Housing Market Cools as Interest Rate Increases Impact Economy

The Covid-19 pandemic profoundly altered the U.S. housing market. Homeowners and renters reevaluated their housing needs and wants as they spent more time at home. At the same time, remote work set off a great migration as employees decided where they wanted to live based on lifestyle rather than employer location. The two themes created a perfect storm of housing demand and overwhelmed homebuilders.

Figure 1 shows the annualized pace of housing starts and building permits steadily climbed after initially plunging during the depths of Covid-19. Housing starts and building permits each jumped to their 2006 highs, levels set during the last housing cycle boom in the lead-up to the 2008 financial crisis. Home and building material prices skyrocketed as housing demand outpaced supply.

Recent datapoints indicate the housing market is cooling. Figure 1 shows the pace of housing starts and building permits declined during the first half of 2022, and data recently released by Redfin appears to …