I was amazed that the last Housing Market Tracker didn’t show much drama from the epic late-January snowstorm that impacted much of the U.S., but today’s tracker data got hit for sure. However, the housing market will be back in full force again soon.
Last week, inventory declined, new listings data was negative year over year, purchase applications took a sharp dive and our weekly pending home sales were hit — all with mortgage rates not having much volatility. What has been driving the housing market since mid-June 2025 remains in place: mortgage rates near 6%. And luckily, it can’t snow all the time.
Weekly housing inventory data
Inventory fell week over week, which isn’t a total surprise for last week, but the magnitude of the decline was notable, and I attribute it to the snowstorm, as we saw a year-over-year decline in new listings data. Soon, this storm’s impact will pass and we will get back on track. Inventory growth, which peaked at 33% in 2025, is now below 9% year over year. The year-over-year comps will get harder as we heading in to spring.
- Weekly inventory change: (Jan. 30- Feb. 6): Inventory fell from 696,222 to 687,697
- Same week last year: (Jan. 31-Feb. 7): Inventory fell from 634,936 to 632,325
New listings data
New listings data was down slightly week-to-week but down big year over year, but I attribute a lot of this to weather. We should get back on track soon, and hopefully this year, for the first time in a while, see new listings get above 80,000 during the seasonal peak months and have some growth. For context, during the housing bubble crash, new listings ranged from 250,000 to 400,000 per week for several years.
Here is last week’s new listings data for the past two years:
- 2026: 48,365
- 2025: 53,861
Price-cut percentage
Typically, about one-third of homes undergo price reductions before they sell, reflecting the dynamic nature of the housing market. As mortgage rates and inventory rise together, the percentage of price cuts increase. However, rates are near multiyear lows, so what’s happening with our price-cut percentage data now? After a very long time, we are seeing negative year-over-year price-cut percentage data, which shouldn’t be shocking because demand has picked up a tad and inventory growth has slowed down.
The price-cut percentage for last week:
- 2026: 32.23%
- 2025: 33%
Mortgage purchase application data
Purchase applications have had a solid start to the year, showing stronger growth than I anticipated, but the snowstorm affected last week’s data line, sending it down 14% week over week while only up 4% year over year. This type of big week-to-week decline is something we would see if mortgage rates jumped 75 basis points, but rates were steady, so this is weather-related. And we were working from elevated levels with purchase apps.
These applications typically lag sales data by 30 to 90 days. Here’s 2026 so far:
- 2 positive week-over-week results
- 1 negative week-to-week prints
- 1 flat week-to-week print
- 3 weeks of double-digit year-over-year growth
Weekly pending sales
Pending home sales data offers a week-to-week perspective, though results can be affected by holidays and short-term fluctuations. Last week this data line was affected by the snowstorm and was negative week-over-week and year over year. Typically, pending sales hit the existing home sales report 30-60 days later.
Weekly pending sales for last week in the past few years:
- 2026: 54,255
- 2025: 57,511
10-year yield and mortgage rates
In the 2026 HousingWire forecast, I anticipated the following ranges:
- Mortgage rates between 5.75% and 6.75%
- The 10-year yield fluctuating between 3.80% and 4.60%
Once again last week, we faced economic headwinds with multiple negative labor reports, and we saw some bond market movement in the 10-year yield, but little movement in mortgage rates. Rate volatility has recently compressed, and we haven’t seen a significant spike in mortgage rates as we have in previous years. Also, the 10-year yield is still trending within its low-level range, which it has been in since September of 2025, albeit near the upper levels of that range.
Once again, we didn’t see too much movement in mortgage rates last week. Rates ended the week lower at 6.15%, according to Mortgage News Daily and mortgage rate lock data from Polly shows a weekend rate of 6.25%.
Mortgage spreads
Mortgage spreads remain a positive story for housing in 2026, reducing mortgage-rate volatility, and are close to normal levels.
Historically, mortgage spreads have ranged from 1.60% to 1.80%. Last week’s spreads closed at 1.84%. If spreads matched the 2023 peak levels, mortgage rates would be 1.27 percentage points higher, at 7.42%. With spreads returning to normal, mortgage pricing can remain lower for longer than in previous years.
The week ahead: BLS Jobs report, Fed speeches and existing home sales
We are heading into a big week of data: the Jobs Friday report has been moved to this Wednesday, we will get retail sales, numerous Fed speeches and the existing home sales report will now be reported earlier in the month. The Fed speeches will become increasingly interesting now that Kevin Warsh has been nominated as the next Fed chair.
For the BLS Jobs report, keep an eye out for the wage growth and job revisions, since most people have no faith in the headline data much anymore. I believe existing home sales data will be impacted this week, not only due to snow but also the December holidays. We will have about two months of data that might show some snow impact in there, and then we can move on from that.
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