D.R. Horton, Inc. (DHI)

Housing market: Mortgage rates bear down on homebuilder stocks

Homebuilder confidence has held and remained the same in recent months as new home sales dropped. Mortgage rates have been at the root of many problems afflicting the US housing market and now they are starting to take a toll on homebuilder stocks; things could get even uglier as rates consistently move between 7% and realtors see mortgage rates going as high as 8% even. As part of Yahoo Finance's Real Estate: The New Reality special coverage this week, Wedbush Securities Equity Research SVP Jay McCanless describes the rate environment as having "gone from being pretty benign" at 2024's start to "much more negative now than we would've expected." McCanless outlines how homebuilders are operating in this rate-sensitive housing market and where he sees demand going based on the younger generations of homebuyers. "The group is carrying less debt than it was five years ago and especially ten years ago. They are building the homes certainly more efficiently than they were back then, but at the same time, it comes down to monthly payment and the builders, I think they've done a good job of trying to shrink the size of the homes that they're building, reduce the amenities that they're putting especially in some the starter homes," McCanless says. "But at the end of the day if the mortgage rate's gone up 100-something basis points like it has this year already, that's just going to reduce the size of the population that can potentially buy a home." Catch more of Yahoo Finance's Real Estate: The New Reality coverage this week, or watch this full episode here. This post was written by Luke Carberry Mogan.