Lawler: Early Read on September Existing Home Sales, and Update on MBS Yields and Spreads

From housing economist Tom Lawler:

Early Read on Existing Home Sales in September

Based on publicly-available local realtor/MLS reports released across the country through today, I project that existing home sales as estimated by the National Association of Realtors ran at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.00 million in September, unchanged from August’s preliminary pace (which looked too high relative to state and local realtor data) and up 2.6% last September’s seasonally adjusted pace. Unadjusted sales should show a larger YOY % increase, reflecting this September’s higher business day count relative to last September’s.

Local realtor/MLS reports suggest that the median existing single-family home sales price last month was up by about 2.2% from a year earlier.

CR Note: The NAR is scheduled to release September Existing Home sales on Thursday, October 23rd at 10:00 AM. The consensus is for the NAR to report sales of 4.06 million SAAR. Last year, the NAR reported sales in September 2024 at 3.90 million SAAR.

Update on MBS Yields and Spreads

Also from Tom Lawler:

MBS yields, which hit a yearly low right before the September FOMC meeting but then bounced back up a bit through the end of September, have since moved back down close to the mid-September lows. Yesterday the current coupon MBS (CCMBS) yield was 5%, just 2 bp above the September 16 closing lows for the year. The CCMBS/10-year Treasury spread yesterday was 100 bp, up from the unusually narrow (for periods when the Fed was not intervening in the MBS market) 93 bp in mid-September, while the CCMBS/7-year Treasury spread was 123 bp, up from the mid-September low of 119 bp.