Housing demand shockingly positive even as the Iran war continues

To my shock, housing demand grew noticeably last week, even though the war with Iran continues and mortgage rates are higher today than before the war started. Last week was one of the more positive reports since I started writing the That data is at a multiyear high for the calendar week; maybe some of this is a rebound from recent mortgage rate declines. I’m not sure we can grow much from these levels, as this is a multi-year high in weekly pending sales, but it will be exciting to watch in the coming weeks.

Weekly pending sales usually take 30-60 days to hit the sales data. Typically, mortgage rates above 6.64% and those breaking over 7% really impact the data negatively. Under 6.25% has been the sweet spot over the past several years, excluding short-term variables. Mortgage rates did get close to 6.25% recently, but they’re not quite there yet.

Weekly pending sales last week over the last two years:

• 2026: 80,258
• 2025: 67,892

New listings

Last week had the most exciting new listings report for me in a while. I have been waiting for a normal year in new listing data for years, which means we would have at least a few weeks where this data line just trends between 80,000 and 100,000. This level was normal between 2013 and 2019. Last year, we got above 80,000 for a few weeks, but we couldn’t grow past that. Last week, we rose above that level, and I hope we can grow from here. 

Context for those who think the sky is falling anytime we get growth in new listings: during the housing bubble crash, new listings ranged from 250,000 to 400,000 per week for several years.

Here is last week’s new listings data for the past two years:

• 2026: 83,395
• 2025: 69,891

Inventory growth is running at 4.98% year over year, down from 33% last year, but this week is a big victory.

• Weekly inventory change: (April 17-April 24): Inventory rose from 743,006 to 765,048
• Same week last year: (April 18-April 24): Inventory rose from 719,403 to 728,758

The price-cut percentage is lower than last year and has been most of the year; this week’s decline caught my eye. 

The price-cut percentage for last week:

• 2026: 34.22%
• 2025: 36%

Mortgage rates between 5.75% and 6.75%

The 10-year yield fluctuates between 3.80% and 4.60%

As crazy as this sounds, even with all the nutty headlines about the Iran war, Jerome Powell, Kevin Warsh, and inflation, mortgage rates didn’t move much, as spreads have kept volatility in check. I talked about Kevin Warsh and what his appointment as Fed Chair could mean for housing in For now, as long as the Iran war doesn’t worsen and the labor data doesn’t improve too much, 6.64% might have been the high of the year for mortgage rates, and the 10-year yield at 4.48% could be the top.

Mortgage spreads

Mortgage spreads remain a Historically, mortgage spreads have ranged from 1.60% to 1.80%. Last week, spreads closed at 1.93%, down from 2.00% the week before.

However, I wanted to compare last week’s rates to the worst levels of spreads over the past three years, given the 10-year yield’s current level.

• If we had the worst mortgage spread levels of 2023, mortgage rates would be 7.50% today, not 6.32%.
• If we had the worst levels of 2024, mortgage rates would be 7.12% today.
• If we had the worst levels of 2025, mortgage rates would be 6.93% today.

The week ahead: Iran, Fed meetings, inflation, housing starts, and more

It’s the weekend, which means we tend to get crazy headlines about the Iran war, including news on Saturday that ceasefire meetings fell through. It will make for an interesting Sunday night for future pricing and Monday morning for bonds and oil prices. 

This week, we have the Federal Reserve meeting, which will most likely be the final one with Powell as Fed chair. We will also get the inflation report, home-price data, and housing starts data. We are getting to the point where food inflation will start to creep into some of the data lines. The longer this war goes on, the more inflation will hit some of the data lines. Hopefully, we’ll get some closure on this topic soon.

Amid all the news and data, I will be headlining