Tuesday, Oct. 20, carries most of the weight in the week of Oct. 19. Before 10:30 a.m. Eastern, readers will have September housing starts, NAR’s measure of signed contracts and a credit bureau’s view of mortgage demand. The week’s questions are whether 7%-plus mortgage rates are now cutting into construction as well as sales, and whether the drop in contracts that private data showed in September appears in the official figures.
Tuesday, Oct. 20: starts, pending sales and Equifax
8:30 a.m. ET β Census Bureau, New Residential Construction for September. Building permits, housing starts and completions, per the Census Bureau’s 2026 economic indicator calendar. This is the first official September read on builder activity. Two numbers deserve attention. Single-family permits are the cleanest gauge of builder intentions. Multifamily starts tell you whether the apartment pipeline is still shrinking. Producer price data released Oct. 15 showed construction input costs up 11% to 12% from a year earlier, so builders are facing higher costs as well as weaker demand.
10 a.m. ET β National Association of Realtors, September Pending Home Sales Index. The date is on NAR’s 2026 statistical release schedule. Pending sales track contracts, not closings, so they lead the existing-home sales numbers by a month or two. Redfin’s own September data showed pending sales falling year over year in all 50 of the largest metros. NAR’s index uses a different method, and the question is whether it shows the same broad decline. NAR reported last week that existing-home sales rose 1.5% in September to a 3.99 million annual pace.
6:30 a.m. ET β Equifax third-quarter results, with a conference call at 8:30 a.m., according to the company’s announcement. Mortgage credit inquiries are an early read on origination volume, and the credit bureaus are in the middle of the shift toward VantageScore in mortgage lending.
Wednesday and Thursday: rates and a major builder
Wednesday, Oct. 21 β Mortgage Bankers Association weekly applications survey. The Wednesday release covers contract rates and purchase and refinance demand for the prior week.
Thursday, Oct. 22, before the open β PulteGroup third-quarter results, with a conference call at 8:30 a.m. ET, per PulteGroup’s newsroom. PulteGroup’s report will give an early look at how builders are pricing homes with rates near 7.4%. Watch the incentive spending and gross margins in particular.
Thursday, Oct. 22, around noon ET β Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey. The 30-year fixed averaged 7.40% as of Oct. 15, unchanged from a week earlier after a seven-week climb. A second flat reading would suggest rates have leveled off; a resumed rise would push them higher still.
Looking past next week
The calendar gets busier the week after. The Census Bureau releases September new-home sales on Oct. 27 and its third-quarter housing vacancy and homeownership report on Oct. 28. The Federal Reserve’s policy committee meets Oct. 27-28, per the Fed’s meeting calendar; September’s minutes said most participants saw another rate increase as likely appropriate by year-end, and the September CPI came in at 3.7%. NAR publishes third-quarter metro home prices on Oct. 29.
Taken together, next week’s releases will show whether the slowdown in contracts that private data captured in September is also showing up in construction. A big drop in single-family starts would suggest builders are reacting to the same rate pressure buyers have been under since mid-September.
