As the recent surge in mortgage rates, plunging housing starts, a record number of new listings with price cuts, and cratering homebuilder and homebuyer confidence has effectively pushed the housing market into a recession. This demise was so widespread that roughly 63,000 home-purchase agreements were called off in July, which equates to 16% of the homes that went under contract that month. According to Redfin, this is the highest percentage ever recorded except during the COVID-crash when the entire country was under lockdown.
Surprisingly, the biggest losers from this housing recession are the homebuilders who are suddenly finding themselves with an increased supply of unsold homes. An abrupt halt to the pandemic housing boom has left builders that started construction months ago scrambling to adapt. The US supply of new homes relative to sales in June was the highest since the midst of the last crash in 2010. By early July, buyer traffic to homebuilder websites and sales offices had plunged to the lowest level for the month since 2012, according to a survey of builder sentiment from the National Association of Home Builders.