Today, in the Real Estate Newsletter: ICE Mortgage Monitor: Annual home price growth eased in March

Brief excerpt:

Press Release: ICE Mortgage Monitor: Historically Strong Home Price Growth Pushes U.S. Mortgage Holders’ Tappable Equity to Record $11T

Here is the year-over-year in house prices according to the ICE Home Price Index (HPI). The ICE HPI is a repeat sales index. Black Knight reports the median price change of the repeat sales. The index was up 5.6% year-over-year in March, down from 6.0% YoY in February.

• Home price growth slowed in March, driven by a tightening of both mortgage rates and home affordability, but continues to remain historically strong

• Annual home price growth eased from an upwardly revised 6.0% in February to +5.6% in March, with prices rising by a seasonally adjusted +0.42% in the month, down from a revised +0.58% in February

• On a non-adjusted basis, prices were up +1.2% in March, more than 25% above the 25-year March average of +0.96%

• March marked the third straight month of above average monthly growth, after monthly gains fell below the 25-year average in five of the final six months of 2023, dampened by elevated interest rates

• While rising interest rates suppressed purchase demand and allowed modest inventory growth this spring, prices have remained resilient so far

• That said, adjusted monthly growth continuing at or near its currently rate would result in modestly slowing annual home price growth as we move into summer

There is much more in the article.

Altos reports that active single-family inventory was up 0.6% week-over-week. Inventory is now up 13.3% from the February bottom.
Click on graph for larger image.

This inventory graph is courtesy of Altos Research.
As of May 3rd, inventory was at 560 thousand (7-day average), compared to 556 thousand the prior week.   
Inventory is still far below pre-pandemic levels. 
The second graph shows the seasonal pattern for active single-family inventory since 2015.

The red line is for 2024.  The black line is for 2019.  Note that inventory is up 86% from the record low for the same week in 2022, but still well below normal levels.
Inventory was up 33.1% compared to the same week in 2023 (last week it was up 31.8%), and down 36.8% compared to the same week in 2019 (last week it was down 35.9%). 
Back in June 2023, inventory was down almost 54% compared to 2019, so the gap to more normal inventory levels is slowly closing.
Mike Simonsen discusses this data regularly on Youtube.

Weekend:
• Schedule for Week of May 5, 2024

Monday:
• At 2:00 PM ET, Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey on Bank Lending Practices for April.

From CNBC: Pre-Market Data and Bloomberg futures S&P 500 are up 10 and DOW futures are up 80 (fair value).

Oil prices were up over the last week with WTI futures at $78.11 per barrel and Brent at $82.96 per barrel. A year ago, WTI was at $71, and Brent was at $76 - so WTI oil prices are up about 10% year-over-year.

Here is a graph from Gasbuddy.com for nationwide gasoline prices. Nationally prices are at $3.62 per gallon. A year ago, prices were at $3.52 per gallon, so gasoline prices are up $0.10 year-over-year.