Real estate stocks slid at Wednesday’s market open, weighed down by the latest disappointing data on housing starts and a spike in mortgage rates, darkening the outlook for the sector.
By 9:00 a.m. EST, the Real Estate Select Sector SPDR FundXLRE had dropped by 0.3%. This marked its fourth consecutive day of losses and set a course for its lowest close since the end of November 2023.
The fund has also slipped below its 200-day moving average, a critical long-term benchmark, signaling that investor sentiment has turned negative.
The average interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with loan balances up to $766,550 climbed by 12 basis points to 7.13% for the week ending Apr. 12, 2024, according to the latest figures from the Mortgage Bankers Association. This rate is the highest recorded since early December.
On Wednesday, the yield on a 30-year Treasury bond, a key benchmark for long-term mortgage rates, traded at 4.75%, at the highest since mid-November 2023, as Fed Chair Powell admitted that there has been a lack of progress in the disinflation trend.
Chart: Real Estate Stocks Fall Below Key Long-Term Moving Average As Inflation Bites Again
Weaknesses In Multifamily Segment Continue
Joel Kan, MBA’s Vice President and Deputy Chief Economist, explained the rise in rates, stating, “Rates increased for the second consecutive week, driven by incoming data indicating that the economy remains strong and inflation is proving tougher to bring down.”
Despite the uptick in mortgage rates, there was a 3.3% week-over-week increase in the Market Composite Index, which measures mortgage loan application volume.
Kan further noted, “Application activity picked up, possibly as some borrowers decided to act in case rates continue to rise. Purchase applications were the primary driver of this increase, although they are still about 10% lower than last year’s levels. There was a slight uptick in refinance applications, mainly due to a 3% rise in conventional applications.”
Chart: US 30-Year Mortgage Rates Rose To The Highest Level Since Late November
The real estate market’s challenges are linked to affordability and a shrinking availability as the supply of new homes falls.
Andrew Foran, an economist at Toronto Dominion Securities, commented on the trend in home building, “Homebuilding activity moderated in March as weakness in the multifamily segment persisted and the single-family segment gave back most of its considerable gain from the prior month.”
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Data revealed a 14.7% month-over-month decline in housing starts in March, with the figures dropping to 1.32 million annualized units, significantly below the anticipated 1.49 million.
Both the single-family and multifamily sectors experienced declines, with single-family starts down by 12.4% (or 145,000 units) and multifamily starts plummeting by 21.7% (or 83,000 units). This retreat in multifamily starts marked the lowest level since April 2020.
Additionally, residential permits decreased more than expected in March, falling by 4.3% month-over-month to 1.46 million annualized units. This included a 5.7% drop in single-family permits—the first decline in fifteen months—and a 1.2% reduction in multifamily permits.
Rising & Falling
The weakest performers among real estate stocks with a market cap of at least $1 billion on Wednesday were:
TORONTO – One expert predicts Ottawa‘s changes to mortgage rules will help spur demand among potential homebuyers but says policies aimed at driving new supply are needed to address the “core issues” facing the market.
The federal government’s changes, set to come into force mid-December, include a higher price cap for insured mortgages to allow more people to qualify for a mortgage with less than a 20 per cent down payment.
The government will also expand its 30-year mortgage amortization to include first-time homebuyers buying any type of home, as well as anybody buying a newly built home.
CIBC Capital Markets deputy chief economist Benjamin Tal calls it a “significant” move likely to accelerate the recovery of the housing market, a process already underway as interest rates have begun to fall.
However, he says in a note that policymakers should aim to “prevent that from becoming too much of a good thing” through policies geared toward the supply side.
Tal says the main issue is the lack of supply available to respond to Canada’s rapidly increasing population, particularly in major cities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17,2024.
OTTAWA – The Canadian Real Estate Association says the number of homes sold in August fell compared with a year ago as the market remained largely stuck in a holding pattern despite borrowing costs beginning to come down.
The association says the number of homes sold in August fell 2.1 per cent compared with the same month last year.
On a seasonally adjusted month-over-month basis, national home sales edged up 1.3 per cent from July.
CREA senior economist Shaun Cathcart says that with forecasts of lower interest rates throughout the rest of this year and into 2025, “it makes sense that prospective buyers might continue to hold off for improved affordability, especially since prices are still well behaved in most of the country.”
The national average sale price for August amounted to $649,100, a 0.1 per cent increase compared with a year earlier.
The number of newly listed properties was up 1.1 per cent month-over-month.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
MONTREAL – Two Quebec real estate brokers are facing fines and years-long suspensions for submitting bogus offers on homes to drive up prices during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Christine Girouard has been suspended for 14 years and her business partner, Jonathan Dauphinais-Fortin, has been suspended for nine years after Quebec’s authority of real estate brokerage found they used fake bids to get buyers to raise their offers.
Girouard is a well-known broker who previously starred on a Quebec reality show that follows top real estate agents in the province.
She is facing a fine of $50,000, while Dauphinais-Fortin has been fined $10,000.
The two brokers were suspended in May 2023 after La Presse published an article about their practices.
One buyer ended up paying $40,000 more than his initial offer in 2022 after Girouard and Dauphinais-Fortin concocted a second bid on the house he wanted to buy.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
