Despite falling mortgage rates, analysts expected December's drop in new home sales to accelerate in January... and accelerate they did... crashing a stunning 17.6% MoM (-2.7% MoM exp) - the biggest MoM drop since July 2013.
This huge MoM drop dragged sales down 11.3% YoY - the worst slide in three years...
Source: Bloomberg
This huge drop dragged the new home sales SAAR down to its lowest since 2022, catching down to existing and pending sales...
Inventories are up (Houses for sale in Jan. rose 0.4% m/m to 476,000), prices are down (Median down 6.8% YoY at $400k - lowest since 2024)...
...and remember these deals were signed in January - meaning this is not mortgage related (some suggesting weather impact - Northeast sales down 44.7% MoM, MidWest -33.9% MoM, but the scale is immense).
Of course, the future could get pretty dark as mortgage rates have surged since the war in Iran began...
...so much for helping 'affordability'. Looks like homebuilders are going to be 'incentivizing' a lot more soon.
Renters across the United States may be able to save a bit more on apartment leases this month, as rents nationwide hit a four-year low last month, marking the 30th consecutive month of declines.
In its February Rental Report issued on March 17, Realtor.com recorded that the national median rent was $1,667, with 15 major markets posting rents more than 10 percent below their pandemic-era peaks.
The median rent for studio, one-bedroom, and two-bedroom apartments fell last month to its lowest level since March 2022. Nationally, the median rent fell by $29, or 1.7 percent, from a year earlier. While rents remained 14.2 percent higher than pre-pandemic levels in February 2020, they were $90, or 5.1 percent, lower than their peak in the summer of 2022.
“The persistent softness we’re seeing is increasingly translating into real savings for renters who, for a long time, felt the market was out of reach,” Danielle Hale, Realtor.com chief economist, said in the report.
Hale noted that rents typically skew lower during the winter months but are expected to rise slightly as spring approaches.
“For some areas, this will likely mean new rental price highs, even as renters in the Sun Belt continue to see notably lower rents,” she said.
Lower rents in the South were attributed to a continued boom in multifamily construction. Atlanta, Georgia, has seen 42 consecutive months of year-over-year declines, followed by Phoenix, Arizona, and Las Vegas, Nevada, both have had 41 months of decreases.
The median rent for all apartment sizes in Atlanta last month was $1,543—a 2 percent year-over-year decline. Renters in Phoenix saw a median price of $1,247, a 4.4 percent year-over-year drop, and renters in Las Vegas experienced a median price of $1,423, a 1.8 percent decrease.
According to the report, the national median rent for two-bedroom apartments declined by nearly 2 percent year over year in February, to $1,844 per month. One-bedroom apartments had a median rent of $1,548, and studios $1,393.
Oklahoma City offered the country’s lowest median rent at just $983 for all apartment sizes. Median rent in Birmingham, Alabama, came in at $1,125 last month, and in Columbus, Ohio, at $1,190. Other metros with median rents under $1,500 include Austin, Memphis, Nashville, Raleigh, and Jacksonville.
Three California metros had some of the country’s highest rents in February, with the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara metro topping the list with a median rent of $3,331—nearly a 2 percent year-over-year increase, and the 28th consecutive month in rent growth. San Francisco’s median rent was $2,768, while the San Diego metro saw a median rent of $2, 626.
Conversely, rents increased in five metro areas in February, settling just 3 percent below their all-time highs. Virginia Beach experienced a 4.5 percent hike in the median price, to $1,620. Baltimore, Richmond, and San Jose also saw unusual spikes in median rents. While rents were relatively low in Kansas City, Missouri, at $1,387, the metro experienced a larger-than-usual rise.
“We are seeing two different stories across the country,” Realtor.com economist Jiayi Xu said in the report.
“As the spring season approaches, these markets are poised to resume an upward trajectory and push toward new all-time highs.”
A mid-February report by RentCafe predicted a mix of metro areas in the mid-Atlantic, Midwest, and South will be “hot spots” for the spring market.
Cincinnati ranked number one as the most sought-after city by renters, jumping 10 spots from 2025. The rise in its popularity was attributed to the city’s robust job market, revitalization of downtown neighborhoods, and riverfront development. Potential renters showing interest in the city were mainly from Columbus, Chicago, and New York City.
Atlanta, Minneapolis, Washington, DC, and Baltimore also made the top 5 list of popular rental cities. Even with its sky-high rents, San Jose earned seventh place on the list, due to its reputation as a tech-hub hotspot.
The only Northeast location to make the list was Philadelphia, drawing prospective renters mainly from New York City and Boston.
New York City spent roughly $81,000 per person on homeless services last year — amounting to a whopping $368 million in total bills, a shocking new state report found.
Spending on the city’s Department of Homeless Services’ “Street Homeless Solutions” division more than tripled over the last six years, from $102 million in 2019 — or about $28,000 per “unsheltered homeless person,” according to the report from the state comptroller’s office.
The cost per person was roughly equivalent to the city’s median household income as of the 2024 US Census — $81,228 annually.
Unsheltered homeless people constitute those living regularly on the streets, compared to those who are in some kind of affordable housing or long-term shelter system.
The city is spending nearly three times more per unsheltered homeless person than it did before the pandemic.Office of the New York State Comptroller
The Big Apple’s unsheltered homeless population increased by 26% over the same timeframe, the report released by Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli found.
About 3,588 unsheltered homeless people were reported in the 2019 fiscal year, while 4,505 were reported in the fiscal year 2025.
Both the COVID pandemic and the migrant crisis contributed to the spike in street homelessness — but it remains unclear why spending surged at a higher rate than the population increase.
“It’s a clarion call to make sure every dollar counts,” former City Comptroller Scott Stringer told The Post on Monday.
“We should have better outcomes when the city spends this amount of money on homeless services. You must understand where the money is going,” he said.
The cost per person is more than the city Department of Education spends per public school student, about $42,000.
One possible cause is an increase in “low-barrier beds” and “drop-in centers” that have been rolled out in higher numbers by the city DHS in recent years, consisting of short-term shelters and other resources for people to use as they please.
Those resources allow people living on the streets to come and go as they desire, and provide the likes of showers, meals and bunkrooms or chairs for them to sleep in.
Unsheltered homeless people constitute individuals who regularly live in makeshift homes instead of city shelters.Helayne Seidman for the NY Post
But the exact breakdown of what the DHS has been spending on those resources is unclear, as they are not differentiated in financial reports, the comptroller found.
“The escalation in spending driven by the increase in the unsheltered population, however, merits greater focus on where resources are going and what services are working,” DiNapoli said in the report.
“Street homelessness is a chronic problem that requires collaborative efforts to help bring vulnerable New Yorkers into shelter and out of the cold.”
Spending on services for unsheltered homeless people is expected to continue increasing, to about $456 million by the 2026 fiscal year, the comptroller’s office found.
The city’s overall homeless population totals around 140,000 people, and has grown nearly 78% since 2019, according to the comptroller’s office.
The city has been able to provide some kind of shelter to about 97%, which DiNapoli’s office noted was “a notable achievement.”
“The number of people living on the street in New York City has continued to grow, even as the city has been effective at providing shelter for the majority of the homeless population,” DiNapoli said in the report.
But, he noted, the city’s efforts at serving those living on the streets “has not reduced the overall unsheltered population, as demand has continued to grow, fueled by larger migration patterns that were not under the City’s control.”
“While the City collects a vast amount of data on those served and the services provided, it can use this data more effectively to explain whether these programs are successful at getting people into shelter and eventually permanent housing,” the report said.
Last week, his administration inked a three-year $1.86 billion contract with city hotels to serve as homeless housing for a system similar to the one former Mayor Eric Adams employed to get migrants beds as they flowed into the Big Apple.
And while the new mayor initially vowed to eliminate homeless encampment sweeps and let people stay on the streets if they wanted to, in February, he made an about-face and brought the measures back after at least 15 New Yorkers died outside from the brutal cold.
Mamdani said that his homeless sweeps would have “better outcomes” than those conducted under his predecessor Adams, and would be led by DHS workers.
Stringer called the new report on homeless spending presents a “challenge for the new Mamdani administration.”
“The shelter system is moving sideways,” Stringer said, recalling his days auditing the city’s homeless system under Mayor Bill de Blasio when shelter conditions were regularly found to be dangerous and decrepit.
“My sense is things have gotten worse, not better,” Stringer said. “It’s why people sleep on the streets.”
Some advocates suggested the city could utilize unused public housing to get people off the streets on a more permanent basis – and free up dollars otherwise being used to cover expensive short-term shelters.
“Just letting people cycle between streets, shelters, hospitals and jails is not only expensive, but inhumane,” said David Giffen, executive director of the Coalition for the Homeless.
“You’d see a decrease in the number of people sleeping on the streets and the number of people in shelters if the City could quickly fix and fill all the vacant supportive housing units and public housing units and designate those for the people most in need of them,” he said.
The median age of New York City-area homeowners has jumped to a stunning new high as the housing affordability crisis keeps young buyers locked out of the market, according to a new report.
As of 2024, the median age of a homeowner in the area covering NYC, Newark and Jersey City was 58.8 years old — just a few years shy of Social Security eligibility, the National Association of Realtors, or NAR, said earlier this month.
The figure also marked a 4.4-year increase from the median age of homeowners in the Big Apple and its neighbors in 2010.
As of 2024, the median homeowner in the New York-Newark-Jersey City metro area was 58.8 years old.Daisy Daisy – stock.adobe.com
The homeownership rate barely budged over the same period – slipping from 52.7% in 2010 to 51.3% in 2024, according to the data.
“People keep talking about, ‘The housing market is frozen,’” Vlora Sejdi, former president of the Hudson Gateway Association of Realtors, told The Post. “It’s not frozen. It’s aging.”
While the homeownership rate hasn’t shifted much on paper, the profile of the typical homeowner has drastically changed. That’s because baby boomers are holding onto their property for longer while younger households are delaying ownership until later in life.
Homeownership rates for those aged 25 to 34, 34 to 55, 45 to 54 and 55 to 64 have all seen declines, while the only group that has held strong is households 65 and older, NAR found.
Nationwide, the median first-time homebuyer is officially 40 years old, according to NAR data released last year – up from 38 years old in 2024 and 33 in 2020.
“Affordability is definitely a huge hurdle,” Sejdi told The Post, nodding to high interest rates, stubborn inflation and a lack of starter homes in New York City and beyond. “Saving up for a down payment while paying high rent really isn’t easy.
“You add that to the other costs of living that have increased exponentially and the fact that wages really haven’t, it makes it a much higher barrier than it was for their parents or their parents before them to be able to afford that first home,” she added.
The cost of homeownership has soared out of reach for many Americans, with the average family needing to earn $110,000 a year to own a typical home, according to real estate broker Redfin – about 29% higher than what the median household actually makes.
The NYC homeownership rate barely budged – slipping from 52.7% in 2010 to 51.3% in 2024, according to the data.Matthew McDermott
The figure marks a huge downturn compared to 2010, when first-time buyers earned about 15% more than what was needed to afford an average starter home, the NAR said.
“There’s really not much housing availability at all,” Sejdi said. “Over the last decade, a lot of what’s been built has been larger and more expensive, so the lack of starter homes in addition to the lack of funds make it really difficult for a first-time home buyer, which is why we’re seeing them start the process later.”
Housing advocates have argued that an inadequate supply of affordable housing and low construction rates are to blame for young people’s inability to snap up homes, especially as prices on consumer goods remain stubbornly high.
Baby boomers are holding onto their houses for longer after they locked in properties at low interest rates.Daniel – stock.adobe.com
Economists have warned that the war on Iran – which has sent oil prices soaring above $100 per barrel – could potentially heat up inflation and spark the toxic mix of high prices and flat growth known as stagflation.
Another factor is that aging homeowners simply aren’t moving out of their family properties — despite hope that there would be a “silver wave” or “silver tsunami” across the US, with baby boomers retiring and selling off their homes, according to Sejdi.
One reason, she argued, is that the capital gains tax exemption is outdated. The Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 allows single filers to exclude from taxes up to $250,000 of capital gain on a home sale, and up to $500,000 for married couples filing jointly.
Housing advocates have urged policymakers to update the tax exclusion, raising the limits for a single filer as high as $500,000 and up to $1 million for a couple.
Housing advocates have argued that an inadequate supply of affordable housing and low construction rates are to blame for young people’s inability to snap up homes.Christopher Sadowski
“If I buy something from 1997, it’s considered vintage, and yet we’re using those numbers to determine what a capital gains is, which is ridiculous,” she said.
Many older homeowners who locked in their properties at low interest rates are also unwilling to sell and take on higher 30-year fixed mortgage rates, which hit 6.11% last week, according to Freddie Mac.
“It’s really hard to convince somebody with a 3% interest rate to trade that for a 7% interest rate,” Sejdi told The Post.
Legislation for a first-time homebuyer down payment savings program, similar to tax-exempt accounts like 529s, could help encourage younger buyers to enter the market, she said.
The housing affordability crisis will continue pushing younger residents out of New York City and other bustling metro areas, according to experts.Andy Dean – stock.adobe.com
In the meantime, the housing affordability crisis will continue pushing younger residents out of New York City and other bustling metro areas, she predicted.
“They end up going north to the suburbs, they go to Jersey, they go to Connecticut, they go wherever they can still access the city but can actually purchase real estate,” Sejdi said.
“It is part of the American dream to be able to own your own property or home, and when you’re paying rent what you would be paying for a mortgage, it just makes sense to do that.”
Homeowners in other metro areas across the country are also aging.
The typical homeowner in the Los Angeles area hit 59 years old in 2024 – up from 54 in 2010, according to NAR data.
In Boston, the median age of homeowners jumped to 57 in 2024, up from 53 in 2010.
