The number of Condos available has also jumped, but in this case still remains below year ago levels:

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Has Inflation Peaked?

After I published Have Mortgage Rates peaked? last week a reader asked me why I thought the yield on the 10-year Treasury Bill would not continue to increase, so that even if the spread over the 30-year Fixed Rate Mortgage (FRM) narrowed, the FRM rate itself might still increase.

In Are we already in a Recession?, published on June 18, I wrote: “Just as the yield on 10T has more than doubled since pre-COVID while the Fed Funds rate is unchanged, so the Fed Funds rate can increase sharply – the Fed is forecasting it will reach 3.4% this year, also double its pre-COVID level – without necessarily impacting the yield on 10T. That will depend upon the economic outlook. Ironically, perhaps, the more determined the Fed is to drive down inflation – even at the cost of a recession and higher unemployment – the greater the chance that the yield on 10T – and by extension the FRM – will decline – at some point.”

In the last few days, as more economists talked about a recession after the Atlantic Fed updated its Q2 GDP estimate to minus 2.1% (it was 0% when I wrote on June 18), the yield on 10T has dropped sharply, falling to 2.9% from a peak of 3.5% in the middle of May: (more…)

Are we already in a Recession?

In January this year I published an article asking Can the Federal Reserve prevent a Recession?

My question now is: Are we already in a Recession?

I think the answer is yes. Here is the evidence, in three charts: (more…)