Home sales hit their highest level since December. Mortgage rates dipped in April. Buyers responded by purchasing homes at elevated prices. Brilliant timing.
You waited through months of seven-percent rates. You refreshed Zillow like a degenerate checking a parlay. Rates finally dropped half a point and you sprinted into the market to overpay for a three-bedroom ranch that needs foundation work. The seller thanks you for your service.
The rebound happened because rates fell back "a bit" in April. A bit. Not a collapse. Not a structural shift. A bit. Like when your doctor says you lost a bit of weight and you're still obese. But that was enough to send buyers into a frenzy because nothing says financial discipline like panic-purchasing the largest asset of your lifetime because the number got slightly less catastrophic.
Prices are still rising. Let that marinate. Sales surged and prices went up. Supply and demand working exactly as described in the textbook you never read. Every mouth-breather who thought they were timing the bottom just bought the local top. They'll spend thirty years paying off a mortgage that started because rates dropped from soul-crushing to merely devastating.
December was the previous peak. Five months ago. This is the comparison point that has everyone excited. Home sales reached a level they hit during Christmas shopping season when everyone makes terrible financial decisions anyway. Congratulations on matching the desperation energy of late-December car dealerships.
The technical analysis remains unchanged: mortgage rates are noise, home prices are noise, and your decision to buy or not buy based on monthly data is performance art. But at least May buyers locked in their overpayment before rates inevitably do whatever the f*ck they were going to do anyway.
Photo by Breno Assis on Unsplash
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