short-term effects of 10-year yield on housing sales

[CKT]

As has been discussed in other posts on this forum, the 10-year treasury yield hit a 5-year high yesterday. Many savvy readers know that there is a pretty good correlation between the yield and interest rates for 30 year mortgages. has predicted that 30-year mortgage interest rates could be as high as 7% by the end of the week.

Now some have predicted that this spells doom for the housing market, and if rates continue to climb I'm sure that's true in the long term. But I think that some movement to higher interest rates may spark a short-term buying frenzy. There are buyers on the sidelines waiting to see how this market plays itself out. But if they see that interest rates are climbing, some might jump into the market before they are "priced out forever". My guess is that you may see this phenomenon just as interest rates start to climb, because potential buyers that are watching interest rates will be most likely to act then.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that don't expect an increase in mortgage interest rates to immediately depress home sales. In fact, if an increase in interest rates is sustained, you may actually expect an initial increase, paradoxically.

[thelongwait]

This week I'm seeing reduction in the listings on the Eastside that I've been keeping an eye on. $20 - $25k reduction.

[CKT]

[plymster]

[CKT]

plymster, I think you're right for the medium and long term. But many of us have been flabbergasted time and time again watching the market react 180 degrees from what you would expect in response to some new development in the "fundamentals". Rationally, one would expect to see a reduction in sales as rates increase. I'm arguing that we may see the opposite in the near term. On the other hand, the phenomenon I'm describing might be so small that it won't be detected above statistical noise and seasonal changes in the market. So I might just be full of it.

But like you said, it will be hard to stop the carnage that would follow a sustained increase in mortgage interest rates. If the bond market falls to pieces just as tons of ARM reset, things will get ugly fast.

[mike2]

I too wouldn't be surprised to see a short term pop in sales, simply because those people that locked in rates sometime in the last 45 days see that they couldn't get the same deal again today.

Beyond that, Re-Fi's have the most incentive to move NOW, since they don't have as much flexibility to "wait and see where rates go". It's not like they can decide to rent for another year and save up money.

[plymster]

CKT, I don't think you're full of it. I think you may be right about the short term, but like you say, any short term gains will probably be lost as noise. Realistically it depends on what kind of short term you're talking about, too. Months? Weeks? Days? From all the reports we're seeing, the changes seem to be accellerating pretty quickly.

A 39 bp raise of TNX in a week is devastating if you consider that it took the Fed about 3 months to do the same thing over a year ago. 82 lenders have exited the subprime market in 6 months. Spain just dumped 80 tons of gold over the last 3 months; Switzerland just announced that they'd be selling 250 tons over the next 2 years. All year long, people have been calling for the Fed to cut rates, but in the past few weeks, poeple are giving even odds of a rate raise before the year end. Sea changes are happening at a blistering pace.

I guess my thinking is that things are moving too fast for your short term theory to show up. The RE market seems to move ponderously slow, but I think we're getting to the part of the roller coaster where it picks up speed.