Average new home size:

1950 - 983 sq ft
1970 - 1,500 sq ft
2023 - 2,230 sq ft

Half of new homes today have 4 or more bedrooms while 1/3 have a 3 car garage

One reason housing is more expensive is they're bigger & nicer than before

awealthofcommonsense.com/2025/01/the-...

Headline CPI inflation comes in at 0.4% MM, 2.9% YY, in line with expectations. Core was 0.2% MM (0.23% to be precise) and 3.3% YY, a tick below expectations on both.

Most of the miss of core against target remains housing and auto insurance.

At what point do 7%+ mortgage rates and a lack of housing activity become a big problem for the economy?

awealthofcommonsense.com/2025/01/is-t...

Cattle Price hits a new all-time high 🐂📈🚨

December Employment Situation Report in <5 mins

Payrolls +256k vs +165k exp
Avg hourly earnings +0.3% MoM vs +0.3% exp
Unemployment rate 4.1% vs 4.2% exp
LFPR exp 62.5% vs 62.5% exp

2m net revision of -8k

Optically strong report, need to see guts tho

U.S. mortgage rates are back at their highest level since last summer, frustrating homebuyers waiting for a break from some of the steepest borrowing costs in more than a decade

Normally, this would be wildly bullish, but the same weather pattern is shutting down major demand geographies from KC to Baltimore to Austin to Atlanta.

Trucker math tells me this is a wash. Especially with the big round of buying (and subsequent price rally) from the past 2 months.

Lumber (and others) railcars frozen in place