Home Economics chart
Sale Price in Louisville, KY:
At $269K, Louisville sits dead in the middle of America's housing market, practically indistinguishable from the typical metro.
via @home-economics.bsky.social | homeeconomics.substack.com
Home Economics chart
Price Drops in Louisville, KY:
With a quarter of listings dropping prices, Louisville sits squarely in the middle of the market—slightly softer than average but nowhere near distressed.
via @AzizSunderji | homeeconomics.substack.com
Home Economics chart
Pending Sales in Los Angeles, CA:
LA's pending sales pipeline has collapsed 37.7% in five years, now sitting below the national ratio at 1.3x versus 1.4x nationally.
via @AzizSunderji | homeeconomics.substack.com
Home Economics chart
Pending Sales in Albany, NY:
Albany's pending sales pipeline has collapsed to 1.1x homes sold versus the national norm of 1.4x, signaling a weakening market momentum.
via @AzizSunderji | homeeconomics.substack.com
Home Economics chart
Inventory in Louisville, KY:
Louisville's inventory-to-sales ratio of 3.6x sits well below the national 4.8x median, signaling a tight market despite 18.8% year-over-year inventory growth.
via @AzizSunderji | homeeconomics.substack.com
Home Economics chart
Sale Price in Louisville, KY:
Louisville home prices hit $270K, outpacing the nation by $28K while gaining 30.4% over five years despite modest recent growth.
via @AzizSunderji | homeeconomics.substack.com
Home Economics chart
Louisville's median home price hit $270K, up 2.7% yearly and 30.4% over five years, now 11.6% above the national median.
Sale Price in Louisville, KY
via @AzizSunderji | homeeconomics.substack.com
Home Economics chart
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Home Economics chart
Louisville homes are selling $28K above the national median, having climbed nearly a third in five years despite tepid recent momentum.
Sale Price in Louisville, KY
via @AzizSunderji | homeeconomics.substack.com
Home Economics chart
Louisville's median home price of $270K has outpaced the nation by 11.6% while climbing 30.4% over five years, though recent momentum has nearly stalled at 2.7% annually.
Sale Price in Louisville, KY
via @AzizSunderji | homeeconomics.substack.com
Home Economics chart
Inventory in Miami, FL: 16.6K, down 6.3% year over year.
via @AzizSunderji
They're not wrong; historical periods of stagnant prices amid stretched affordability eg early '90s have lasted about that long.
This is the case across metros, Matt.
Many charts show homeownership as owners ÷ household heads—this lowballs the issue for the young: many of them live with parents/friends (ie they're not household heads). This chart is better: the per capita rate (owners as % of *all* adults in each generation, not just heads).
Home prices have soared since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, but a rising tide has not lifted all boats: home prices in the suburbs and exurbs have risen far faster than in city cores. Of the 50 largest U.S. metros, New York’s 48-point urban-exurban gap is the widest in the country.
Who is leaving NYC?
It really depends on where they are going:
—Wealthy are moving to CT, NJ, CA
—Lower income are moving to PA, SC, VA, GA
—Young are moving to MD, IL, MA
—Old are moving to FL, Long Island, SC
NYC is shrinking. But who is leaving, and where are they going?
Even if prices stabilize and interest rates decline, Millennials will find it harder to continue to make inroads into homeownership. That’s because a major demographic shift underlying the tight housing market—specifically, increasing competition for homes from aging Boomers—won’t recede for years.
The NAR and others report that Boomers are "baby chasing"—moving to be closer to their kids and grandkids. But the data doesn't really bear this out. Millennial and Boomer hotspots don't overlap.
Construction has quietly flipped from dragging on growth to adding to it. That’s one reason the US economy is, by some estimates, now growing at the fastest pace in over 20 years.
The current housing cycle has been extreme for 3 reasons:
1. Home price rose by 45% (!)—same as 2003-'06
2. The whole cycle (rise -> fall -> recovery) took only 3 years (the '03 cycle took 10 years)
3. No town was left behind: prices boomed in even the sleepiest of small towns
#housing is local—and the harder they rise the harder they fall...
The markets that are still up y/y are those that didn't boom as much in 2021 (Miami, Philly, DC).
The ones that are down the most are those that soared in 2021 (Dallas, LA, Houston, Atlanta).
More here: www.home-economics.us
I see a wave of Substack launches 😒
We're better off today than in 1984, when the US gov't started measuring personal budgets. Incomes are $16k higher (2021 $). Clothing/food are cheaper. But the avg household spends $5k/yr more on housing today than in '84. 3 min read: https://sunderji.substack.com/p/the-monstrous-share-of-housing-in
More analysis in a 3 min read here: https://sunderji.substack.com/p/does-seasonality-still-matter-for
High rates obliterated the 2023 spring/summer housing season. But with inflation now clearly cooling, rates have fallen by 50bp. If this continues, buyers will soon see lower financing costs—but also more selection than is normal outside the summer.
The same thing happened in 2022: rising rates kept a lid on new listings—depressing them below typical pre-pandemic levels. And we got a taste of just how sensitive listings are to rates: when rates stabilized/dipped in Jun-Aug, listings soared.
By 2021, it was clear that would-be sellers are motivated not just by typical seasonal patterns (list in the spring), but also the changing levels of mortgage rates: listings were unusually low in the first 5 months as rates rose.
