Let’s start wide. I know this is the April report, but econ data lags. (Math is hard.) On a national-basis, it appears YoY prices increased 3.7% in March. See here. CoreLogic further projects a 4.8% increase (YoY) for April. At least one industry economist is drawing...

Simon Johnson is an economics professor at MIT’s Sloan School of Business, a former Chief Economist at the IMF, and a well-known blogger at BaselineScenario.com. You can draw your own conclusions about where he lands politically, in part based on his publishing...

I want to take a quick glance at where we seem to be headed, at a national level, in regards to new home construction. I think there is a correlation between these two posts – the first post indicates that the national, publicly listed builders seem to be ramping up...

Looking at MSL date for January 2019, we see confirmation that over-all 2018 was slightly weaker than 2017 – I think, driven in part by a supply constraint, and by some volatility on mortgage rates, changes in the tax code related to home-ownership, and affordability...

Looking Local as we close out 2018. MLS Data shows market-wide Months-of-Inventory at 3.6, and down to 7.5 in the Luxury space. This is consistent with 3.9 in the same period of 2017. December also gave us a fourth month of Average Sold Prices above $200k ($205k in...

National commentators are having discussions around affordability. While Professor Schiller focuses on housing prices and calls the current market a great boom, others point out that in real terms housing activity doesn’t match up. In other words, you can price your...

Only local this month. Lubbock MLS data showed 1377 “For Sale” listings at the end of October. This is up from 1298, YoY. In a hint as to market-size and velocity, the 3.7 Months of Inventory is exactly the same as October 2017. Not so on the Luxury space (>$400k),...

Permit me a few thoughts on matters well outside the local market – namely tariffs and trade with China. Macroeconomic theory holds that the equilibrium-price between trade partners can be found – and even be relatively stable – despite trade tariffs when the market...

We will combine national and local observations this month. First, the National Association of Home Builders runs a survey to judge their respondents’ confidence in general market condition. If the confidence scores is above 50, you may assume that there is a general...

It’s interesting how interconnected our economy is. We measure and watch one part of it hoping for clues as to other parts. Sometimes it feels like science (sometimes it feels like phrenology!) For example, if we posit that we are near “full employment” or have...