The Conference Board Leading Economic Index® (LEI) for the U.S. declined by 0.5 percent in November 2023 to 103.0 (2016=100), following a (downwardly revised) decline of 1.0 percent in October. The LEI contracted by 3.5 percent over the six-month period between May and November 2023, a smaller decrease than its 4.3 percent contraction over the previous six months (November 2022 to May 2023).
Of course, investors don’t care about actual fundamentals, rates are down so ‘buy buy buy’ the builders…
Source: Bloomberg
Trouble is, even as mortgage rates have plunged recently, applications for home purchases has continued to decline…
Source: Bloomberg
And while mortgage rates have declined (rapidly), they remain massively high relative to the effective mortgage rate for all Americans. That difference is the ‘subsidy‘ that homebuilders have to fill to enable buyers – and it’s still yuuuge!
Source: Bloomberg
So, just how many new homes were sold in November?
The last few months have been very choppy for new home sales but November clarified that homebuilders just hit a wall on their subsidization!
New home sales crashed 12.2% MoM – the biggest MoM drop since April 2022. That dragged the YoY change to just 1.4%…
Source: Bloomberg
9 of the last 10 months have seen downward revisions to the new home sales SAAR!
Source: Bloomberg
New home sales fell in the South by the most, followed by the West. The Northeast and Midwest saw increased sales…
Source: Bloomberg
The new home sales SAAR printed 590k (well below the 690k exp) – the lowest since Nov 2022… catching down to existing home sales reality…
Source: Bloomberg
And another catch-up to reality for sales, even as rates tumble…
Source: Bloomberg
Finally, we note that the median new home priced jumped to $434.7k from $414.9k…
Source: Bloomberg
The median existing home price dropped to lowest since April while median new home price jumped to highest since August
Odd that these ‘actual’ new home sales are plunging as ‘soft survey’ data shows homebuilder sentiment rising, and housing starts.
It‘s Biden’s Fiscal Inferno! Insane open borders, insane green spending, wars in Ukraine, Gaza and growing restlessness around Taiwan. Inflation. And a demented 81-year old President in charge.
The deficit is $44 billion higher than it was at the end of November 2022, according to the latest data released by the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
Congress passed a “laddered” continuing resolution in November with a final expiration date of February 2. Conservative House Republicans have been calling for a reduction in federal spending to reduce the budget deficit. Congress must pass another spending bill to keep the government funded past Feb. 2.
The specific cuts the House GOP is considering remains unclear at this time, but any reduction in spending is likely to hit roadblocks in the Democratic-led Senate. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has criticized previous GOP attempts to cut domestic spending levels.
In September, House Republicans were trying to cut annual spending by about $120 billion, which still would not balance the budget. Congressional Democratic leaders were critical of their approach at the time.
Senate congressional leaders are currently debating a foreign assistance package that would provide additional aid to Ukraine and Israel as well as humanitarian assistance for Palestinian refugees along with money for U.S. border security. Senate leaders said on Tuesday that both sides were closer to a deal, but a formal agreement hasn’t been reached yet.
“With regard to the border discussion, I think it’s pretty safe to say that we’ve made some significant progress, but we obviously aren’t there,” McConnell said at the Capitol during his weekly news conference on Tuesday.
On the House side, Republicans have argued that additional aid for Israel and Ukraine should be paid for or “offset” by equivalent spending reductions. Schumer has said that such foreign assistance does not need to be paid for since it is considered emergency spending.
Senators are still in Washington negotiating on the package but the House has left town for the holidays.
Scott Hodge, president emeritus and senior policy adviser at the Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan tax policy 501(c)(3) nonprofit, said the U.S. Treasury reporting a 13% increase in the deficit compared to November 2022 shows the U.S. government continues to go down the wrong path when it comes to fiscal policy.
“It is being driven by federal spending, which is up by $152 billion, a 17% increase compared to the same month in 2022. The monthly deficit would have been worse if decent economic growth hadn’t boosted federal tax collections by $108 billion, or 19%,” Hodge told Just the News.
“The problem with the federal budget is basic math—the growth in spending continues to outpace the growth in tax collections. This is why our national debit is heading toward $34 trillion. It cannot go on forever without serious economic consequences,” he added.
Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, shared a similar perspective on the matter. “The longer we allow our debt to worsen, the less room we ultimately have to respond to the kinds of global emergencies we’re seeing in the world today,” she said.
“This leaves policymakers with a choice: make the hard choices today by paying for our priorities and putting the national debt on a sustainable trajectory, or saddle the next generation with an even worse situation,” she added.
The national debt in January of 2020 was $17.2 trillion, according to historical data from the Peterson Foundation. By contrast, the national debt is currently $33.9 trillion, according to the U.S. Treasury.
And don’t forget that $212.5 TRILLION in unfunded liabilities.
For November, US existing home sales are down -7.28% since last year. At least that is an improvement over -14.6% YoY in October.
Despite homebuilder sentiment ticking up (along with their stock prices) and housing starts soaring – buoyed by a 100bps decline from multi-decade highs in mortgage rates – analysts expected a small 0.4% MoM decline in existing home sales in November (after October’s big drop).
“The latest weakness in existing home sales still reflects the buyer bidding process in most of October when mortgage rates were at a two-decade high before the actual closings in November,” said NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun. “A marked turn can be expected as mortgage rates have plunged in recent weeks.”
The total existing home sale SAAR bounced very marginally off record lows…
Source: Bloomberg
Regional sales were mixed:
Existing-home sales in the Northeast slipped 2.1% from October to an annual rate of 470,000 in November, down 13.0% from November 2022. The median price in the Northeast was $428,600, up 4.8% from the prior year.
In the Midwest, existing-home sales rose 1.1% from the previous month to an annual rate of 940,000 in November, down 8.7% from one year ago. The median price in the Midwest was $280,800, up 4.9% from November 2022.
Existing-home sales in the South improved 4.7% from October to an annual rate of 1.77 million in November, a decline of 4.3% from the prior year. The median price in the South was $351,500, up 3.4% from last year.
In the West, existing-home sales slumped 7.2% from a month ago to an annual rate of 640,000 in November, down 8.6% from one year before. The median price in the West was $603,200, up 5.3% from November 2022.
Mortgage rates are down, but leave a long way for home sale to drop still…
Source: Bloomberg
But, the gap between current rates and effective rates for Americans is still immense…
Source: Bloomberg
The median existing-home price for all housing types in November was $387,600, an increase of 4.0% from November 2022 ($372,700), but down MoM…
All four U.S. regions posted price increases.
“Home prices keep marching higher,” Yun added.
“Only a dramatic rise in supply will dampen price appreciation.”
Well, with housing starts accelerating in the latest data and Powell’s massive pivot, has The Fed re-ignited its 3rd housing bubble?
And the buying condition for housing sinks to all-time low.
Mortgage applications decreased 1.5 percent from one week earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending December 15, 2023.
The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, decreased 1.5 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index decreased 3 percent compared with the previous week. The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index decreased 1 percent from one week earlier. The unadjusted Purchase Index decreased 4 percent compared with the previous week and was 18 percent lower than the same week one year ago.
The Refinance Index decreased 2 percent from the previous week and was 18 percent higher than the same week one year ago.
The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming loan balances ($726,200 or less) decreased to 6.83 percent from 7.07 percent, with points increasing to 0.60 from 0.59 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent loan-to-value ratio (LTV) loans.
Housing Starts: Privately‐owned housing starts in November were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,560,000. This is 14.8 percent above the revised October estimate of 1,359,000 and is 9.3 percent above the November 2022 rate of 1,427,000. Single‐family housing starts in November were at a rate of 1,143,000; this is 18.0 percent above the revised October figure of 969,000. The November rate for units in buildings with five units or more was 404,000.
Building Permits: Privately‐owned housing units authorized by building permits in November were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,460,000. This is 2.5 percent below the revised October rate of 1,498,000, but is 4.1 percent above the November 2022 rate of 1,402,000. Single‐family authorizations in November were at a rate of 976,000; this is 0.7 percent above the revised October figure of 969,000. Authorizations of units in buildings with five units or more were at a rate of 435,000 in November.
Median NEW home prices dropped -20% YoY.
1-unit housing starts exploded, but permits declined.
The Federal government added $7 trillion in debt since 2020 while it took 215 years to get to $7 trillion before Covid and Bidenomics.
In what can simply be called fiscal insanity, The Federal government is borrowing like there is no tomorrow (given that Biden is 81 years old, this isn’t far off) displacing businesses and households. Heaven help us if the Federal government has to borrow more money to fight a real war like World War II.
So, the massive Federal debt gorging isn’t helping the housing market.
Both the US Federal government and California’s government are facing a fiscal inferno. Thanks to a softening economy and inane fiscal policies.
At the macro level, we see that The Federal government has gone wild spending money and borrowing it. Much more than businesses and households. Biden’s wild spending reduces the degrees of freedom that Treasury has if the US slips into another recession or depression.
First, let’s begin with banks to illustrate the worsening condition of the economy. Emergency loans from The Fed’s Bank Term Funding Program (BTFP) is on the rise, signaling perceived trouble in the economy.
Small banks are suffering more than big banks.
Consumer sentiment is below 70 (100 baseline) under Biden and Bidenomics.
And then we have Gavin “Gruesome” Newsom and California. California is now facing a $68 billion deficit. It has also defaulted on a $20 billion loan from the federal government. The situation is so dire the state is telling agencies not to replace broken printers or re-stock office supplies. Workers are being stripped of benefits and could face furloughs. This is all happening as the state has spent billions funding High-Speed Rail and expanding Medi-Cal to all undocumented immigrants, while losing billions in tax revenue from people leaving the state.
$68 billion is over twice this forecast deficit of $24 billion.
But never fear. “Billions Biden” will make sure California is okay, ar least until the 2024 Presidential election.
Like the spaghetti western “The Good, The Bad And The Ugly,” Bidenomics has had similar effects on financing. Some good, some bad and a lot of uglies.
The good! For investors like pension funds the own US Treasuries, inflation has led The Federal Reserve to raise interest rates. This is good for investors holding short-term debt. The Bianco Fixed Income Total Return Index is soaring!!
The Bad: Well, the flip-side of the same coin is that debt refinancing costs have soared.
The Ugly. There are many contenders for losers under Bidenomics and current Fed (garbled) policies. But I choose … mortgage demand collapse with rising home prices and rising mortgage rates. Mortgage rates are up 165% under Biden.
And mortgage demand (applications) have been crushed.
Also on the ugly side, global aggregate corporate yields have collapsed.
So, there have been winners with Bidenomics (the top 1%), and lots of losers.
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