Weekly housing inventory data
Inventory was down week-over-week, which is not a complete surprise for last week, but the magnitude of the drop was significant, and I attribute it to the snow storm, as we saw a year-over-year decrease in new inventory data. Soon, this storm will pass and we will return to normal. Asset growth, which increased by 33% in 2025, is now less than 9% year-on-year. Year-to-year statistics will be difficult as we move into spring.
- Weekly inventory change: (Jan. 30- Feb. 6): Inventory decreased from 696,222 to 687,697
- Same week last year: (Jan. 31-Feb. 7): Inventory fell 634,936 to 632,325
New listing data
New listings data has been down slightly week-over-week but down significantly year-over-year, but I attribute a lot of this to the weather. We should be back on track soon, and hopefully this year, for the first time in a while, we see new listings go over 80,000 during the peak months of the season and have some growth. For context, during the housing bubble crash, new listings ranged from 250,000 to 400,000 per week for several years.
Here is the last week’s listing data for the past two years:
- 2026: 48,365
- 2025: 53,861
Discount percentages
In general, about one-third of homes are discounted before they sell, reflecting the volatile nature of the housing market. As the loan and property values rise together, the percentage of the amortization increases. However, rates are near multi-year lows, so what’s going on with our discount percentage data now? After a very long time, we are seeing negative year-over-year discount percentage data, which should not be a shock because demand has increased significantly and inventory growth has slowed.
Last week’s price reduction percentage:
Mortgage application data
Shopping apps had a strong start to the year, showing stronger growth than I expected, but the snowstorm affected last week’s data line, sending it down 14% week-over-week while only 4% year-over-year. This kind of big week-to-week decline is something we would see when mortgage rates exceed 75 basis points, but rates have been stable, so this is weather-related. And we have been working from the top levels with shopping apps.
These applications typically delay sales data for 30 to 90 days. Here’s 2026 so far:
- 2 positive results from week to week
- 1 weekly negative print
- 1 weekly flat print
- 3 weeks of double digit growth year over year
Weekly pending sales
Pending home sales data provides a week-to-week overview, although results may be affected by holidays and seasonal fluctuations. Last week this data line was hit by a hurricane and has been worse week over week and year over year. Typically, pending sales reach the current home sales report 30-60 days later.
Weekly pending sales for the previous week over the past few years:
- 2026: 54,255
- 2025: 57,511
10-year yield and housing rates
In HousingWire’s forecast for 2026, I expect the following range:
- Loan rates are between 5.75% and 6.75%
- The 10-year yield fluctuates between 3.80% and 4.60%
Also last week, we faced economic headwinds with several negative labor reports, and we saw a move in the bond market in the 10-year yield, but little movement in mortgage rates. Rate volatility has recently been suppressed, and we have not seen significant increases in mortgage rates as we have in previous years. Also, the 10-year yield is still trending within its low range, which it has been in since September of 2025, although it is near the highs of that range.
Again, we didn’t see much movement in mortgage rates last week. Rates ended the week down 6.15%, according to Mortgage News Daily and mortgage rate lock data from Polly shows a weekend rate of 6.25%.
Mortgage spreads
Mortgage spreads remain positive for housing in 2026, reducing mortgage rate volatility, and are close to normal levels.
Historically, mortgage spreads have varied from 1.60% to 1.80%. Last week’s spread closed at 1.84%. If spreads match the highs of 2023, loan rates would remain the same 1.27 percentage high score, at 7.42%. As spreads return to normal, mortgage rates may remain lower for longer than in previous years.
Next week: BLS Jobs report, Fed speeches and existing home sales
We’re heading into a big data week: Friday’s Jobs report has been moved to Wednesday, we’ll get retail sales, more Fed speeches and the current home sales report will now be reported at the beginning of the month. Fed talks will be more interesting now that Kevin Warsh has been named the next Fed chairman.
Of course BLS Jobs report, keep an eye on wage growth and job updates, as many people no longer have faith in headline data. I believe the current home sales data will be affected this week, not just because of the snow but also the December holidays. We’ll have about two months of data that can show some impact of the snow there, and then we can go on from that.
