No traction. None.

That’s housing contract activity in America.

We’re well on past broken record territory in this most ad nauseam of repetitious macro refrains, but that’s kinda the point: This is a story about intractability.

Speaking of broken records, the leading gauge of housing contract activity very nearly notched a new all-time low in July, according to data released Thursday.

The headline print on the NAR’s gauge was a woebegone 71.7, just barely better than a succession of nadirs which punctuated a multi-year slump in existing home sales.

The small decline was more or less in line with consensus. That economists have resigned themselves to the unfortunate reality of this situation speaks volumes.

July’s month-to-month drop was the second consecutive and the third in four. NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun, who can usually find a silver lining, was fresh out of euphemisms. “Even with modest improvements in mortgage rates, housing affordability and inventory, buyers still remain hesitant,” he said Thursday.

This week’s MBA update showed the average 30-year fixed ticked up a second week after dropping to the lowest since April.

At 6.69%, there’s just not a lot a budget-constrained would-be buyer with less-than-perfect credit can do, even when presented with seller concessions and builder incentives.

As Yun put it, “Buying a home is often the most expensive purchase people will make in their lives [which] means going under contract is not a decision home buyers make quickly.”

Or at all. They may not make that decision at all. Because, as I never tire of reminding folks, for a lot of Americans this math quite literally doesn’t work, which is something different from saying it’s “challenging.”

By my best guesstimate, the vast majority of buyers who could afford to make a downpayment on the average home and could swing the monthly payments on a loan made anywhere near 7%, had already taken the plunge by the time 2025 dawned. What’s left is a buyer pool of people for whom this isn’t even close to doable. That’s what you’re seeing in these poor readouts from the nation’s marquee housing market metrics.

Still, some see a turning point. As discussed here earlier this week, the price dynamics have inflected and inventories are improving. This is a buyer’s market. For the scant few remaining renters with the wherewithal to get in the door, anyway.

“Prospective buyers appear to be less sensitive to rates at these levels and are more active,” MBA VP Joel Kan remarked, editorializing around a decent uptick in purchase apps. Inventory, he went on, is rising and prices are “cooling in many parts of the country.”