Here a three interesting charts about the US housing market from Redfin (via Charlie Bilello's weekly newsletter).

Bidding wars, which are defined as an offer with at least one other competing bid, declined from nearly 70% of sales at the beginning of this year to about 44% as of July 2022.

Stale inventory, which is defined as a home sitting on the market for more than 30 days, is up 12.5% year-over-year. This is the highest jump since 2012, not counting the spike at the beginning of the pandemic (April 2020).

The number of US homes that cut their asking price over the last 4 weeks is now up to 7.8% as of the first week of August 2022. This is the highest percentage since 2015. The seasonality exhibited in this chart is also interesting.

All of this said, the median sale price for a home in the US is still up 8.2% on a year-over-year basis. Though since June of this year, prices have fallen about 4.1%. I don't know about all of you, but I'd much rather be buying today than in January of this year.

The latest US consumer price index report was recently published and for the 12-month period ending December 2021, the all items index rose 7.0%. This is the largest 12-month increase since June 1982. Here's a breakdown:

• Gasoline (all types): +49.6%

• Used cars and truck: +37.3%

• Meats/fish/poultry/eggs: +12.5%

• New cars: +11.8%

• Food at home: +6.5%

• Electricity: +6.3%

• Food away from home: +6.0%

• Apparel: +5.8%

• Transportation: +4.2%

• Shelter: +4.1%

The obvious standouts here are the price of gasoline and the price of used cars and trucks. Too much demand and not enough supply, it would seem. But the other conspicuous line item for me is shelter at only 4.1%. Is that it?

As Charlie Bilello points out in his latest newsletter, US rents were estimated to be up about 17.8% in 2021 (the highest increase on record according to Apartment List) and the Case-Shiller US National Home Price Index was similarly up about 19% year-over-year.

I also just glanced at the latest Urbanation rental report that came out today, and condominium rents were up 10.8% year-over-year here in the Greater Toronto Area. So I don't know about this 4.1% number. But maybe I just missed something in the fine print.

I came across this chart in Charlie Bilello's latest newsletter. It was under the heading "the great reopening in 2 charts." The other chart was live nation (so concerts) vs. zoom. Both are showing returns over the last year. And both are showing a similar divergence between in-person and online activities.

Now, I'm not a Peloton guy.

But I know many people who swear (or swore) by them. Maybe it's because I've never been a class guy. I prefer to self direct myself at the gym and I like doing lots of different things. So I have a hard time believing that connected at-home gym equipment can completely supplant traditional gyms. There's also a social aspect to in-person workouts that I think a lot of people value. I personally find it more motivating to be working out around others.

But this wasn't the narrative last year. We were all going to move to the country, zoom into our meetings, and then switch to another sitting device and another screen so that we could connect with our trainers. For me, this chart is yet another reminder that 1) cities are resilient and 2) there are always opportunities in the midst of short-term market dislocations.