03/30/2023
Mortgage Applications to Buy a House just dropped 39% YoY in March. That was the worst March performance since 1995.
Difficult to see how a "recovery" in Housing is occurring with this data. But the true news story here is just how bad homebuyer demand still is.📉
Trouble is - that's a "boring" story at this point. News outlets need a way to drive clicks. So they seize upon small sales gains on a monthly basis to craft a new narrative of "recovery".
But nothing has substantially changed about the Housing Market. Prices and rates are still too high. Buyers can't afford it. Check out in Austin, TX for instance. Monthly House Payment for new buyer of $3,600. Compared to $1,800 two years ago.
As a % of Income it looks even worse.
Annual house payments for new buyers in Austin are now 47% of the area's median income. That's way too high. Quite literally - many people can't qualify for the mortgages needed to buy houses today.
https://twitter.com/nickgerli1/status/1641478699378950145?s=46&t=K4LYIAkit9yXC0_7udoHdQ