More Home Listings Are Seeing Price Cuts: The pace of price cuts has picked up recently, potentially pressuring sales prices in the second half of the year.
Gap Between Home List Prices and Sale Prices: Buyers increasingly able to negotiate prices down.
Prices Falling in Half of the Biggest US Cities: Home prices fell year-over-year in half of the nation’s 50 largest metro areas, with the sharpest declines concentrated in the South. In contrast, as recently as late 2024, fewer than ten metro areas were experiencing year-over-year price drops.
Housing Inventory Slowly Coming Back: Existing single-family home supply has reached 4.5 months, the highest since July 2016.
Falling Permits Foreshadow Construction Employment Weakness: Building permits typically lead construction employment by 9–12 months, and recent weakness in permits suggests that construction employment will be under pressure in the months ahead.
Housing Starts Near Five-Year Lows: Housing starts (both multi and single-family homes) have been trending down since spring 2022. Recently, multi-family starts have shown some strength, but the larger and more critical single-family segment just fell to a 27-month low, a level last seen in 2017.
Affordability Crisis: About 94 million U.S. households, or 70 percent, cannot afford a new home priced at $400,000, the current median sales price for new houses sold. Around 53 million households cannot afford a home priced at $200,000 or higher.
Home Prices Have Meaningfully Outpaced Incomes: Home prices are at historically high levels relative to household disposable income.
Home Improvement Sales as a Share of Consumer Spending Hits Record Low: With the pandemic-era renovation boom clearly in the rearview, consumers' preferences—or perhaps their ability—to spend on home improvement have shifted toward other areas of consumption.
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Groupthink is bad, especially at investment management firms. Brandywine Global therefore takes special care to ensure our corporate culture and investment processes support the articulation of diverse viewpoints. This blog is no different. The opinions expressed by our bloggers may sometimes challenge active positioning within one or more of our strategies. Each blogger represents one market view amongst many expressed at Brandywine Global. Although individual opinions will differ, our investment process and macro outlook will remain driven by a team approach.
