Once again it seems cash is king if the housing recovery is to continue. Despite the surge in prices that we saw yesterday that reflected the long-forgotten days before mortgage rates exploded, the housing recovery meme remains loud and proud. But, mortgage applications are now down for 7 of the last 8 weeks and have collapsed a stunning 29% over that time. - the biggest plunge in 30 months. It appears that the 'rational' buyer has decided that higher rates are not the factor that drives them to snap up that surging priced home? Is it any wonder, as we noted here, in spite of being told every day how 'affordable' housing is with rates this low, their real purchasing power (given a limited budget [4] as opposed to free money-based finance) has plunged by 16% (for now) [5].
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As a reminder...
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Charts: Bloomberg