RKT
Buyers are tiptoeing back in
Redfin’s latest read on the housing market says U.S. pending home sales rose 9.6% year over year, hitting their highest level since September 2022. In plain English: people are actually signing contracts again, not just doomscrolling Zillow at 11 p.m.
Not every city got the memo
The rebound isn’t perfectly even. Pending sales are up in every major U.S. metro except Houston, Detroit, and Seattle. So yes, the market is healing — just with a few stubborn coughs still lingering.
Why investors should care
Mortgage-purchase applications are up 4% week over week, which suggests the demand side is waking up. But stronger demand also tends to push prices higher, and Redfin says the median home-sale price rose 2.2% year over year. That’s great if you own a home, less thrilling if you’re trying to buy one without selling a kidney.
Big picture
For housing-adjacent names, this is the kind of data point that can feed optimism about transaction volumes and refinancing activity. For everyone else, it’s another reminder that the housing market is still doing its own weird little dance between affordability pain and pent-up demand.