The resilience of the US housing market to the most aggressive Federal Reserve hiking cycle in four decades has been remarkable, if not total. Now, it even looks like it’s back on the rise.
Apollo’s economics team led by Torsten Sløk just sent out a timely slideshow of housing charts showing how a lot of leading indicators are starting to bounce.
Look at the signs of improving confidence among both home buyers and home builders.
The tentative turn in new home sales:
Or the average number of offers received on a property for sale:
At the same time, the availability of housing is not getting any better. One of the biggest factors behind the sturdiness of house prices is that with a gangbusters economy and strong employment, very few people have to sell.
Despite higher interest rates and pricier mortgages, that hasn’t changed yet either:
The building of new housing is also slowing down:
That might mean that median home prices might start to recover again after dipping back to $442,000:
Of course, if the Fed keeps jacking up rates and/or there is a recession then things will eventually start to look dicey again.
But in the meantime, the overall picture painted by Sløk’s 77 housing slides is one of an unlikely recovery (full report here). Blackstone must be happy.
