The direction of the housing economy: Spring 2023

The question on everyone's mind is where will inflation go over the coming months? If we see inflation continue to moderate, especially if it does so quickly, we could see the Fed not only pull back on rate hikes but potentially begin cutting rates. Should that happen, we will see mortgage rates come down which would be a good thing for real estate transactions.

Here is what the data is telling us:

The cost of goods is coming down

• Global Container Freight Rates (cost of shipping 40′ containers) are now lower than they were in January 2020. The cheaper it is to ship goods, the less companies need to charge for those goods

The cost of energy is down

• The average gas price in the US is 84 cents (-20%) lower than a year ago. Barring another spike higher, this YoY decline (along with other commodities) should be a big factor in pushing down the March US inflation rate (YoY CPI).

The cost of renting is down

Shelter CPI is still moving higher (+8.1% YoY in Feb) but continues to lag real-time housing data by many months (Home Prices peaked in Jun 2022, rents peaked in Aug 2022). When Shelter CPI stops moving higher, we should see sharp declines in overall CPI (Shelter is 34% of CPI measure so it's an important component).

Mortgage rates have stabilized around the mid-6s over the last few weeks. Hopefully, we see them come down over the coming weeks and months:

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