From Intercontinental Exchange: ICE First Look at Mortgage Performance: Delinquencies Ease in July as Foreclosure Activity Edges Higher

Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. (NYSE:ICE) ... today released its July 2025 ICE First Look at mortgage delinquency, foreclosure and prepayment trends. The data shows that U.S. mortgage performance remains remarkably strong compared to pre-pandemic norms, marked by delinquencies declining on an annual basis.

“If you are looking for signs of a faltering economy, you won’t find them in July’s mortgage performance data,” said Andy Walden, Head of Mortgage and Housing Market Research at ICE. “New delinquency inflows were down -13% from June and -5% from the same time last year, with the national delinquency rate improving on an annual basis for the second straight month, breaking what had been a 13-month streak of consecutive increases.”

Key takeaways from the ICE First Look include:

• National delinquency rate: The delinquency rate fell by eight basis points (bps) in July to 3.27%, a 9-basis-point improvement year over year (YoY) and still 58 basis points below its 2019 levels.

• Serious delinquencies: Loans 90+ days past due but not in foreclosure held steady overall. Also, while serious delinquencies are up 30,000 YoY, it is the smallest annual increase since November, as the impacts from recent wildfires and last year’s hurricanes continue to fade.

• FHA delinquencies: FHA loans remain the primary driver of stress in the market. While FHA delinquencies ticked down by 5 basis points in July, they are still 15 basis points above year-ago levels and now account for the majority (52%) of serious delinquencies nationwide.

• Foreclosure activity: Foreclosure inventory rose 10% YoY, with starts increasing annually for eight straight months and foreclosure sales up in each of the past five months. Even so, the national foreclosure rate remains 35% below pre-pandemic norms.

• Prepayment activity: Prepayments edged up slightly to 0.67% in July on a modest improvement in rates and are up more than 12% from a year ago.
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Here is a table from ICE.

Today, in the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter: New Home Sales at 652,000 Annual Rate in July

Brief excerpt:

The Census Bureau reported New Home Sales in July were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR) of 652 thousand. The previous three months were revised up.
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The next graph shows new home sales for 2024 and 2025 by month (Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate). Sales in July 2025 were down 8.2% from July 2024.

New home sales, seasonally adjusted, have been down year-over-year for 7 consecutive months.

There is much more in the article.

The Census Bureau reports New Home Sales in July were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR) of 652 thousand.

The previous three months were revised up.

Sales of new single-family houses in July 2025 were at a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 652,000, according to estimates released jointly today by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. This is 0.6 percent below the June 2025 rate of 656,000, and is 8.2 percent below the July 2024 rate of 710,000.
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The first graph shows New Home Sales vs. recessions since 1963. The dashed line is the current sales rate.

New home sales were below pre-pandemic levels.

The second graph shows New Home Months of Supply.

The months of supply was unchanged in July at 9.2 months from 9.2 months in June.

The all-time record high was 12.2 months of supply in January 2009. The all-time record low was 3.3 months in August 2020.

This is well above the top of the normal range (about 4 to 6 months of supply is normal).

"The seasonally-adjusted estimate of new houses for sale at the end of July 2025 was 499,000. This is 0.6 percent below the June 2025 estimate of 502,000, and is 7.3 percent above the July 2024 estimate of 465,000.

This represents a supply of 9.2 months at the current sales rate. The months' supply is virtually unchanged from the June 2025 estimate of 9.2 months, and is 16.5 percent above the July 2024 estimate of 7.9 months."

Sales were above expectations of 630 thousand SAAR and sales for the three previous months were revised up. I'll have more later today.

Altos reports that active single-family inventory was up 0.1% week-over-week.
Inventory is now up 37.9% from the seasonal bottom in January.   Usually, inventory is up about 22% from the seasonal low by this week in the year.   So, 2025 was a larger than normal increase in inventory.
The first graph shows the seasonal pattern for active single-family inventory since 2015.
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The red line is for 2025.  The black line is for 2019.  
Inventory was up 22.2% compared to the same week in 2024 (last week it was up 23.2%), and down 9.4% compared to the same week in 2019 (last week it was down 9.9%). 
Inventory started 2025 down 22% compared to 2019.  Inventory has closed more than half of that gap, and it appears inventory will be close to 2019 levels at the end of 2025.
This second inventory graph is courtesy of Altos Research.
As of August 22nd, inventory was at 861 thousand (7-day average), compared to 860 thousand the prior week. 
Mike Simonsen discusses this data and much more regularly on YouTube

Weekend:
• Schedule for Week of August 24, 2025

Monday:
• At 8:30 AM ET, Chicago Fed National Activity Index for July. This is a composite index of other data.

• At 10:00 AM, New Home Sales for July from the Census Bureau. The consensus is for 630 thousand SAAR, up from 627 thousand in June.

• At 10:30 AM, Dallas Fed Survey of Manufacturing Activity for August.

From CNBC: Pre-Market Data and Bloomberg futures S&P 500 and DOW futures are mostly unchanged (fair value).

Oil prices were up over the last week with WTI futures at $63.74 per barrel and Brent at $67.77 per barrel. A year ago, WTI was at $76, and Brent was at $80 - so WTI oil prices are down about 16% year-over-year.

Here is a graph from Gasbuddy.com for nationwide gasoline prices. Nationally prices are at $3.13 per gallon. A year ago, prices were at $3.31 per gallon, so gasoline prices are down $0.18 year-over-year.

From J.D. Power: August New-Vehicle Sales Climb 8.2% as Consumer Spending Reaches Record $54.6 Billion; EV Share Hits All-Time High Brief excerpt:

The seasonally adjusted annualized rate (SAAR) for total new-vehicle sales is expected to be 16.1 million units, up 1.0 million units from August 2024.
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“August new-vehicle sales are expected to climb 8.2% from a year ago, including a 7.8% increase in retail volume. A strong result, although the results should be viewed in the context of several unusual factors that are distorting typical monthly sales trends.

“First, federal credits of up to $7,500 on EVs will expire on Sept. 30, prompting many EV shoppers to accelerate purchases that otherwise would have occurred later this year. As a result, EV retail share in August is expected to reach an all-time high of 12.0%, compared with 9.5% a year ago.

“Second, Labor Day lands in the August sales reporting period this year. The Labor Day weekend is typically one of the highest sales volume weekends of the year, powered by elevated manufacturer promotional activity and elevated discounts. This year, manufacturers have kept incentives restrained due to tariffs. Normally, incentives as a percentage of MSRP increase by about half a point from January through late summer, but this year they’ve slipped to 6.2% in August from 6.3% in January, underscoring the effect of tariff-related cost pressures.

“Third, lease returns remain at historically low levels following the reduced leasing activity during the 2022 supply shortages. With fewer lease customers cycling back into the market, new-vehicle sales are facing added pressure compared with typical seasonal patterns.

“Finally, from a total sales perspective, fleet deliveries are expected to reach 199,854 units in August, up 11.2% primarily due to the low baseline recorded in August 2024. Fleet volume is forecast to represent 13.5% of total light-vehicle sales, an increase of 0.4 percentage points year over year.

“In sum, August’s retail sales results point to solid new vehicle demand. The results are unquestionably inflated by shoppers accelerating their electric vehicle purchases to take advantage of Federal EV credits—but the sales pace for non-EVs remains robust, especially given the modest discounts available on those vehicles.
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This graph shows actual sales from the BEA (Blue), and J.D. Power's forecast for August (Red).

On a seasonally adjusted annual rate basis, the J.D. Power forecast of 16.1 million SAAR would be down 1.9% from last month, and up 6.4% from a year ago.

At the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter this week:

Click on graph for larger image.

• NAR: Existing-Home Sales Increased to 4.01 million SAAR in July; Up 0.8% YoY

• Housing Starts Increased to 1.428 million Annual Rate in July

• California Home Sales Down Year-over-year for 4th Straight Month

• 3rd Look at Local Housing Markets in July

This is usually published 4 to 6 times a week and provides more in-depth analysis of the housing market.