Latest / Markets with Megan: A Quick Financial Markets Update / The March Existing Home Sales Data Report | Episode 124 | 04-19-2024

Transcript

The March Existing Home Sales Data Report | Episode 124 | 04-19-2024 · Markets with Megan: A Quick Financial Markets Update

• 0:00
  Megan Horneman: We can't seem to get a break here with housing.
• 0:03
  Megan Horneman: We've discussed earlier this week some what negative housing data that we got on housing starts and building permits, and we just got the March reading on existing home sales.
• 0:12
  Megan Horneman: This fell more than expected.
• 0:15
  Megan Horneman: It fell 4.3%.
• 0:16
  Megan Horneman: The market was expecting it to decline about 4.1%.
• 0:20
  Megan Horneman: Let's dig into some of these details because, again, we need this existing home market to increase.
• 0:26
  Megan Horneman: We need to get this moving.
• 0:28
  Megan Horneman: This is really where we're stuck here, and we do have a housing shortage.
• 0:32
  Megan Horneman: A lot has to stem with the fact that mortgage rates are higher, that people are less inclined to move.
• 0:38
  Megan Horneman: Let's take a look though what this showed us for the month of March, which tends to kick off the spring settling season.
• 0:43
  Megan Horneman: The only region that actually saw a rise in sales was the Northeast.
• 0:48
  Megan Horneman: It was actually the biggest monthly gain in six months.
• 0:51
  Megan Horneman: So that's the positive we can take out of this.
• 0:52
  Megan Horneman: The other positive we'll take out of a negative report.
• 0:55
  Megan Horneman: I'm going to start with the positives this time instead of the negatives.
• 0:58
  Megan Horneman: We did get the biggest monthly increase in the month's supply in about 11 months, and we do need to see this.
• 1:05
  Megan Horneman: We need to see more supply out there.
• 1:07
  Megan Horneman: We just need to get people out there to be buying this.
• 1:10
  Megan Horneman: So let's take a look.
• 1:11
  Megan Horneman: If you look at the median price which is another thing that we're watching very closely we're back now, moving higher.
• 1:20
  Megan Horneman: We did have a trend where it was lower for the past seven months, but for the prior two months we've actually seen prices increases.
• 1:27
  Megan Horneman: We don't want to see this.
• 1:28
  Megan Horneman: We don't want to see prices increase at the same time that mortgage rates are higher.
• 1:32
  Megan Horneman: This is going to cause additional volatility and possibly some more weakness here in the housing data.
• 1:37
  Megan Horneman: Unfortunately, with the median home price as well, that is a filter into the inflation reports and that's something the Fed has noticed that the housing price pressures continue to be kind of stubborn and keeping that in those inflation indicators higher.
• 1:52
  Megan Horneman: Now it's Thursday April 18th.
• 1:54
  Megan Horneman: The market doesn't really seem to care about these negative reports on the markets up today.
• 1:58
  Megan Horneman: We will be back next week when we have plenty more information and economic data and we also will get some more from an earnings perspective.
• 2:06
  Megan Horneman: So we'll be back next week to report about that.
• 2:08
  Megan Horneman: If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to reach out to podcast at verdence dot com.
• 2:13
  Megan Horneman: Thank you.