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One of the more telling things across our housing coverage is we’ve been increasingly downgrading local markets at a time in the calendar where we’re usually upgrading given normal spring seasonal lift this time of the year. Not the case so far in 2025, even with falling rates.

One thing that immediately comes to mind about last week’s Rocket/Redfin deal is how long until the resale maker figures out a programmatic way to facilitate mortgage rate buydowns for the full 30-year term like big homebuilders. Many entry-level builders we speak with

Will be interesting to see if Lennar $LEN talks about March month-to-date housing trends on call tomorrow. We published our mid-month March homebuilder channel check yesterday, and sales remain worse than typical for spring, with pricing particularly soft.

Homebuilder incentives are one of the tougher historical data sets to track consistently. Here’s what Lennar $LEN (the second biggest builder in America) has publicly reported on this metric since 2009. For the most recent quarter through February, incentives hit 13%.

Good housing read from ⁦⁦⁦Conor Sen⁩. Coming into 2025 our base case for builders was rate buydowns alone wouldn’t be the magic elixir for sales like ‘23-‘24. Very different supply setup in ‘25 and resale prices falling in key builder markets. bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

Spotted ⁦Stinson Dean🌲⁩ on ⁦Bloomberg just now so you know lumber is top of mind again for homebuilders.

Cost of mortgage rate buydowns quickly improving for homebuilders as rates drop. This assumes builders don’t need to maintain preexisting spreads on market rates as overall yields float lower. Still TBD in some rough Texas & Florida markets today with prices falling.

One of the rare disclosures on regional homebuilder incentives from Lennar’s 10-Q released April 4. No more solo Texas region post-Rausch acquisition, but it accounts for bulk of new South Central segment, while Florida drives East region (both seeing elevated incentives). $LEN

Strike that, reverse it… Mortgage rates likely back around 7% again based on what’s happening tonight with 10-year Treasury yield. Such a whipsaw for homebuilders and homebuyers, all during the most pivotal part of spring selling season no less.

For housing, it’s worth remembering that even before the April 2nd macro volatility storm kicked off, homebuilders we survey reported the weakest month of March pricing environment since 2009. It’s a big part of why we downgraded all new homebuyer segments to SLOW last week.

Been using this policy punch list slide since January to update clients on stuff key to housing. Leaning toward adding at least a half-check mark next to Fed independence, now clearly on the chopping block. Wild YTD for homebuilders and interest rates.

Succinct and honest description of spring selling season to date from homebuilder $MHO earnings call today. "Spring selling season has been just okay. Frankly, we grade it somewhere between a B- to C+."

Themes from homebuilder earnings so far, all of which mirror our research through April: 1) April worse than Jan-Mar (very abnormal) 2) Land market cooling & builders slowing starts 3) Incentives high & ticking higher in Q2 4) 'Choppy' = industry’s #1 adjective for market today

Headline we ran with on our resale agent survey April 15 summed up today’s lagging but ‘official’ NAR release on existing home sales: John Burns Research and Consulting report headline 4/15: “March resale market remains weak; FL and TX prices still negative YOY.”

‘Midwest strong’ (namely #Chicago) still the theme across single-family & build-to-rent REIT earnings from #INVH & #AMH this week. Seeing it across our housing data & surveys the last year+, & still looking solid across our channel checks. Just so little supply in these markets.

Green Brick Partners #GRBK (27th biggest builder) doesn’t get much attention, which is a shame since its earnings calls are always interesting. Land strategy is so different from other big builders lately, and it shows: * 31.2% gross margins (not a typo) * not that interested

Sharp jump in #Atlanta resale months of supply (left chart), and home prices about to go negative YOY (right chart). Would be the first time since 2012 that home prices dropped YOY in this market.

Entry-level new home demand is very soft YTD. This is particularly concerning given that many of these buyers are saying “no thanks” to homebuilders at subsidized rates of between 4.5% and 5.5%. Imagine what entry-level sales would look like at true 7% market rates...