The Culprit Is The High Prices
A report from WTOP. “Fewer homes for sale gets the blame for the recent slowdown in housing sales, but not every real estate expert believes the slowdown in sales is just because of low inventory. ‘I don’t think it’s the inventory. That’s the easy whipping boy in this housing market,’ said Daren Blomquist, senior vice president at RealtyTrac. ‘We’ve seen increasing sales in the midst of low inventory over the last four years. I think the culprit here is the high prices. This housing recovery has become a victim of its own success,’ he said.”
“RealtyTrac notes that the weakest purchase origination volumes right now are in the super hot markets that are the highest priced across the country. And something else has slowed dramatically. Refinancing activity is down, despite those low mortgage rates. ‘We’ve picked the bone completely in terms of refi, and there are really no scraps left in terms of people who haven’t refi’d. And people who have refi’d are at a low enough rate, where even a little bit lower rate isn’t going to make a difference. We have ridden that train as far as it can go,’ Blomquist said.”
“What is on the rise is originations of home equity lines of credit, or HELOCs, as existing homeowners tap into the equity rising home values create. HELOC originations were up 5 percent in the second quarter from a year ago, the 17th consecutive quarter with an annual increase.”
DS News on Louisiana. “Louisiana may be on the verge of a large housing crunch due to not just the recent flooding causing disruption to thousands of homeowners but also the economic situation in large metro areas in the state according to a recent report from Fannie Mae. The report states that in particular, New Orleans, while having escaped most of the flooding, is seeing an economic slowdown that is impacting their housing market.”
“‘The backsliding economic situation in metro New Orleans is disappointing,’ says Kim Betancourt, director of economics for Fannie Mae’s Multifamily Economics and Market Research (MRG) group. ‘New Orleans’ short-lived economic recovery is over, and the metro area is on the verge of slipping into a recession.’”
The Modesto Bee in California. “Plywood covers the windows on both stories, the doors and the garage. Trash piles continue to grow in the backyard. Paperwork stapled to the garage door of the bank-owned property details the numerous code violations and orders it to make repairs. Indeed, this house on Phoenix Avenue in Modesto’s La Loma Neighborhood certainly stands out along a street lined with otherwise well-maintained homes, most about 30 years old and all but that one well-kept. Like so many others throughout Modesto, the place is vacant except for when squatters break in. It’s a frequent target of metal thieves.”
“It’s just one problem home in a city that has scores of them, with another added to the list each week on average as neighbors or other residents complain. Some are bank-owned, some by local owners and others by out-of-towners. Either way, the homes are eyesores, unsafe, unsanitary and need to be dealt with.”
“Bert Lippert, whose job with the city’s building department is to deal with these blighted properties, is working more than two dozen active cases now and those don’t include what the four code-enforcement officers and supervisor in the city’s Neighborhood Preservation Unit handle in getting properties cleaned up, graffiti removed and other issues.”
“‘They’ve handled 4,800 cases (in 2016) and that was before ‘Go Modesto,’ Lippert said, referring to the city’s new mobile app for reporting blight and checking the status of progress toward addressing a specific property. The city has dealt with below-code homes ever since it developed building codes. But the economic downturn that began in 2007 and led to foreclosures and abandonments literally opened the door for trespassers, vagrants, vandals and others to move into the vacant places and trash them.”
“‘That is when we started seeing more squatters,’ he said.”
KOLN in Nebraska. “There are plenty of options for UNL students who plan to live off-campus after their freshmen year. It seems like every year, a new student apartment complex pops up in Lincoln, in fact some in the industry fear there are too many. Jerry Shoecraft, manager at 50/50 apartments, said now there are too many student apartment complexes. ‘Now that the market is getting over saturated, I think it is becoming a problem for investors and operations that are existing,’ said Shoecraft.”
“But new apartments aimed at student housing keep popping up, and Shoecraft said the companies are going to start losing a lot of money when they can’t fill the rooms. ‘Based on the analysis and surveys that we have done and participated in, a lot of the new student housing operations are barely 50, 60 percent occupied,’ said Shoecraft.”
“Meredith Burroughs, a UNL student, who now chooses to live 15 minutes from campus, said there are a lot of options for housing, but she believes there is another reason these companies are losing money. ‘They are not filling up because they are so expensive and a lot of us are paying our own rent, so we don’t want to pay 700 dollars a month just to live close to campus,’ said Burroughs.”
‘‘I don’t think it’s the inventory. That’s the easy whipping boy in this housing market,’ said Daren Blomquist, senior vice president at RealtyTrac. ‘We’ve seen increasing sales in the midst of low inventory over the last four years.’
How long are you going to beat this inventory horse Rental Watch? Is it a shortage of workers, for 5 years? Can’t get the lots going since 2011?
‘new apartments aimed at student housing keep popping up, and Shoecraft said the companies are going to start losing a lot of money when they can’t fill the rooms. ‘Based on the analysis and surveys that we have done and participated in, a lot of the new student housing operations are barely 50, 60 percent occupied,’ said Shoecraft.’
Default city coming to a campus near you. A bunch of people who thought they were retiring are going to be saying, “Welcome to WalMart!”
Now you’re just mixing apples and oranges. Blomquist is trying to break the perceived link between low inventory and low sales. He is blaming low sales on high prices.
But what is causing the high prices?
As I’ve said before, “Low Inventory” is not the same as “Low Supply”. One is a measure of how many homes are on the market for sale at any given time (inventory), the other is a measure of how many homes exist compared to how many people want to live in them. “Low Supply” usually results in “Low Inventory”, but “Low Inventory” is not always because of “Low Supply”.
Isn’t it amazing that once significant numbers of multi-family units have come online in particular markets, rents have softened? This is not a surprise at all, and would seem to indicate exactly what I’m talking about, low supply of rental properties drove rents to higher and higher levels, supply was introduced to the market, and now rents are flat or falling.
In all the markets where you are showing softening rents, one thing is common…lots of recent apartment development.
With respect to workers, I don’t know why people aren’t picking up a hammer, but they aren’t–labor costs are being pushed higher. With respect to lots being available, we’ve been working on getting some land entitled for new homes for more than 10 years. The land is in the sphere of influence for the City, and is in the General Plan to be housing, but getting through CEQA is a nightmare. When you add on top of it rising impact fees, etc. building affordable housing is not easy.
Why is it so hard for you draw a link between population, supply, and vacancy?
Population grows, households are formed, filling vacant housing units, if not enough housing units are added to a market, vacancy falls, and there is more competition for fewer housing units, and that drives rents and prices higher.
I can understand your argument that low interest rates will drive FOR SALE housing higher, even if there is ample supply, however, the “low interest” rate theory should in no event drive rents higher. The “fix up” strategy that you’ve cited over and over again is not new because of low interest rates (I’ve seen those business plans for years). It has just become news recently because people are finally paying attention to how this activity is removing low cost units from the market.
Low interest rates will encourage development of more supply, which will help keep rents in check. And this is happening right now.
I said before that any dip in prices nationally will be short lived unless it is accompanied by either a) significant new supply being added (more than 1.5-1.6MM units per year) or b) there is a major economic event. I stand by that prediction.
I’m sure you saw it, but for people who were interested in the derivation for the 1.5-1.6MM units needed per year, here is an article predicting the housing shortage in 2010–they go through the logic there:
https://www.creditwritedowns.com/2010/08/housing-shortage-coming.html
With foreclosure moratoriums in all 50 states and a sea of excess empty houses, why build more?
and now they are asking if phase II will be started:
http://www.stltoday.com/business/columns/building-blocks/article_593b8a39-583f-5dd9-aad9-1991dd726feb.html
‘They’ve handled 4,800 cases (in 2016) and that was before ‘Go Modesto’
But shadow inventory is a conspiracy theory.
“Some are bank-owned, some by local owners and others by out-of-towners.”
That covers just about everybody. Useless information. I love journalism today.
Modesto, CA Real Estate and Homes for Sale
1,127 Homes
http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-search/Modesto_CA
Modesto, CA Price Reduced Homes for Sale
284 Homes
http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-search/Modesto_CA/show-price-reduced
4,800 is a big number. And look at those prices. Is this low supply or low inventory?
You are citing inventory. According to Zillow, there were 872 homes sold in Modesto in the past 90 days. This 872 indicates about 290 sales per month, so 1,127 homes represents about 3.9 months of inventory–not all that many homes on the market.
But Zillow’s 90 day number is light, since it takes a few weeks to a month for a sold home to show up on Zillow.
For the last 30 days, Zillow shows 205 sales. So, from T-30 to T-90, there were 872-205=667 sales, or about 333 per month, which is a better approximation of current sales pace.
This means the inventory on the market is about 3.4 months. Again, not that many homes on the market relative to sales pace.
But that’s just inventory, not what I call supply.
For that, we need vacancy data:
http://www.deptofnumbers.com/rent/california/modesto/
The estimate from 2014 was a vacancy rate of 4.47%. Unless there was some building boom in Modesto since then, I think it’s safe to say that there isn’t an oversupply of housing in Modesto today.
This is the most recent data I could find on housing starts in Modesto (which appears to go to some point in 2015).
https://www.modestogov.com/1173/Economic-Indicators
This data is somewhat dated, but here is the important quote:
“Single Family (SF) and Multi-Family (MF) permit activity continues to be somewhat dormant in the City of Modesto. While there has been some activity over the last fiscal year, it pales in comparison to the booming years from 2000 to 2005. In these years permits for SF would average 85 per month and MF would average over 7. Now those averages have fallen sharply to 2 permits per month for SF and barely 1 for MF over the past 5 years.”
It’s amazing how rational people act when it’s their hard earned money they are spending and not cheap borrowed money guaranteed by the government…
—
‘They are not filling up because they are so expensive and a lot of us are paying our own rent, so we don’t want to pay 700 dollars a month just to live close to campus,’
‘we don’t want to pay 700 dollars a month just to live close to campus’
What, and forego the golf simulator? The Zen garden? The media room!?
Shoot I’d love to have $700/mo rent. Most student dorms these days are a heck a lot nicer than what you get out on the streets for apartment rentals.
people feel like they are TOO BIG TOO FAIL.
I drove Denver to Durango and back this weekend. In the 6+ years I’ve lived here I’ve never seen so many RV’s and vehicles towing ATV’s, boats, etc.
How much of this was paid for with HELOCs and cash-out refis? Because it sure as hell wasn’t paid for with higher wages in this recoveryless recovery.
4 years of skyrocketing HELOC’s is your answer.
“What is on the rise is originations of home equity lines of credit, or HELOCs, as existing homeowners tap into the equity rising home values create. HELOC originations were up 5 percent in the second quarter from a year ago, the 17th consecutive quarter with an annual increase.”
That stuff can be had fairly cheap on the used market? Also, borrowed?
Used stuff is pretty expensive lately too. So long as there is easy credit to be had prices will stay high.
Sucks for those of us with cash.
The market in Santa Fe, NM is standing still. Have the retirees given up?
It’s cratering everywhere. Sante Fe is no exception.
Santa Fe is always the exception, that is what makes it Fanta Se. No jobs, no water and big money.
“What is on the rise is originations of home equity lines of credit, or HELOCs, as existing homeowners tap into the equity rising home values create. HELOC originations were up 5 percent in the second quarter from a year ago, the 17th consecutive quarter with an annual increase.”
I believe it. Just like 401 I’ve seen more new cars in our town and the number of toy haulers outpaces any previous years. I bet the RV dealers new mantra is “gas prices are so low now…. you can finance it with a HELOC and partially write it off as a mobile residence.”
It’s a debt fueled binge!
Watching some TeeVee in our motel room on the last night of our trip this weekend I got to see a commercial for “smart appliances” obviously targeted at millennials, that depicted how you can view the contents of your refrigerator remotely from your smartphone, to better plan your grocery shopping.
The commercial includes a tagline like “you’re a grownup now so start acting like one” or some other BS. Stupid toys for stupid loanowners to pay for with stupid borrowed money. If there was a smartphone app to wipe your @ss with, millennials would use HELOC cash to buy it.
Their life will end if the grid ever goes down or there is an EMP.
A lot people would be helpless if an EMP went off. Unless you drive a small block, carbureted 350 with a manual, your car will be a brick.
Every aspect of most everyone’s life has computer/electrical control these days.
At least have a 10 speed around instead of a fixie. LOL!!!
That is what the 90’s Suzuki DR350 is for!
*takes out pen and paper* glances in the fridge and pantry and writes down necessities, “milk, eggs, bread, chicken”.
Geez a smart fridge to let you grocery shop better? What’s that, a $800 premium over a regular fridge? I hate our infatuation with everything tech.
Add another $1200 when the chip dies. Best to just pay the extended service agreement.
…And I might add that toy and car prices will continue to stay high or rise further as long as they keep dolling out candy coated HELOC’s and 84 month car loans.
Do you have a link to the stats on HELOC’s increasing? That and building permits are great to follow.
Just had a UHS/realhore post in my feed that “Be part of the solution! List your home, NOW~! Increase inventory and increase sales!”
There really is no bounds to their logic and absurdity is there? First it was, don’t miss these rates! Or jump in now to buy before it goes up! Now its focused on selling to help the market? Wtf?
RealaCrater
Remember…. Nothing accelerates the economy like falling prices to dramatically lower and more affordable levels. Nothing.
Sacramento Foothills Report:
Renting: SFR rents continue slide lower as the availability of single family homes pushes inventory higher. I estimate a house that rented for $1,500/month in 2006 is now renting for $1,200/month today. That is a 20% decrease in 10-years. That is a 2.2% annual decrease.
Sales: The lower and middle markets are average, with most houses sitting for 90 days or more if they are priced under $400,000. Anything from $400,000 to $750,000 doesn’t sell. The upper end is very problematical. I see houses over $1,000,000 that have been on the market for 1-2 years with no activity. All sellers evidently have no clue they need to lower their price, but many of them are still stuck from buying 2007-2015 and are unwilling to take a loss.
Bank Owned: I still see vacant houses (probably 8% of inventory) owned by banks with no resolution in sight. It is almost like the house is in no man’s land and maybe dropped of the radar and is lost in the paperwork shuffle! I know an HOA that foreclosed for lack of dues, rented the house out to a savvy tenant (contractor), who fixed it up and is renting it from the HOA for 1/2 price. All the while some loan servicer seems to have misplaced the file for the $950,000 loan which has been in default since 2006! The HOA gets the rent, the tenant gets a break, the servicer probably gets their special fees and the insurance company/pension fund takes a prolonged financial hit! It is really goofy that we are still unwinding deals from a decade old bubble with more added daily from this even larger bubble.
Thanks for that report, very interesting.
I thought we were in the Death by heloc reset zone
Also,how much equity is there to snarf ?
At lunch time my coworkers won’t stop talking about their equity gains.
How many were on the Merry-Go-Round in 2008??
the old in n out is 7% w commission and transfer taxes
but don’t bring that up
Is Loveland still hot?
Well, the 450K house across the street finally closed. They had an offer a few days after it went on the market.
http://www.bkfs.com/Data/DataReports/BKFS_MM_Oct2015_Report.pdf
This Mortgage Monitor goes into the coming delinquencies on ARMs. The question is whether resets result in defaults, or just higher payments for the borrowers.
The new mortgage monitor (out today, I believe) has an update on ARMs as well:
http://www.bkfs.com/Data/DataReports/BKFS_MM_Jul2016_Report.pdf
Read into the data what you will.
I think one of the more interesting statistics is that without 2004-2006 vintage HELOCs taken into consideration, the HELOC default rate is approximately 1.23%. If you include 2004-2006 HELOCs, that default rate balloons to 2.06%.
The other statistic that is meaningful to me is how much of the HELOCs are “underwater”. 2% of all HELOCs are estimated to be completely underwater (ie. worth $0 in a liquidation), 5% are partially underwater, and 7% have less than 10% equity (which can evaporate quickly).
However, if you look at individual vintages, these numbers are much higher…2006 has 4% totally underwater, 11% partially underwater, and 12% with less than 10% equity.
overpriced stawks and homes allow free money to buy more toys!
2nd homes! Woohoo beach condos and lake houses to visit 15% of the year! What a time to be alive.
Then point and joke “millenials” who cant afford the $300,000 starter homes. As older gens yank out free money at 1.75% interest on artificially propped up prices. Yep hard earned.
Its amazing how hfast we went back to overpriced stocks and homes.
It seems like the economy is heavily dependent on capital gains rather than actual work.
A lot of leverage is built into this scheme.
People working jobs cant seem to afford all the toys.
Im a mechanical engineer who gets to splurge on nice beers and cheap JetBlue flights. Other than that, my post tax pay is quickly eaten up by grocery basics, car insurance, utilities, rent….
Buying a house? Ha. The legitimate way? I’d have to move back to my parents to save 20% for this market.
Give it time my friend give it time. Housing prices have a long way to fall.
It seems like the economy is heavily dependent on capital gains rather than actual work.”
Best quote for how economics work in the information age.
hunter gatherer, farmer , manufacturer, now speculator
Lots of toys on the road her too this weekend. Trucks pulling campers all over the place.
Go to a car dealer and tell them that you just want to buy a no frills, fuel efficient car and not a $50K Truck or SUV and they almost look like they feel sorry for you.
Most campgrounds are a joke these days, parking lots with generators and folks watching TV. I’d rather spend the gas money on a cabin and fly there. Time is money.
Seriously, people only travel with all the modern amenities, TV, iPads, toilet, 4G hotspots…
Last time I camped in a state forest in a campground, it was me and a bunch of friends in their Jeeps, and we just crashed in little 2 man tents and made sure we had plenty of cold beer.
At that point, why even bother to leave the house? Just leave the doors open and you can get the bugs too.
Yeah, I’m done looking at high priced used cars and trucks until things turn desperate again.
I traded in my trusty 2005 Civic for a 2015 Civic. Buying a 2012 pre owned made almost no sense because the price was so close to the internet sticker price I got for the 2015…The used car market is out of whack, especially for reliable cars like Civics, Accords, Toyotas…
Which service did you use to buy the 2015? I am a big fan of Civics and am considering selling my 2010 and getting a newer model. I have also noticed the used prices are very high compared to 2016’s.
I used my banks “Car buying service” initially through TrueCar. However, I actually got a better “e-price” right on the dealer’s website. They beat the TrueCar price by $1,000.
My Civic was the “Special Edition” - SE model, which was only for 2015 and in between an LX and EX….MSRP for $20,000, my e-price was $17,500.
I would have rather bought a used car, but as you point out, the 2015, or now 2016 are very very close to the 3 yr lease used pre owned cars. You might as well fork over an additional $3,000 for 0 miles and newer features.
lease a civic, $149 mo. You lose money buying or leasing–but no repairs on the new one.
I used Edmunds back in 2010 where they had local dealers email you their best offer for what you specified. 5 or 6 dealers in the SF Bay Area varied by a couple thousand $, and I called the two lowest that were within $100 of each other. I was very happy with the results, also several thousand below MSRP. I suppose a lot of the used car sellers got bad deals, then they ask too much!
94 million Americans out of work, yet “now hiring” signs all over. Maybe you need to take that job at Staples or Taco Bell. Maybe that is what you are worth.
They don’t hire olds or people who don’t speak Spanish at those kinds of places.
Those businesses need to offer higher pay.
Someday they will or close due to labor shortage at min wage.
William Sonoma is opening a new store downtown, they must pay a little better. Resort towns with high rent/COL are having serious trouble finding workers.
I don’t if there is a way to determine whether a shortage of fast food workers exists.
Labor Force Participation Rate Plummets To 38 Year Low; Joblessness At Record High
http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000
Not to worry parents.
“The two unidentified students were not in school Monday, KTLA was told by officials, who added that the classrooms were decontaminated over the weekend.”
Unconfirmed Leprosy Diagnosis for 2 Students at Jurupa Valley School Prompts Letter to Parents
Posted 9:02 AM, September 6, 2016, by Anthony Kurzweil and Erin Myers
An unconfirmed diagnosis of Hansen’s disease, also known as leprosy, found in two elementary school students in Jurupa Valley prompted school district officials to send a letter home to parents last week.
The letter, dated Sept. 1, was posted to the Jurupa Valley Unified School District’s Facebook page and warned that two students from Indian Hills Elementary School were reported to have leprosy, although the diagnosis had not been confirmed by health department officials.
“In an abundance of caution, administration wanted to share this information with you as soon as possible,” a portion of the letter read.
Hansen’s disease affects the skin, peripheral nerves and upper airway, according to the post, which stated the disease was not highly transmissible and is very treatable with early diagnosis and treatment, according to the post, which cited the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
“We are trying to keep things calm. There is no reason to believe anybody coming to the school today will be exposed,” said school district Superintendent Elliiot Duchon.
The two unidentified students were not in school Monday, KTLA was told by officials, who added that the classrooms were decontaminated over the weekend.
http://ktla.com/2016/09/06/unconfirmed-leprosy-diagnosis-for-2-students-at-jurupa-valley-school-prompts-letter-to-parents/ - 158k -
this would not even be a story if we got rid of all these regulations and departments. Big gov getting in the way of a pandemic!
That’s a good point. Let’s allow disease and immune systems compete freely without government manipulating the outcome by trying to pick winners.
Border Agent: We’re Ordered to Release Illegals with Diseases
Exclusive: Officer discusses infectious diseases coming across border and more
Adan Salazar - June 28, 2016
Agents still encounter tuberculosis, scabies, measles, chickenpox and other unidentifiable infectious diseases when apprehending illegal immigrants on the South Texas border, an officer exclusively told Infowars.
Border agent Chris Cabrera, also vice president of the National Border Patrol Council 3307, said the respiratory disease tuberculosis is encountered “pretty regularly,” and that little has been done to improve the quarantine areas where illegals who harbor communicable diseases are detained.
“We see tuberculosis pretty regularly. Scabies – more often than not we have large amounts of infectious diseases as far as scabies go,” the border patrol council spokesperson stated. “And the interesting part with that is it’s not actually seen on the body during the infectious period. And so these people clear through our system and then they go into the rest of the country with that disease.”
“We see a lot of measles, a lot of chickenpox a lot of unidentified illnesses, a lot of lung infections that we don’t even know what we have no idea what they are.”
316 comments
Brian Duffy • 2 months ago
It’s interesting that our politicians will not expose themselves to the disease that they put in our neighborhoods. They should all be in prison for what they are doing.
http://www.infowars.com/border-patrol-agent-vast-majority-are-released-into-country-disease-or-no-disease/ - 213k -
We will still vote Trump:
“He bankrupted his companies six times,” Clinton said. “He’s been sued about 4,000 times. He’s been accused repeatedly of fraudulent behavior. His so-called Trump University is under investigation right now because of the way it’s scammed so many students who thought they’d get a better opportunity in life.”
“And we recently learned that his Trump Foundation has been fined for illegal activity when it made a political contribution to the attorney general of Florida at the time she was being asked by her constituents to investigate Trump University because of the effects that these people that she’s responsible for had experienced,” she continued. “And of course, as we know, there was a phone conversation between them — they contradict each other.”
She added that “the American people deserve to know” what was said in that call because “clearly” Bondi “did not proceed with the investigation.”
Yes, and the American people deserve to know from whom, when, and for what she and Bill took money.
Ooops, can’t do that because she deleted all those e-mails, and filtered the money through a Canadian charity that strips the identity of donors.
Perhaps her argument is that she and Bill are better criminals.
They all need to come clean, none of them will. Heck, the Catholic church hides pedophiles! People are nasty.
Newcastle, WA Housing Prices Plunge 7% YoY As Seattle Metro Housing Correction Expands
http://www.zillow.com/newcastle-wa/home-values/
Housing analyst, you got talked to a few days ago and here you are doing it again.
Get back on your meds and stop using multiple names.
What is it about falling housing prices that enrages you?
Install the HBB Joshua Tree Extension, and just ignore the aliases.