The week of Sept. 21 is a quiet one on the calendar, which makes it a useful one. With the Federal Reserve’s decision behind us and no central bank event until late October, the data that lands next week will be the first clean look at how the housing market was behaving before the Sept. 16 rate increase β and the first read on what builders are telling investors about it.
Tuesday, Sept. 22 β KB Home reports
KB Home releases results for its fiscal third quarter, which ended Aug. 31, after the market closes, with a conference call at 5 p.m. Eastern. It is the first major builder to report since Lennar’s quarter showed a 52% drop in profit, a nine-point decline in new orders and a cut to full-year deliveries. KB Home operates at a lower price point and leans heavily on its build-to-order model, so the questions to watch are its cancellation rate, the size of the rate buydowns it is funding and whether it follows Lennar in trimming guidance.
Wednesday, Sept. 23 β mortgage applications
The Mortgage Bankers Association publishes its Weekly Applications Survey Wednesday morning. This is the first full week of application data collected after the Fed’s move and the jump in the 30-year fixed average to 6.95%, so purchase and refinance volumes will show whether the rate increase pulled buyers off the sidelines, pushed them further away, or neither.
Thursday, Sept. 24 β new home sales and Freddie Mac
The Census Bureau releases New Residential Sales for August at 10 a.m. Eastern. This is the sharpest monthly measure of the builder market, and it matters more than usual after 66% of builders reported using sales incentives in September. Watch the median sales price and the months’ supply of new homes alongside the headline rate: incentives show up in the price series before they show up in volume.
Freddie Mac’s rate survey follows at noon Eastern. Last week’s reading was 6.95%, up 19 basis points from the week before. The survey covers applications from the prior Thursday through Wednesday, so next week’s print is the one that fully absorbs the Fed decision.
Friday, Sept. 25 β durable goods
Census publishes the advance durable goods report for August at 8:30 a.m. Eastern. Construction machinery and nondefense capital goods orders inside it are a reasonable proxy for what contractors expect to build.
What is not next week
No National Association of Realtors release is scheduled; existing-home sales for September arrive Oct. 13, and the pending home sales index follows Oct. 20. Both August reports are already out.
The Bureau of Economic Analysis publishes the third estimate of second-quarter GDP and the August personal income and outlays report β which carries the PCE price index the Fed watches β on Sept. 30, at the start of the following week. The next Federal Open Market Committee meeting is Oct. 27-28.
On the policy side, the Massachusetts ruling that upheld the state’s transit zoning mandate on Sept. 18 shifts attention to enforcement against the towns still out of compliance. Expect that, not a data release, to generate next week’s zoning headlines.
