(Bloomberg) — The stock market’s worst group notched its best day of the year as a cooler-than-expected inflation report stoked bets that the Federal Reserve will start cutting interest rates in September.
Shares of real estate companies jumped 2.7% Thursday for their biggest gain of 2024, climbing to their highest level since March as investors snapped up homebuilder, digital and commercial real estate stocks alike. Real estate also was the best-performing group in the S&P 500 Index Thursday, with volume that was around 30% higher than the 30-day average, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Arguably the most significant news to come from the latest consumer price index reading was a pullback in housing-related inflation. Shelter costs rose just 0.2% for the slowest monthly increase in three years. Homebuilders, which have risen 7.1% this year, were up 7.3% for the session, the most since 2022. Shares of D.R. Horton Inc., which is scheduled to report earnings next Thursday, gained 7.3%.
“Housing has really been the last shoe to drop in terms of winning the battle against high inflation,” Preston Caldwell, chief U.S. economist at Morningstar wrote in a note to clients Thursday. “Leading-edge data has strongly indicated for some time now that a fall in housing inflation was in the works.”
A rally in real estate stocks is bad news for short sellers who have been piling into the group, which is the worst performer in the S&P 500 this year. To start the week, short interest as a percentage of float hovered near 49% in the SPDR Homebuilders ETF, the highest level since February for the exchange-traded fund, according to data from S3 Partners.
Property owners are rallying as well. Real estate investment trusts, which were brutally penalized during the two-year run up in borrowing costs, advanced by as much as 3%. And the outlook for the group appears to have turned a corner, according Rich Hill, senior vice president and head of real estate strategy and research at Cohen & Steers Capital Management.
“We think this is a compelling backdrop for listed REITs especially as fundamental growth remains on solid footing,” he said, referencing the latest inflation data and rate outlook. “The rally that started in October of 2023 pushing returns more than 20% above their trough looks set to continue if inflation cools and interest rates continue to decline.”
Shares of industrial REIT Prologis Inc., which reports second-quarter results on Wednesday, rose 3.3% to hit their highest level since April. U.S. Treasury yields tumbled, with the 10-year bond falling to 4.2% and the policy-sensitive two-year note slipping to 4.5%.
(Updates indexes and stock prices for market close.)
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.
