The Housing Bubble

Some housing bubble news from Wall Street and Washington. “Existing-home sales…remain 23.8 percent below the 6.60 million-unit level in February 2007. Single-family home sales…are 22.9 percent below 5.80 million-unit level a year ago. Regionally, existing-home sales in the Northeast are 26.4 percent below February 2007. Existing-home sales in the Midwest are 19.5 percent below a year ago. In the South, existing-home sales are 22.0 percent below February 2007. Existing-home sales in the West are 29.2 percent below a year ago.”

“Total housing inventory fell 3.0 percent at the end of February to 4.03 million existing homes available for sale, which represents a 9.6-month supply at the current sales pace.”

From MarketWatch. “The median sales price plunged to $195,900, down 8.2% from a year earlier, the largest price decline recorded since the Realtors began tracking both single-family homes and condos in 1999. Prices of single-family homes fell 8.7% in the past year, also the most since the records began in 1968.”

“Sales of condos are down 29.7% in the past year. Inventories of unsold condos rose 14% to 604,000, a 13-month supply.”

From CNN Money. “The report is a sign that the price environment is weaker than the Realtors’ most recent forecasts. Though NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun said in a release that a ‘notable gain’ in existing home sales is not expected until the second half of 2008, the Realtors’ March forecast called for only a 6.3% decline in housing prices in the first quarter, compared to a year ago.”

“NAR also forecast a median price of $200,500 for the first quarter. Given the current environment, March sales would need a very strong showing, both in median prices and the pace of sales, to reach the Realtors’ forecast.”

The Associated Press. “Yun said that prices in some formerly hot markets in California and Florida were seeing significant price declines now as sellers try to attract buyers.”

“‘We’re not expecting a notable gain in existing-home sales until the second half of this year, but the (February) improvement is another sign that the market is stabilizing,’ Yun said.”

From Reuters. “Fannie Mae, the largest provider of funding for U.S. home mortgages, on Monday said its portfolio edged higher in February while delinquencies jumped in the prior month to more than a decade high.”

“Delinquencies on Fannie Mae’s single-family home financing business rose in January to 1.06 percent, the highest since at least 1997.”

National Mortgage News. “Let’s start with the funeral — no, not the Bear Stearns funeral but we’ll get to that in a minute. This past week the family of Roland Arnall laid the former subprime king to rest in Los Angeles. Attending the funeral were politicians (and former politicians) Arnold Schwarzenegger, Gray Davis, and Antonio Villaraigosa.”

“A former account executive at Argent Mortgage had this to say: ‘Some say he was a wolf in sheep’s clothing or maybe he just turned a blind eye to all the money that was flowing in, and made up for it doing deeds for the greater good of mankind. We may never know.’”

“‘But what is known is the influence he made on the political landscape and to the lives of many of his employees. I felt like I was at a political rally with the amount of politicians that came to pay their respects. You could say there wasn’t a dry eye in the place — but it wasn’t necessarily for passing of ‘The ‘Father of Subprime’ but for our own futures.’”

“The AE told us that he was recently let go by Argent’s new owners, Citigroup.”

“And now for Bear Stearns. Few in the mortgage industry were feeling sorry for the nation’s fourth largest investment banking firm. JPMorgan Chase has agreed to buy the former Wall Street titan. Whether Bear’s bridge playing chairman Jimmy Cayne can pull off a takeover more accretive to shareholders is another matter.”

“This is what one mortgage industry veteran had to say: ‘They started this whole thing with EPDs (early payment default) buybacks. They started a liquidity crisis for lenders and now they’re having a liquidity crisis of their own.’”

“In early 2006 National Mortgage News printed a story about Acoustic Home Loans being shut down because of EPDs and buybacks. Back then we put the story on our front page but not one major newspaper picked it up. Acoustic was the first of many to go under. The investment banker that forced Acoustic to go bust was none other than Bear Stearns.”

The Sault Star. “Is the U.S.-style housing meltdown in Canada’s future? With more and more Canadians taking on record levels of debt to enter the red hot housing market, analysts have begun to see some of the practices that led to the U.S. housing crash last year developing in Canada.”

“The Canadian housing market has seen the price of homes rise between nine and 11 per cent annually for several years. But as last week’s Royal Bank report showing the cost of owning a home in Canada at the highest level since 1990 suggests, it wouldn’t take much of a downturn in the economy for sky-high house prices in Canada to come tumbling down, and the wealth many Canadians had built into their homes vanish.”

“‘Definitely the fundamentals are not great. There are a lot of families who are stretched,” said Roger Sauve, a consultant who last month wrote a report on Canadians’ finances. ”

“The study found that debt had risen to 131 per cent of household income, or $80,000 per household, from 91 per cent in 1990.”

“‘Just like in the U.S., everybody is feeling good right now. They are taking on debt, but they are not worried because the prices of their homes are going up. But it would be easy to see house prices going down five or 10 per cent,’ he said.”

“Liberal MP Garth Turner, a business journalist and author whose recent book ‘Greater Fool: The Troubled Future of Real Estate,’ is among the most pessimistic forecasters of Canada’s housing market.”

“‘We’ve got this delusional situation where the American housing market is going through the worst crisis since the 1930s and we think we’ll continue to buy houses from each other for more and more money,’ Turner said.”

“With 83 per cent of Canadian’s net worth tied to real estate, even such modest reductions could spell disaster for many, he said. ‘We have so many people buying real estate with basically no equity, that even if real-estate flatlines or go down a little bit, that’s a pretty serious situation for them,’ Turner said.”

The Nelson Mail from New Zealand. “A Fairfax Media home affordability report released on Thursday showed the Nelson-Marlborough region had one of the country’s worst rates of home affordability - with 91.9 percent of one median income needed to pay the mortgage on a median priced house purchased in February. The national average is 80.2 of the median income.”

“Nelson Property Investors Association secretary and property manager Glenn Morris said the high interest rates meant some property investors were ‘bleeding to death.’”

“He knew of one client who had to refix an existing mortgage at higher interest rates, and the additional cost meant his income dropped by $100,000. ‘That’s enormous. There must be thousands and thousands of people in that position.’”

“Quotable Valuations spokesman Blue Hancock said anecdotal evidence suggested some investors who had been relying on a property for capital gain, rather than income, were putting their houses on the market. ‘They are trying to lessen what they have got to put in out of their pocket,’ he said.”

“Property investors were being hit hard in the pocket and by the Government. ‘There are some people looking very seriously at why they are being property investors,’ Morris said.”

“It was possible more investors would be selling their properties because they could not afford the added interest costs, he said. ‘Obviously for every seller there is a buyer, we hope.’”

The Guardian. “Home sellers pushed up asking prices for property last month, despite a significant slowdown in the housing market and a lending squeeze by the major banks, according to figures compiled by online estate agents Rightmove.”

“Rightmove said sellers were deluding themselves that buyers were prepared to pay high prices at a time of heightened anxiety. It said sellers were ‘ignoring market reality’ when the credit crunch was already cutting deep into the number of sales and consistently dragging down sale prices.”

“Evidence that Britain’s housing market is heading for a prolonged slowdown has been piling up for months. The snapshot of the market from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors last week showed a near-record number of surveyors reporting falling prices and the most unsold properties for 10 years.”

“Miles Shipside, commercial director of Rightmove, said: ‘Most sellers seem to be ignoring the increased competition from unsold properties and the challenge buyers now face in obtaining a mortgage. Sellers should price below their competition to achieve more interest now and avoid a larger price drop later in the year.’”

From Bloomberg. “The average asking price climbed 0.8 percent in March to 239,655 pounds ($475,000) and they rose 1.3 percent in London, Britain’s most-used property Web site said. While asking prices are less than 1 percent below their record high of 241,642 pounds reached in October last year, sales are being agreed to at around 10 percent less than that, the report said.”

“Mortgage approvals stayed close to the lowest in nine years in January, the Bank of England reported Feb. 29.”

From AFP News. “The United States should use public funds to shore up its financial system and calm recent market turmoil, Japan’s financial services minister said in an interview published Monday.”

“‘It is essential (for the US) to understand that given Japan’s lesson, public fund injection (into the financial sector) is unavoidable,’ Yoshimi Watanabe told the Financial Times.”

“Japan suffered a deep and prolonged banking crisis in the 1990s after the country’s asset bubble burst, leading to the failure of a number of high-profile financial institutions. The Japanese government injected capital to the banking sector in an effort to shore up markets and struggling financial institutions, some of which were nationalised to prevent their collapse.”

“The problems came amid Japan’s ‘lost decade’ of stagnant growth and on-off recession in the 1990s, from which the country is still recovering.”