The Housing market September 2015: a good example of leading and lagging trends

This happens to be a good time to restate the sequence in which housing data runs:

• 1st, interest rates turn
• 2nd, home sales turn
• 3rd, home prices turn
• 4th, inventory turns

The reason this is a good time to examine the timing is because mortgage rates made a 50 year low in late 2012. Then in mid 2013 we had the “taper tantrum” which caused rates to rise close to 2%. Then rates settled down roughly in the middle.