However you slice it, real estate doesn’t look good.While it might not be the subprime/GFC “SELL” kind of situation, the real estate sector is undoubtedly facing headwinds.
With the most recent Fed’s preferred inflation measure, the Personal Consumption Expenditure (PCE) printing higher than consensus, maybe it’s about time we take the Fed’s hawkish commentary more seriously. To review, let us look at interest rate expectations from a month ago vs today. Market expectations are now pricing in three 25bps hikes instead of one, and more importantly no more rate cuts in the second half of 2023. This rise in rates expectation has notably resulted in sideways action for equities, while the dollar strengthens. What a difference a month makes!
Mostly importantly, it’s not hard to see how higher rates will translate into higher mortgage rates. This is bad news for home buyers as borrowing becomes more and more unaffordable. In fact, higher mortgage rates have continued to weigh on the minds of Fed officials as underscored by the following statements in the latest Fed minutes, including “Participants agreed that activity in the housing market had continued to weaken, largely reflecting the increase in mortgage rates over the past year.” and “Participants agreed that cumulative policy firming to date had reduced demand in the most interest-rate-sensitive sectors of the economy, particularly housing.”
Existing home sales are now at a 12-year low, surpassing the 2020 lows. Only 2 other periods post-GFC, saw a lower print, and it’s worth noting that mortgage rates during those periods were at the same level or lower.
Home prices have also started to turn over, ending a 12-year run higher. Lower prices could indicate tepid demand in the housing market, which we will watch closely over the next few prints.
And forward-looking indicators all seem to point towards contraction. With US Building permits and NAHB Housing Market Index slightly off the covid low, while the MBA Purchase Index close to the 7-year low.
It does seem like however, we slice it, real estate looks pretty ugly now. One way to express the bearish view on real estate could be to use the CME E-Mini Real Estate Select Sector Futures which tracks the S&P Real Estate Select Sector Index. Looking at the sector futures alongside the 30-year Mortgage rates shows us the effect of the rising rates on the real estate sector.
On the technical front, we see the sector future breaking the short-term support established since October 2022, while the longer-term trend seems to point downwards.
Given our view that rates have further to go, negative home prices and sentiment measures across the board, and a technical break lower, we see the potential for the sector future to trade lower. We set our stops at 196, a previous resistance level, and the take-profit level at 163, with each 0.05 increment in the index equal to 12.5 USD.
The charts above were generated using CME’s Real-Time data available on TradingView. Inspirante Trading Solutions is subscribed to both TradingView Premium and CME Real-time Market Data which allows us to identify trading set-ups in real-time and express our market opinions. If you have futures in your trading portfolio, you can check out on CME Group data plans available that suit your trading needs www.tradingview.com
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Reference:
www.cmegroup.com
www.federalreserve.gov
