The Landscape for Mortgage Rates and Inflation in 2022

This video is the latest in our Monday with Matthew series with Windermere Chief Economist Matthew Gardner. Each month, he analyzes the most up-to-date U.S. housing data to keep you well-informed about what’s going on in the real estate market.

Hello there, I’m Windermere’s Chief Economist Matthew Gardner and welcome to this month’s episode of Monday with Matthew. You know, one of the many things I love about being an economist is that it is a remarkably humbling profession. You see, just when we start to believe that our models are close to perfection, something comes along to remind us that forecasting isn’t an exact science.

And if you’re wondering what I am talking about, I recently took a look at the 2022 mortgage rate forecast I put out at the start of the year and…well, let’s say that rates rose at a far faster pace than I had anticipated. I thought that now would be a good time to take another look at rates and share my thoughts on the direction that they will likely take during the rest of the year and my reasoning behind it. And that means we need to talk about inflation.

30-Year Conventional Mortgage Rates: 2018 – 2022

So, a quick look back. As you can see, there wasn’t much to celebrate in 2018, with rates rising from 3.95% to 4.94% before pulling back and ending the year at around 4.5%. In 2019, rates fell following the Feds’ announcement that they were likely done with raising the Fed Funds Rate, and the mortgage market also reacted positively to the announcement from the White House that they were going to impose tariffs on select Chinese imported goods. We saw an uptick in late summer, but that was mainly due to news related to BREXIT.

In 2020, rates were dropping but spiked very briefly when COVID-19 shut the country down and bond markets panicked. But with the Fed jumping in with an emergency rate cut and announcing that they would start buying a significant number of treasuries and mortgage-backed securities, rates tumbled to an all-time low of just 2.66%. In 2021, rates rose as new COVID infections plummeted, but then dropped again as the Delta variant took hold, but ultimately trended modestly higher in the second half of the year.

And then we get to 2022. Rates started the year at just over 3.1% but have since skyrocketed to over 5.8% before a small pullback that started a few weeks ago. In as much as economists expected rates to rise this year, nobody anticipated how fast they would rise. So, what went wrong? Well, there’s actually a rather simple answer.

Even though we expected rates to trend higher in 2022, there were two things we hadn’t built into our forecast models.

Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine
Inflation continued to climb for far longer than we expected

So, how do things look for the rest of the year? To explain my thinking, it’s important to remember that the bond market and, by implication, mortgage rates hate nothing more than high inflation because when inflation is running hot, it limits demand for bonds which, in turn, forces the interest rate payable on bonds to rise and this pushes mortgage rates higher.

But what’s been fascinating to watch is that over the past couple of weeks, rates have actually been dropping which is certainly counterintuitive given where inflation is today. And the only reason I can see for this is that bond traders were thinking that inflation might be topping out.

But then we got the June CPI numbers, and it certainly didn’t suggest that inflation was slowing, in fact it showed the opposite. But even though the total inflation rate hasn’t yet peaked, I believe that a shift has actually started and that we are closer to a peak in inflation than you may think.

Indicators of Inflation: Consumer Spending

The June CPI report showed the headline inflation rate still trending higher but look at the core rate which excludes the volatile food & energy sectors. That has actually been pulling back for the past three months. And consumer spending when adjusted for inflation fell 0.4% in May. That’s the first monthly drop since last December, and I expect the June number when it comes out at the end of the month to show spending dropping even further.

This is a very important dataset that often gets overlooked but it is starting to tell me that the economy is slowing because of inflation and slower spending acts as a headwind to further price increases.

The core PCE price index is up 4.7% year-over-year, but this was the smallest annual increase since last November and you can see that it is also starting to roll over. This index is actually the Fed’s favored measure of inflation as it’s more comprehensive that the CPI number as it measures the change in spending for all consumers, not just urban households.

Indicators of Inflation: 5-Year Breakevens and Producer Price Index

The five-year “inflation breakeven” has plunged more than a full percentage point since peaking at just under 3.6% in late March. And this number is important as it lets us know where bond traders expect the average inflation rate to be over the next five years.

The Producer Price Index measures inflation at the wholesale, not retail, level and even though the total rate rose as energy costs continue to impact the manufacturing sector, the core rate has been pulling back for the past three months. Now let’s look at some commodity prices and see what’s going on there.

Selected Commodity Prices: Natural Gas, Copper, Soybeans, Wheat

The price for natural gas is down over 34% from its recent high
Copper prices are down 26% from the recent June peak and down substantially from March
Soybean prices are down 10%
Despite the war in Ukraine, wheat prices are down 27% from June

Retail Gas Prices: West Coast, West Coast Excluding CA, U.S.

It appears as if gas prices have also rolled over. Of course, here on the West Coast it’s more expensive than the nation even when you take California out of the equation.

U.S. Treasury Yields: 10-Year and 2-Year Constant

And finally, to cap things off, traders must also be pondering the same numbers as I am because bond yields themselves have been tumbling at both the long and short ends of the yield curve with the 10-year note still yielding less than 3% even after the CPI report and two-year yields, while still elevated, are still down from 2.42% just two weeks ago.

So, given all the charts we have looked at, I hope that you too are seeing some light at the end of the tunnel when it comes to the likelihood that inflation is about to start easing.

No doubt, the headline inflation number for June wasn’t one that anyone wanted to see but, if the trends we have looked at continue, I still expect inflation to start slowly creeping lower, which will push bond prices higher, yields will start to pause—if not drop—and that will allow mortgage rates to hold at or close to their current levels for the time being. Although we could see rates coming down, though they will still start with a five for the foreseeable future. I hope that you have found my thoughts of interest.

As always, if you have any questions or comments about this particular topic, please do reach out to me but, in the meantime, stay safe out there. I look forward to visiting with you all again next month.

Bye now.

About Matthew Gardner

As Chief Economist for Windermere Real Estate, Matthew Gardner is responsible for analyzing and interpreting economic data and its impact on the real estate market on both a local and national level. Matthew has over 30 years of professional experience both in the U.S. and U.K.

In addition to his day-to-day responsibilities, Matthew sits on the Washington State Governors Council of Economic Advisors; chairs the Board of Trustees at the Washington Center for Real Estate Research at the University of Washington; and is an Advisory Board Member at the Runstad Center for Real Estate Studies at the University of Washington where he also lectures in real estate economics.

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Moving Patterns for U.S. Homeowners and Renters in 2021

Hello there. I’m Windermere Real Estate’s Chief Economist Matthew Gardner and welcome to the latest episode of Monday with Matthew. Over the past few months, analysts like myself have been starting to get our hands on early numbers from the Census Bureau and, although we won’t get the bulk of the data for another several months, I thought it would be interesting to take a quick look at some of the information that the government has put out specifically as it relates to patterns.

This is a relevant topic given the pandemic, with many people wondering if we saw a mass shift in where we choose to live because of COVID-19. This belief that we packed up and moved because of the pandemic is, at face value, quite credible, especially given that home sales in 2021 were at levels we haven’t seen since 2006. But the reality, at least from the data we have received so far, actually tells a different story.

Moving Patterns for U.S. Homeowners and Renters in 2021

We Move More Infrequently

This first chart looks at people and not households and it shows that, contrary to popular belief, we’re actually moving less frequently now then we have done in decades, with the share of people not moving in a single year rising from just about 84% to over 91½%. Of course, we are having fewer children now than we did, but not to the degree that would change the trend.

Unsurprisingly, Renters Move More Often than Owners

And when we break this down between homeowners and renters there is quite the discrepancy between the two groups. Although the number of renters not moving has risen from 67½ percent up to 84% since 2000, the number of homeowners staying put has moved from almost 91% all the way up to 95% last year.

So, the data thus far is not suggesting that we saw any form of mass exodus following the pandemic, in fact we haven’t been moving as much for the past 2-decades, but people did move since COVID-19 hit and the reasons they did were fascinating. The following charts are broken up into four categories of movers: those who moved for family reasons; those who moved for employment related reasons; those that moved for housing related reasons; and finally, those that moved for other reasons.

Reasons to Move (1)

So, starting with family-related reasons, it was not surprising to see the major reason for both owners and renters to move was to establish a new household, nor was it surprising to see a greater share of renters headed out on their own than homeowners. Finally, the share of those moving because of a change in marital status was essentially the same between renters and homeowners. And when we look at employment related reasons for people moving last year, a greater share of renters moved because of a new job than homeowners, and more renters moved to be closer to their workplaces than did homeowners. Again, not really surprising, given that a large share of renters work in service-based industries and therefore proximity to their workplaces is important. You will also see that a greater share of homeowners than renters moved because they lost their jobs and, finally—and not at all surprisingly—far more homeowners moved because they chose to retire than renters.

Reasons to Move (2)

And when we look at housing related reasons that people moved, a large share of owners and renters moved from their current home or apartment and into a new, bigger, better house or apartment. A statistically significant share looked to move into a better neighborhood, and I do wonder whether owners were doing this because of the ability to work from home and possibly move to a better location further away from their workplaces. And even though renters tend to stay closer to their workplaces, I wonder whether these renters weren’t in white-collar industries and that the ability to work from home has led them to move into an area that they perceive to be better suited to them.

And finally, a significant share of renters moved because of the fact that rents have been skyrocketing over the past 18-months or so. This clearly impacted some homeowners, too. And finally, under the “other” category, more renters than owners moved because they were either entering or exiting a relationship with a domestic partner, and more renters left to either go to college or because they had completed their degrees.

Health-related reasons for moving had a significant impact on homeowners over renters, and I found it particularly interesting to see a lot of owners saying that “climate” was a reason for their move. Of course, I can only hypothesize as to whether people are simply looking to move to warmer climates or whether climate change is starting to have an increasingly large influence on where we choose to live. My gut tells me that climate change is becoming a far more important consideration for homeowners, although we can’t deny that a lot of people, specifically on the East Coast, moved South during the pandemic.

These next few charts break down movers not just by whether they our owners or renters but also by ethnicity.

2021 Mobility by Ethnicity & Tenure: Owners vs Renters Movers and Non-Movers

Here you can see that homeowners across these three ethnicities were pretty much uniform in their desire to stay in their existing home with only 4 to 5% moving. And renters who, as we have already seen, did move more frequently last year than homeowners, were also in a very tight range at between 83 and 85%.

2021 Mobility by Ethnicity & Tenure: Owners vs Renters Movers and Non-Movers (2)

And the same can be said about Hispanic owners and mixed race families, with about 95% not moving last year. Now this is modestly lower than White, Black, or Asian households, but the difference is very marginal. As for renters, between 83 and almost 88% of them within these three ethnicities moved last year, but you will see a bigger share of Hispanic renters stayed put as opposed to all the other ethnicities shown here.

2021 Mobility by Ethnicity & Tenure: Moves In & Out of State

Looking closer now at those who did move, even though fewer Asian households moved when compared to all other ethnicities, far more left the state than stayed, and the same was true for Asian renters with over a quarter moving out of state.

2021 Mobility by Ethnicity & Tenure: Moves In & Out of State (2)

Again, a greater share of the Hispanic homeowners who did move last year stayed in the state where their old house was, and the share of mixed households was roughly at the average for all ethnicities. And the share of Hispanic and mixed-race renters who stayed in State was also about average.

What I see from the data is that the huge shift that many expected during COVID has not been affirmed—at least not by the numbers we have looked at. That said, we are sure to see numerous revisions because of the issues that COVID 19 has posed on Census takers, so we may get a different story as more data is released and revisions posted. What I found to be most interesting in the numbers we have looked at was the massive increase in renters moving in with their “significant others.” But I am not surprised, given that there are around 48½ million people aged between 20 and 30, and this is their time!

And I was also interested in the share of the population who moved due to climate. I will be doing some more digging around in the darkest recesses of the Census Bureau website to see if I can find out more about this. Although I can’t confirm it, my gut tells me that climate—and specifically climate change—will be a factor of growing importance when people are thinking about where they want to live.

And there you have it. As always, if you have any questions or comments about this particular topic, please do reach out to me but, in the meantime, stay safe out there and I look forward to visiting with you all again next month.

Bye now.

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11/15/2021 Housing and Economic Update from Matthew Gardner

Hello there! I’m Windermere Real Estate’s Chief Economist, Matthew Gardner, and welcome to the latest episode of Mondays with Matthew.

Before I get started, I wanted to let you know that this will be the final episode of Monday with Matthew for 2021 as I’m going to be taking Christmas off. So it’s time to offer you my forecasts for the U.S. economy and the country’s housing market in 2022.

Although many people – including myself – had hoped that COVID-19 would have become a somewhat distant memory by now, and that the economy would have recovered this was – sadly – not to be the case, and the pandemic’s influence on the economy is still being felt and all the datasets I track tell me that, although we are certainly healing, COVID continues to act as a drag on economic growth and I expect that to continue through the spring of next year – if not a little longer.

Economic Recovery & Growth

And it’s because of this that I – along with many other economists – have spent the last few months lowering our forecasts for economic growth – at least through the middle of 2022. So, let’s look at this a little closer.

Here is my forecast for economic growth through the end of next year and you will note that, even though I am cautious in regard to the economy as we move through the winter and into 2022, I am still expecting to see a fairly decent bounce back in the fourth quarter of this year following the very disappointing rate that we saw in Q-3.

And on an annualized basis, I believe that the economy will have expanded by just shy of 5% this year and come in a little below 4% in 2022.

Simply put, the impacts of COVID-19 are going to continue to act as a drag on virus sensitive consumer services next year and ongoing supply chain issues will also delay inventory restocking. Both of these impacts have a depressing effect, in more ways than one, on economic growth, but I don’t see any chance that we will fall back into a recession.

Looking at the employment picture this chart shows my forecast for average monthly growth in jobs during a quarter and to give you some context, over the last decade or so the country has added an average of around 200,000 jobs per month during any one quarter and my forecast is for more robust employment growth as we move through 2022 and, if correct, I expect to see the country return to pre-COVID employment levels in the second half of the year.

And with jobs continuing to return I’m looking for the unemployment rate to continue trending lower and breaking south of 4% during the final quarter of the year. With the expiration of enhanced unemployment benefits – in concert with wages rising significantly in many face-to-face industries such as leisure and hospitality – prospects for people currently unemployed are looking rather good. That said, there are still millions of unemployed Americans who are not looking for work even with wages rising, the labor force still down by 3 million from its pre-pandemic peak, and this is worrying as businesses continue to have a hard time finding employees which raises the expectation that inflation will remain higher for longer than I would have liked to see.

Measures of Inflation

And that leads nicely into my final economic forecast and that is my outlook for inflation. As we have discussed, supply chain issues and labor shortages have increased prices significantly and this top chart shows annual changes in all consumer prices which I expect to remain around 5% until next spring, before gradually dropping down to below 3% by the end of the year.

But the core inflation rate – which excludes the volatile food and energy sectors – won’t peak until early next year before it too starts to gradually pull back and, at these levels, the Federal Reserve will undoubtedly have started to raise interest rates to counteract inflationary pressures. This is not pretty, but I absolutely do not believe that we are in some sort of inflationary spiral, or that “stagflation” will raise its ugly head again.

U.S. Housing Market

Okay! Now it’s time to turn our attention to the U.S. housing market which was a beacon of hope during the pandemic period and, given the massive spike in demand that started last June, I’m looking for a little more than 6 million existing homes will have changed hands in 2021, but I don’t see this level increasing in 2022 – mainly due to ongoing supply limitations as well as rising affordability issues, and I’m therefore forecasting sales to pull back – albeit very modestly – next year. That said, the country has never seen more than 6 million home selling in a single year since records were first kept so the number is still very impressive.

And with the market as tight as it has been so far this year, it shouldn’t be any surprise to see median sale prices skyrocketing and, even though we have 3 more months of sales data yet to be released, I still anticipate prices will have risen by almost 16 and a half % in 2021- a quite remarkable number. This pace of appreciation has never been seen before. In fact, the closest was back in 2005 – when the housing bubble was inflating rapidly – but even then, prices only rose by 12.2%.

But, as I mentioned in my sales forecast, this pace of growth is unsustainable and I am expecting to see some of the heat to come off the market next year but, a growth rate of 7.3% is certainly nothing to sniff at.

There are three major reasons why we will see the pace of growth slow. I have already mentioned my concerns regarding housing affordability, but mortgage rates and new supply will both influence the slowdown in sales and price growth in the resale arena.

Although I do not prepare a forecast for housing affordability, this is my where I expect to see mortgage rates through the end of next year and I am looking for them to continue “stair-stepping” higher but still ending 2022 below 4% – very low by historic standards given that the long-term average for a conventional 30-year mortgage is somewhere around 7 1/2%.

Obviously, as rates notch higher that starts to compress price growth as it puts a lower ceiling on how much a buyer can afford to pay for a home.

And slowing growth in existing home prices and sales will also be a function of additional supply and this chart shows my forecast for single-family starts this year and next. I expect more than a million homes to start construction in 2022 – continuing the trend that started in mid-2020 – but I am sure that some of you may be asking yourselves that if starts are already robust, how have existing home sales been able to increase so significantly if there has been solid supply coming from homebuilders – and that would be a great question.

And I would answer this by telling you that the way the Census gathers data on start is to count the number of home foundations that have been poured, but vertical construction has not necessarily started. And what we have been seeing is a lot of foundations but not so many homes actually being built – and we know this by looking at the number of homes that are for sale but have yet to be started. So, it’s important to look at a separate number that the Census Bureau also puts out which counts the number of units actually under construction, and that number has been growing significantly over the course of the last 18 months or so.

Builders have been hamstrung with rising labor and material costs which will lead new home sales this year to fall below the number seen in 2020; however, I do expect this to pick up significantly next year and my current forecast calls for 927,000 new homes to be sold in 2022.

So, there you have it, my economic and housing market forecast for 2022.

Of course, there are still a number of variables that could lead me to revise this forecast but, as an old economics professor of mine used to tell me, “Gardner, forecast well, but forecast often!”

If everything goes according to my plan, you should expect to see the housing market start to move towards some sort of balance next year, but I am afraid that it will still remain out of equilibrium until at least 2023.

And if you’re wondering, no, I don’t see a housing bubble forming and I’m also not at all concerned about homeowners currently in forbearance, but it would be silly to say that there aren’t any issues in the housing market that concern me because there are and the biggest of which is housing affordability and this will have a significant impact on the millennial generation who are continuing to get older, and they are all – well most – thinking about settling down and, possibly, having children, and I wonder how hard it will be for many of them to be able to afford to buy their first home because most really do want to become homeowners. Will builders figure out how to build to this massive pent-up demand? I guarantee you that whoever can solve this puzzle will do very, very well.

COVID-19 caused an unparalleled shock to the US economy and the rise of the delta variant has certainly impacted the speed of our recovery but, rest assured, this particular forecaster firmly believes that we will recover and that the economy will continue to grow.

Demand for ownership housing remains remarkably buoyant and, in fact, it is quite likely that demand may actually increase with the work from home paradigm that will start to gain momentum next year. It will be fascinating to watch how this impacts not just demand, but where these buyers will ultimately choose to live.

In closing, I very much hope that you have all enjoyed the videos that I have shared this year as much as I have enjoyed making them.

As always if you have any questions or comments about this topic, please do reach out to me but, in the meantime, stay safe out there and I look forward the visiting with you all again next year.

Bye now.

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9/27/2021 Housing and Economic Update from Matthew Gardner

Hello there! I’m Windermere Real Estate’s Chief Economist, Matthew Gardner, and welcome to the latest episode of Mondays with Matthew.

Today we are going to take a look at the latest Home Purchase Sentiment Index survey that was just put out by Fannie Mae. And for those of you who may not be familiar with this survey, it’s actually pretty important and one that I track closely as it’s the only national, monthly, survey of consumers that’s focused primarily on housing.

The survey shows the responses of 1,000 consumers across the country to roughly 100 survey questions on a wide range of housing-related topics. Now, don’t worry, we aren’t going to look at all 100 questions – just the ones that solicit consumers’ evaluations of housing market conditions and that also address topics related to their home purchase decisions.

So, as you can see here, the overall index was trending higher pretty consistently until the pandemic happened which had massive, but temporary, impacts. And looking the last 3-years, you can get a better idea as to the speed of the pandemic induced drop – pretty remarkable.

Now, you will also see that the index recovered quite quickly; however, it fell again last fall as the pandemic was not going away at the speed many had hoped for – it rose again this spring but has been pulling back for the past few months but, that said, the August index level essentially matched the level seen in July.

Now let’s look at the questions that are used to create of the index number and how consumers responded.

When asked whether it was a good time to buy a home, the percentage who agreed with that statement rose from 28 to 32%, while the share who thought that it is a bad time to buy dropped from 66 to 63%. And, as a result, the net share of those who say it is a good time to buy jumped 7 points month over month and its notable that this is the first time the net share number has improved in the past 4-months.

What I see here is that – although improving modestly, the general consensus is that it is not a good time to buy and that sentiment is being driven by two things: One – there are still not enough homes on the market, and two, rapidly rising prices are scaring some people.

And when asked if they thought it was a good time to sell their homes it was interesting to see that share drop from 75 to 73% while the percentage who said that it’s a bad time to sell dropped 1 point to 19% and as a result, the net share of those who said it was a good time to sell pulled back by 1% but it still indicates that more owners think that it is a good time to sell than don’t.

Looking now at the direction of home prices over the next 12-months, the percentage who think that home prices will rise fell from 46 to 40%, while the percentage who expected home prices to drop rose from 21 to 24%.

As a result, the net share of Americans who say home prices will go up dropped by 9 points – from 25%, down to 16%.

Although this may sound concerning, I should add that the share of respondents who thought that home prices will remain static over the next year rose from 27% to 31%.

On the financing side, the share who think mortgage rates will rise over the next 12 months dropped from 57 to 53%, while the percentage who believed rates would be lower rose from 5% to 6% and, as a result, the net share of Americans who believed that mortgage rates will go down over the next 12 months rose by 5%, and with 35% of respondents thinking that that rates will hold steady – it’s clear to me that a vast majority are not worried about mortgage rates rising.

The takeaways for me so far are that consumers tempered both their recent pessimism about homebuying conditions and their upward expectations of home price growth.

Most notably, a greater share of consumers believe that it’s a good time to buy a home – though that population remains firmly in the minority at only 32% – while the ongoing plurality of respondents who expect home prices to go up over the next 12 months dropped but was still well above the 24% of consumers who believe home prices will fall.

Now, there are two more questions that are worth looking at which aren’t directly related to home buyers and sellers but are still important as they look at employment and incomes.

The percentage of respondents who said that they are not concerned about losing their job in the next 12 months remains very high at 82%, but it did drop by 2 points month-over-month, while the percentage who said that they are concerned ticked up to 15% from 13%. As a result, the net share of Americans who say they are not concerned about losing their job fell by 4 percentage points month over month, but remains well above the level seen a year ago.

And finally, when households were asked about their own personal finances, the percentage of respondents who said that their household income is significantly higher now than it was 12 months ago pulled back one point to 26%, while the percentage who said that their household income is significantly lower dropped to 12%.

As a result, the net share of those who said that their household income is significantly higher than it was a year ago rose by 1 percent month over month and came in 5 points higher than a year ago. It’s also worthwhile noting that most said that their household income is about the same as it was a year ago with that share rising from 56 all the way up to 59%.

Looking at all the numbers in aggregate, the index level was relatively flat in August with three of the index’s six components rising month over month, while the other three fell, and that tells me that the continued strength of demand for housing and definitely favorable conditions for home sellers may well be offsetting broader concerns about the Delta variant of COVID-19 as well as rising inflation that have both negatively impacted other consumer confidence indices.

Most consumers continued to report that it’s a good time to sell a home – but a bad time to buy – and they most frequently cite high home prices and a lack of supply as their primary rationale.

However, the ‘good time to buy’ component, while still near a survey low, did tick up for the first time since March, perhaps owing in part to the very favorable mortgage rate environment as well as growing expectations that home price appreciation will begin to moderate over the next year. A sentiment that I personally agree with.

Well, I hope that you have found this month’s discussion to be interesting. As always if you have any questions or comments about this topic, please do reach out to me but, in the meantime, stay safe out there and I look forward the visiting with you all again, next month.

Bye now!

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8/30/2021 Housing and Economic Update from Matthew Gardner

Hello there! I’m Windermere Real Estate’s Chief Economist, Matthew Gardner, and welcome to the latest episode of Mondays with Matthew.

Today I wanted to take a look at the several housing related data releases that came out in August, and I am going to start off with the new home sector and the July numbers for housing permits and starts.

New home permits – and here I am referring to single-family permits – fell by 1.7% (or roughly 18,000 units) in July to an annualized rate of 1.048 million units and have been heading backwards since March.

But I always like to put things into perspective and you can see here that although we have seen a pullback over the past few months, the trend has actually been heading higher since we emerged from the financial crisis in 2011.Of course, COVID had a very pronounced impact on permit activity, but it bounced back rather impressively, that is until the parabolic increase in lumber and other costs really started to hit builders hard.

And the slowdown in permits obviously impacted housing starts which dropped by 4.5% – or 52,000 units – to an annual rate of 1.11 million.

Starts fell across most regions, with the exception of the west which rose by 0.9%. Declines were led by the Northeast (-6.3%), followed by the Midwest (-2.3%) and the South (-2.0%).

But again, for perspective, you can see that the longer term trend is still improving, but I am afraid not to the degree needed to address the massive housing shortage that the country faces.

If you have watched these videos for any length of time you will know that I like to look at homes under construction as opposed to housing starts – which many do not – as I believe it offers a better gauge of the market that permits or starts data. And for those who might not be aware of the difference between housing starts and houses under construction, a home is technically started if a foundation has been poured, but it does not mean that vertical construction has started, but homes under construction show just that.

And the number of homes actually being built rose by 1.5% in July to an annual rate of 689,000 units, and that is 33% higher than the same time a year ago.

All regions other than the Northeast – which dropped by 1.6% – saw the pace of vertical construction rise versus June with the South leading the way with a 2.7% increase. This was followed by the Midwest which rose by 1.1%, and the West saw a more modest increase of 0.5%.

Again, when we look at a longer timelines, the growth is actually rather impressive, but, again, it still falls well short of demand.

So, what I see in this data is that the pullback in housing starts was not a surprise, given that permitting activity (which is a leading indicator for starts) having fallen in each of the prior three months. But despite this, the overall pace of new homebuilding actually remains relatively healthy, with the six-month moving average of homes under construction above the pre-pandemic trend at a little more than 655,000 units.

Although rising material costs, a significant shortage of qualified labor, and affordability challenges are all still keeping builders awake at night, I believe that the fundamentals for homebuilding remain solid, thanks mostly to an improving labor market backdrop and still exceptionally low inventory levels.

Additionally, a recent easing in mortgage rates, and a significant pullback in lumber prices which have fallen sharply since peaking in mid-May and are now back to pre-pandemic levels, also provide support to growing new construction activity.

Moving on to new home sales in July and it was a bit of a mixed bag. As you can see here, the number of new homes for sale continues its upward trend – which bottomed out last Fall – and rose by 5.5% versus June and is up by over 26% from a year ago.

Now, this may sound to be great news but as I dug though the data, I saw a different story. You see, the jump in listings was driven by a record rise in homes for sale that have yet to be built.

In fact, the number of houses for sale that have yet to break ground accounted for almost 29% of total inventory. Why is this? It’s because many builders are very cautious about the market given expensive raw materials as well as limited land supply and construction workers.

On the sales side of the equation, contract signings were up by 1% versus June to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 708,000, but that is down by 27% from a year ago.

Last month’s gain in new home sales was driven by a 1.3% rise in the populous South and a 14.4% jump in the West, but sales plunged 24.1% in the Northeast and were 20.2% lower in the Midwest.

There can be no doubt that affordability is becoming an increasing issue in the new-home market. The median sale price is up almost 18% from its pre-pandemic level, which is a touch lower than the run-up in sales prices in the existing-home market, but still enough to deter potential homebuyers.

And cost is another factor – in addition to COVID-19 – that is accelerating the migration to suburban markets and metro areas in lower-cost states such as Arizona, Utah, Texas and Florida. But, by contrast, new home sales have weakened in areas where population growth has slowed, in part due to an outflow of residents seeking more affordable real estate, lower taxes and other lifestyle advantages. It will be very interesting to see if this is a trend that continues as we head into 2022.

Moving on – the National Association of Homebuilders published their Index of Builder Sentiment in August, and the data rather echoes the numbers that we have just been discussing. You can see that sentiment in the single-family market has been easing gradually in recent months, but it remains well above the 50 level, suggesting that more builders are seeing the market as good, rather than bad, even if the current index is at its lowest level in 13 months.

And when we look at the components of the index, sales conditions fell five points to 81 and the component measuring traffic of prospective buyers also posted a five-point decline to 60. But the gauge charting sales expectations in the next six months held steady at 81.

As we have talked about, builders are facing significant obstacles and this is impacting the pace of new development. According to Freddie Mac, the U.S. housing market is 3.8 million single-family homes short of what is needed to meet the country’s demand and in order to catch up, builders would need to construct between 1.1 million and 1.2 million single-family homes a year to meet long-term demand but, in truth, the start rate would need to be even higher to shrink the existing deficit that we are currently experiencing.

And with more demand than new supply, what happens? That’s right, buyers turn their attentions to the existing home market and that is a neat segue into the final dataset that dropped this month, and that’s the existing home sales numbers for July.

It was pleasing to see that, for the 5^th month in a row, Inventory levels ticked higher and, unadjusted for seasonality, were measured at 1.32M units, but I like to look at the seasonally adjusted number and that came in at a still respectable 1.0246M units.

I also like to look at the number of new listings which gives a better view on the market – and as you can see here, they are up year-over-year and that is allowing sales to accelerate.

You see, the inventory number that NAR puts out represents the number of homes for sale at a set date in the month; however, new listings show the total number of homes that came on the market during that month and if a sale is agreed upon in the same month that it comes to market, then it is not included in the overall inventory number.

And because new listing activity is still pretty robust, it has allowed sales to tick back up as you can see here. On a seasonally adjusted, annualized basis, sales came in at 5.99M – up for the second month in a row but still well below the numbers we saw last Fall.

On a month-over-month basis, single-family home sales rose by 1% to almost 442,000, but multifamily sales dropped by over 10%, but were still up by 15% from a year ago.

Home prices took a little breather in July – dropping by 0.8% month over month – but are still 17.8% higher than seen a year ago.

Single-family home prices also dipped by 0.8% to $367,000 – but are up by 18.6% from a year ago and multifamily sale prices dropped by 1.3% to $307,100 but were up 14.1% from July of 2020.

Even though we saw modest increases in listing inventory, the market is still far from balanced. At the existing sale pace, there is only 2.6 months of supply, well below the 4-6 months that is considered balanced, but certainly better than the 1.9 months we saw back in January.

The same was seen in the single-family arena which also showed 2.6 months of supply and things were slightly better in the condo and co-op world where there is currently 3 months of inventory.

As I went through the report in more detail, there were a few more nuggets worthwhile mentioning. Although it is true that inventory levels are somewhat higher – which is certainly a good thing – but the market remains remarkably tight.

For example, for every offer accepted on a home in July, there were 3.5 additional offers; half of all offers made in July were above the list price and, because the market remains highly competitive, the number of all-cash offers rose from 16% a year ago to 23% in July. And with 89% of homes going pending in the same month that they were listed, and the average days on market coming in at just 17, we are still quite far away from experiencing a normal housing market.

Bye now.

The post 8/30/2021 Housing and Economic Update from Matthew Gardner appeared first on Windermere Real Estate.

7/26/2021 Housing and Economic Update from Matthew Gardner

Hello there! I’m Windermere Real Estate’s Chief Economist, Matthew Gardner, and welcome to the latest episode of Mondays with Matthew.

This month, we are going to take another look at forbearance activity across the U.S. Now I know that we have talked about this subject several times over the past year, but it is worthwhile to look at it again if only for the fact that the program stopped taking new applications for forbearance at the end of June.

So, let’s take a look at where we were when the forbearance program started and where we are today.

And as you can see from this first chart, the situation today is a vast improvement from where we were last May when there were more than 4.76 million homes in the program. For context, that meant that more than 9% of all homes with a mortgage were in the program last May – a huge number.

But the latest data from Black Knight Financial shows that – by mid-July of this year – the number had dropped to just over 1.86 million homes, or roughly 3.5% of houses with a mortgage.

This is certainly a pretty impressive recovery, as it means that 2.9 million homeowners left the program between May of 2020 and mid-July 2021.

And when we look at the makeup of mortgages in forbearance, the largest share came from loans backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – not surprising given the size of their mortgage portfolio – with, at the peak, just shy of two million homes in the program – roughly 7.2% of their total portfolio.

But that number has now dropped to 582,000 or just 2.1% of loans outstanding.

Loans backed by the FHA or VA also peaked last May at about 1.53 million or 12.6% of their portfolio.

But today that number has dropped to 755,000 or 6.2% of the mortgages they hold.

And finally, loans showed here as “other” represent private label securities or portfolio loans, and it’s interesting to see that their numbers didn’t peak until late June when just short of 1.25 million homes – or 9.6% of their portfolio – were in the program.

However, today that number had dropped to 524,000, or 4% of mortgages backed by these entities.

What I see from the slides that we have looked at is that the number of active forbearance plans continues to fall; however, the pace of the drop has certainly slowed over the last quarter or so.

After seeing a monthly drop of 12% in April – as a large volume all plans hit their 12-month review date – the pace of improvement has since slowed to just 5% over the past 30 days.

Although the number of homes in forbearance is still higher than I would like to see, fewer than 4% of all mortgages are in the program and we haven’t seen this level since April of 2020, just as the pandemic was kicking in.

As we look forward, you can see that almost 600,000 homes currently in forbearance are coming up for review so the potential for a greater rate of improvement in the overall number of homes in the program is certainly possible – but not guaranteed.

Unsurprisingly the number of homes entering the program for the first time as well as repeat plan starts is lower than we saw last summer but again the pace of improvement has slowed. That said, overall starts are down by 3% on the month and when we combine new and repeat starts the number is 3 to 4% lower.

Of the roughly 460,000 homes in forbearance that were reviewed for either extension or removal from the program in the first two weeks of June, 33% left the program while 67% had the term extended. This is a lower removal rate than we saw during the first two weeks of either April or May, but I expect to see more homeowners come out of the program, but only as long as the country continues to reopen, and that is not a certainty given the rise of the Delta and Lambda variants of the COVID-19 virus.

I actually found this chart to be very interesting. Of the more than two million active forbearance plans, approximately half are scheduled to reach their 18-month terminal expiration date in September and October of this year.

And if we take this data, and then project a fairly modest 3% monthly rate of homeowners leaving the forbearance program, it means that over 900,000 homes would exit the program in the third and fourth quarters of this year.

And with 575,000 thousand plans scheduled to expire in September and October alone – that means that mortgage services will be faced with the daunting task of having to process nearly 15,000 plans per business day during that time. It’s going to be a lot of work!

Roughly 7.25 million borrowers have used the forbearance program at one time or another through the course of the pandemic and that represents roughly 14% of all homeowners in the country.

Of that 7.25 million, the chart here shows that 72% have left the plan, and 28% remain in active forbearance, but you can also see that loan performance remains pretty robust among homeowners who have left the program with 46% of them getting things squared away with their lenders in regard to missed payments, and 18% having paid off their loan in full – likely from selling or refinancing with a different lender.

You will also see that the number of borrowers in post forbearance loss mitigation is down a tad to 333,000, while those who have left forbearance but still remain delinquent and not in loss mitigation accounts for roughly 3% of total loans in the program or just 195,000.

So, the way I see it, although the number of homes leaving the program has certainly slowed which, quite frankly, doesn’t surprise me, I still expect further improvement as we move through the year not just because the economy continues to reopen and people are getting reestablished at work, but also because we won’t be seeing any new owners enter the program.

And finally, I want to show you what parts of the country have a high share of homes in forbearance.

I must tell you first off, that this data isn’t that timely – in fact these numbers are from March as the data I get at the State and County grain is subject to a three month lag.

Anyway, as you can see from this map, not all states are created equal, with the share of homes in forbearance still elevated in Louisiana, Texas and, to a lesser degree, New York State.

Out here in the West, the rate in Nevada is still high, and California and New Mexico are both somewhat higher than I would like to have seen but, as I just said, this data is a little old, and I believe that the share of homes in forbearance in both Nevada and California is lower today than you see here.

Given everything that we’ve looked at today, there are a couple of conclusions that can be drawn.

The first, and most obvious, is that anyone believing but there will be a flood of homes that will be foreclosed on either toward the end of this year or in 2022, is likely to be disappointed. Even if every home still in the program does enter foreclosure which, by the way, is basically impossible, the number of homes that would be foreclosed on would be minimal when compared to the fallout following the financial crisis of more than a decade ago.

And when I say that it’s virtually impossible to expect to see all homes will be foreclosed on, it’s mainly because of the remarkable run up in home values that the country has seen since 2012.

The buildup of equity that all homeowners have seen whether they bought before 2012, or even as recently as the past 2 or 3 years, suggests that if, for whatever circumstance, owners in forbearance can’t get their heads back above water, they will choose to sell their home – in order to keep the equity that they have accumulated.

A typical homeowner in forbearance has a sizeable equity in their home, with median equity of a homeowner in the program measured at just over $100,000. And this significant amount of cash in their homes would allow them to pay the bank back any missed payments, sell, and still walk away with a sizable amount of equity.

The bottom line is that have the forbearance program was needed and it can be said that it has been successful so far in warding off home foreclosures because of the remarkable impact of the pandemic.

Although it would be naïve to suggest that foreclosure rates won’t rise at all, as the forbearance program winds down, I do see them ticking higher but, given all the data that I’ve been looking at, I would be very surprised to see overall foreclosure rates rise to a level significantly above the long-term average.

Bye now

The post 7/26/2021 Housing and Economic Update from Matthew Gardner appeared first on Windermere Real Estate.

Matthew Gardner Housing & Economic Update: 02/22/2021

Hello there and welcome to February’s edition of Mondays with Matthew.

Well, there were a lot of housing-related data releases in the month that are worthy of discussion so let’s get straight to it. I am going to start out with the latest homeownership data that was just released by the Census Bureau.

Those of you who regularly watch my videos may remember that last year I suggested that the data may have been a little bit suspect – specifically when it came to the second and third quarter ownership rates.

Anyway, for those that didn’t see me address this, or if you have forgotten, I had a concern about the significant spike in the ownership rate that you can see here, and I suggested that it might be suspect because of the way the data was gathered during the early days of COVID. You see, the survey was done via telephone and not in person – as it usually is – because of COVID-19 restrictions and I believe that this actually led to an overreporting of the real ownership rate.

Following the massive spike we saw in the second quarter, it appears that they have found a way to more accurately gather the data and the rate has now pulled back to a level that, at least for me, passes my “sniff test”! However, even though the share of US households who own their homes did drop, it still remains above the long-term average and stands at a level we haven’t seen since 2012.

Line graph showing the U.S. Homeownership rate where the homeowner is under the age of 35 between 2006 and 2020.

Younger Households Continue to Buy

And when we drill down into the data and look at the ownership rate for Millennials – I know, I harp on about them a lot – but you can clearly see that they really are becoming homeowners in increasing numbers and the current rate of 38.5% is a share not seen since 2011 and I expect to see this number grow over the next several years.

Demographics are driving them into homeownership as they are all getting older, many now starting families and they want to own a home. I would also add that I would not be surprised to see them shift toward ownership at even faster rates if they are allowed to work from home which may lead more of them to leave expensive cities and move to markets where it’s more affordable to buy.

And to give you a different perspective on these younger buyers, last week the New York Fed released their report on household debt that included numbers regarding the share of mortgage borrowing by age. Well, you can see in the above graph, that younger buyers continue to account for a major share of total mortgage borrowing and are borrowing pretty substantial amounts too.

In fact, in 2020 Millennial and Gen Z households borrowed over $1.3 trillion to buy homes and that’s over 35% of total new mortgage debt on a dollar basis. Although I think it’s great to see younger households grow as homeowners and the overall homeownership rate rising, all is not as I would like to see it – especially when we break down the homeownership rate by ethnicity.

And the above report, again from the Census Bureau, showed that although the share of white households who own their homes ticked up it also showed some significant disparities with the ownership rate for black households – although up a little – still well below the levels seen with other ethnicities.

This is a long-term, and systemic issue, that needs to be addressed.

The bottom line is that the ownership rate for Black families was 25 percentage points lower than that for white families in 2020 and was even higher in the 4^th quarter of the year when it almost hit 30%.

I am pleased that the Biden administration does have plans to try to address this inequality by looking to expand the ability of the Federal Housing Authority to provide mortgages and this might, if it gets approved, start to address this very significant issue. Of course, nothing will be fixed immediately, but it is a major concern and sincerely hope that, over time, this discrepancy will be addressed.

We had a very significant data drop – again from the Census Bureau – who provided their population estimates for 2019. The data may be old, but it is interesting all the same. This table shows the markets with the greatest increase in population between 2010 and 2019.

I will be honest with you that I was not surprised to see Texas lead the way, but it was interesting to see the greater Seattle region, Denver, and Riverside, California all make it close to the top of the list.

And because a couple of markets that were close to the top of the list are of interest to Windermere (as we have offices in these areas) I thought that it would be interesting to look at how some of the other markets where we have a presence are doing and the numbers are equally as impressive.

Of course, markets are of different sizes, so to balance this out, the data here shows growth in percentage terms and the numbers are again very impressive.

And when I focused on 2-year growth, well it’s again very impressive with significant increases seen in Colorado, several Idaho markets, Las Vegas, Western Washington, and Utah.

And I would also add that Greeley was number one here, but also ranked 4^th nationally. Bend came in 7^th, Boise 9^th, and Coeur d’Alene 10^th. Yes, I know that this data is old – it’s an issue I fight with every day – but I still see it as being meaningful.

Of course, I will be very interested to see the 2020 numbers as they will give us an indication as to how COVID-19 really is impacting where we choose to live, but we will have to wait for that!

I did read a very interesting report that was recently published by North American Moving Services where they looked at where households who moved between states moved to last year. Of course, it is not a perfect analysis, but it does give us an idea as to not just where people moved to, but where they moved from, in 2020.

Unsurprisingly, the largest out-migration states included California – where people were mainly moving to Texas and Idaho – but there was also significant out-migration from Illinois, New York, and New Jersey.

As far as where most people migrated to, in addition to Idaho, movers were also attracted to Arizona, Colorado, Tennessee, and North and South Carolina.

Interestingly, Northeastern states make up four out of the seven states with the most outbound moves, and none of them make the top eight for inbound moves. Number one was New York which saw significant out-migration. Number 2 was New Jersey and Maryland was just beaten into 4^th place by California.

But as far as the western US is concerned, – other than California – people are consistently moving in, and not out.

Also supported by the census numbers we just discussed, the number of households relocating to Idaho has been significant for the past five years and I would add that Colorado has also been in the top-10, or very close to it for the past five years.

Last week we saw the latest data on building permits and starts and although there was a softening in the number of starts in January, permit activity continues to grow significantly with single-family permits up by a massive 3.8% month over month, and 30% higher than seen a year ago. This is good news!

As far as the weakness of starts is concerned, this was primarily due to some builders who remain worried about increasing lumber and other construction material costs, as well as concerns over delays in obtaining building materials because of COVID-19 supply chain issues.

I would add that although single-family starts did drop, the number of homes under construction continued to trend higher. And for those of you who might be wondering how new starts can drop but the number of homes being built can increase, it’s purely terminology. You see, a housing “start” is where a foundation has been poured, but it doesn’t mean that vertical construction has started.

In fact, the number of homes under construction in January was up by 1.1% on the month and is over 16% higher than seen a year ago.

Last week we also got the February take on builder confidence and it was interesting to see it ticking back up as strong buyer demand helped to offset the supply chain challenges and surging lumber prices.

On the right, you will see the three components of the index which showed the gauge of current sales conditions holding steady at 90, while the component measuring sales expectations in the next six months fell three points to 80 but the gauge charting traffic of prospective buyers rising by four points to 72.

Although all are off their peak that was seen last fall, all are above 50 meaning that more builders find the market favorable than not.

So, this was a pretty mixed bag, but the Market Index numbers are more current than the permit and starts report so I will be interested to see what the February housing starts looks like – it wouldn’t surprise me to see a slight uptick in the number.

And finally, the January US housing sales numbers were released by the National Association of Realtors and, well, they were – again – record breaking!

line graph showing the inventory of homes for sale in the U.S. showing a downward trend from January 2021 at the height of above 2.5, and January 21 at the low very close to 1.0.

Inventory levels are still woefully low.

On the supply side, any hopes that we might have seen the number of listings rise in January were dashed with total inventory coming in at a measly 1.04 million homes for sale – that’s down 25.7% year-over-year and a new record low in absolute terms, but also a record percentage drop between January of 2020 and January of 2021.

Breaking it down, the number of single-family homes on the market remained static at 880,000 units, but the number of condominium listings dropped a little to 164,000 listings – that’s down from 179,000 in December.

Given the very low number of listings – and sales still very robust – there was just 1.9-months of supply – matching the all-time low we saw in December.

I always find this data set fascinating – and another record has been broken. For every sale that was agreed in January there were an average of 3.7 offers! That’s a massive increase from the old record of 3.5 set just the month before.

But even with record-low inventory, the number of sales remains very impressive.

Line graph showing the v-shaped recover of existing home sales in the U.S. with the low of the V at May 2020.

Sales would have been even higher if there were just more homes to buy!

Total sales of single-family and multifamily units came in at an annual rate of 6.69 million units in January. That is 0.6% higher than seen in December, and up by a massive 23.7% from a year ago. Sales of single-family homes rose by 23% to an annual rate of 5.93 million units while sales of condos rose by 28.8% to an annual rate of 760,000 units.

Now, some of you may be wondering how this can be? How can sales rise when there are so few homes for sale? And that is a very reasonable question.

You see, the number of homes for sale is the total available on the last day of the month, but sales can still increase because if a home is listed for sale and goes under contract in the same month, well it isn’t included in the inventory numbers for that month.

And in January, properties averaged just 21 days on the market with 71% of them selling within the month.

Bar graph of First Time Buyers at 32 and 33% in January 2020 and January 2021. Sales to Investors are at 17 adn 15 percent, All-Cash sales are at 21 and 19 percent, and distressed sales are 2 and 1 percent.

Still significant demand from first-time buyers and second home buyers.

And when we look at the details it was pleasing to see the share of homes that sold to first-time buyers up a little. Sales to investors – and these numbers include many second-home buyers – pulled back a little, but again, not a concern.

And finally, no surprises here – with many homes in forbearance, the share of distressed sales was just 1 percent.

The median sale price in January was $303,900 and that’s up by 14.1% year-over-year. Now, before you get worried about the fact that it appears that prices have plateaued, it’s actually not surprising as it’s mainly a function of seasonality, as well as the limited choice of homes to buy.

Sales of homes in the US priced below $100,000 were down 28% year over year, while sales of homes priced between $500,000 and $750,000 were up 53% year over year, and sales of million-dollar-plus homes were up by 76.7% from a year ago. Geographically, price growth was most robust in the west where they were up by 16.1% year over year. Also, $1 million-plus sales accounted for over 11% of all sales in the western US too.

As I worked through the January numbers, it remains very clear to me that housing remains a shining light as we move through this pandemic period, and I expect this to continue with 2021 being another very good year for the housing market, and home sales rising even more as a vaccine gets more broadly distributed and we reopen more of the country.

So, there you have it. My take on the January housing-related data releases.

The post Matthew Gardner Housing & Economic Update: 02/22/2021 appeared first on Windermere Real Estate.

Matthew Gardner COVID-19 Housing & Economic Update: 01/25/2021

Hello there and welcome to the first Mondays with Matthew for 2021. It’s great to be back and I hope that you all had a fantastic holiday season and are getting into the new year groove.

Well, there’s a lot of data releases to talk about today so let’s get to it. First up is the latest National Association of Homebuilders report on builder confidence.

The index slipped to 83 from 86 but, for context, any reading above 50 means more builders view market conditions as favorable than poor.

Now, as you can see, following a very impressive recovery following the start of the pandemic, U.S. homebuilder confidence has trended lower for the past 2-months but, to tell you the truth, I really wasn’t surprised to see this.

Why wasn’t I surprised?

Well, its actually rather simple. Surging COVID-19 infections in concert with increasing material costs offset record low mortgage rates.

Builders are still grappling with supply-side constraints related to not just material costs, but a lack of affordable lots on which to build, and labor shortages that are all putting upward pressure on new home prices.

It’s very frustrating for builders these days as they see very significant demand for housing – driven by cheaper mortgages as well as an exodus from city centers to the suburbs and other low-density areas as companies allow employees to work from home because of the pandemic.

Oh! Talking of work-from-home, I did see a number put out by the Census Bureau in their Household Pulse Survey that suggested that about 38% of the labor force is now working at least part-time from home. That’s a massive number.

Anyway, all of the component parts of the survey trended lower with the measure of sales expectations in the next six months falling two points to 83, the gauge of current sales conditions also dropping two points to 90, and the prospective buyers index falling by five points to 68.

I am not worried by this as, even at these levels, builders are still pretty bullish about the market, and I say this because of the next dataset I’m going to talk about – the housing permit and starts report.

Even if builders were suffering from worries regarding costs. Oh! I should add that their biggest issue as far as material costs are concerned are that lumber prices have risen by 52% versus a year ago! Anyway, this increase in cost, as well as the other issues that we have just talked about didn’t translate into slowing activity when it came to permits and starts which both surged in December.

This chart shows the number of single-family permits issued across the country and the figure rose by 7.8% between November and December to an annual rate of 1.226 million units. That’s 30.4% higher than seen a year ago. And the fastest rate seen since 2007.

And looking now at housing starts, well they impressed too with a 12% month over month gain to an annual rate of 1.338 million units – and that’s 27.8% higher than a year ago.

I would also note that single-family starts have increased for eight straight months now. And – given the data that we have just looked at – it’s not surprising to see a very significant jump in the number of homes under construction.

Now, in case you are a little confused by terminology, I should let you know that housing starts don’t actually relate to the number of homes being built. Starts refer to lots where a foundation has been poured, but it doesn’t mean that vertical construction has commenced. For that we need to look at the under-construction data shown here.

And the number is pleasing. In fact, the current level of ground-up construction is at its highest level since 2007.

The bottom line is that I expect to see the number of starts and homes under construction continue to rise, and new supply of homes is likely to take some of the upward price pressures off the resale market.

In fact, my current forecast is for new home sales to rise this year to about 988,000 units.

And talking of the resale market, I know that you have all been waiting for the December existing home sales numbers and they were released last Friday.

Before we get to the good stuff, I want to start with inventory – or lack of it!

Without seasonal adjustment, the number of homes for sale in December stood at just 1.07 million homes – and that’s down 23% year over year.

For perspective, that is the lowest number of homes on record and, at the current sales place, that represents a 1.9-month supply and that’s the lowest number seen since the National Association of Realtors began tracking this metric back in 1982.

So – we know that there is nothing to buy, but what’s happening to sales?

Look at this! Pandemic-driven demand for housing sent total 2020 home sales to the highest level since 2006.

Closed sales of existing homes in December increased just 0.7% from November to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 6.76 million units and sales were 22% higher than seen in December of 2019.

As unexpected as a global pandemic was, so too was the reaction of homebuyers. After plummeting in March and April, sales suddenly began to climb.

Total year-end sales volume ended at 5.64 million units, and that was a number far higher than I – or anyone – was predicting before the pandemic started.

COVID-19 drove buyers desire for larger, suburban homes with dedicated spaces not just for working but for schooling as well.

And I will tell you that, in my opinion, sales could have been even higher if there were just more homes to buy! I wouldn’t have been surprised, again, if we had no inventory constraints – to have seen over 7 million sales occurring last year and that would have matched the all-time high seen in 2005.

But of course, there is a price to pay when you have so much demand, and so little supply.

That’s right. Prices go up!

Low supply and very strong demand continued to heat home prices with the median price of an existing home sold in December coming in at $309,800, that’s a 12.9% increase when compared with December 2019 and the highest December median price on record. I would also add that this price is only marginally below the all-time high that was seen last October.

The surge in prices really has been quite remarkable, but I am not too surprised. Yes, demand has risen significantly, and supply has not, but much of the growth was driven by mortgage rates that have dropped precipitously since the pandemic started and are over a full percentage point lower now than they were a year ago.

I would add that part of the reason we say such a sharp increase in price is that home sales were actually very strong at the high end of the market, where there are more homes for sale.

Sales of homes in the US priced below $100,000 were down 15% annually in December, while sales of homes priced between $500,000 and $750,000 were up 65% year over year, and sales of million-dollar-plus homes were up by a whopping 94% from a year ago.

A lot of the growth in the luxury market can also be attributed to mortgage rates with jumbo rates – that spiked with the pandemic – dropping significantly and this has led sales higher.

Breaking out the single-family market from condos, sales leapt in the early summer but leveled off in the fall because of – you guessed it – a lack of homes for sale and not a lack of demand.

In 2020, sales of single-family homes rose by 6.3% – a massive number that’s even more impressive given the fact that sales only rose by 0.5% in 2019.

And prices were, naturally on the rise too – increasing by 9.2% last year, and that’s the fastest rate we have seen since 2013, and that was when we were starting to recover from the housing bubble that burst causing home prices to collapse value buyers jumped in causing prices to rise significantly.

Looking now at condos, we see a somewhat similar picture with the annual rate of sales coming in at over 700,000 units but, interestingly, 2020 total condo sales were actually 0.3% lower than we saw in 2019.

What is happening here is a drop in demand for urban multifamily units with buyers able to work remotely. And this is also reflected by lower price growth than we saw in the single-family market.

As we move forward, I am still positive about the multifamily arena, but we are already seeing softening in demand and price in some market across the nation and here I am directly referring to San Francisco here in the West, and New York and Boston back East.

In as much as we will continuing to see short-term demand and price issues in many urban markets, it doesn’t mean that the overall condo market is going to collapse.

In fact, I think that once we get back to “normal” we may well see demand increase again and, if we see prices start to drop, I expect demand to rise even further as buyers who had previously been priced out of many of these large cities see that they can now afford to buy.

So, there you have it. My take on the January housing related data releases.

As always, if you have any questions or comments about the topics I have discussed today, feel free to reach out – I am only an e-mail away!

In the meantime, thank you for watching, stay safe out there, and I look forward to visiting with you again, next month.

Bye now.

The post Matthew Gardner COVID-19 Housing & Economic Update: 01/25/2021 appeared first on Windermere Real Estate.

Matthew Gardner COVID-19 Housing & Economic Update: 12/7/2020

Hello and welcome to this rather special episode of Mondays with Matthew. I’m Windermere Real Estate’s Chief Economist, Matthew Gardner.

Now, if you wonder what’s special about this particular episode, well the answer is twofold.

Firstly, I started these videos at the onset of the COVID-19 epidemic back in March and this is the 35^th episode of Mondays with Matthew – where has the time gone? Anyway, it will be the last one for this year and I wanted to take just a moment to thank all of you for taking time out of your busy schedules to watch my videos. It makes this economist very happy to think that you are still getting value out of my musings.

But there’s another reason that I am excited and it’s because, after many, many late nights poring over spreadsheets, I am now ready to share my 2021 US housing forecast with you so, without further ado, let’s get to it!

I’m starting off with my mortgage rate forecast.

As you will all be very aware, we have spent the entire year watching mortgage rates break record lows almost every week which, along with other factors, has helped drive housing demand significantly higher, but how low can rates go?

Well, my forecast suggests that rates will likely bottom out in the current quarter but that said, I do not anticipate them rising much as we move through 2021.

Now, I always like to see how my forecasts compare to others, so I spoke with a few housing economists across the country to see where they were regarding rates, and – as you can see – we are all in a pretty tight range for next year. I will tell you that my friends over at Fannie Mae were pretty defensive about their very optimistic forecast – I guess that we will see.

And looking further out – where my crystal ball fogs over just a little – the brave souls who are putting out forecasts for 2022 are showing rates not moving much higher even then, with Fannie Mae at an average of 2.9%, Wells Fargo at 3.1% and the Mortgage Bankers Association a little higher at 3.6%.

The bottom line here is that we are all pretty confident that although rates will start to rise, the increase will be modest, and I personally don’t see it impacting housing demand at all.

And to explain why we will see rates rise, 30-year fixed-rate mortgages are pretty directly correlated with the yield on 10-year treasuries, and you can see here that my forecast shows these rising – albeit modestly – next year and, naturally if this occurs, rates will follow.

But there are 2 reasons that might stop rates rising – at least by too much, even if Treasury yields do head higher. First is the COVID-19 vaccine. You see, if it takes longer to distribute, or if we chose not to take it, then the economy could take another dip and, if that happens, treasury yields will likely pull back, and rates could drop again. But I remain hopeful that this will not be the case.

And second is the Fed. As long as they continue to buy mortgage-backed securities, rates are actually insulated from rising treasury yields.

OK – on to sales, and here I am specifically looking at existing homes – I will address new homes shortly.

My forecast is for sales this year to have risen by 3.9%, but sales in 2021 should be up by 6.9%, and that’s a level we haven’t seen since 2006.

But in order for sales to rise to this extent, we need more inventory, and I do expect to see more listings next year and it will likely be, at least partially, due to COVID-19 with some household’s new ability to work from home removing the need to live close to their offices. But there will be others who will move simply because their current homes just aren’t set up for remote working.

Although I see a lot of homeowners moving due to work-from-home I believe that a lot of them will not move that far away. You see, the theory that we will all be working from home full-time is – in my opinion – likely overblown – and I would contend that a lot of them will end up blending their workweek with some days at home and some days at their offices and, if I am correct, I see many households still staying within reasonable proximity of their workplaces.

Turning our attention now to sale prices, well this year has been very impressive so far and we should see sale prices in 2020 ending up 7.4% higher than we saw in 2019. Now, this is quite remarkable, and I say this because I took a look at the 2020 forecast, I put out last year and I was forecasting price growth closer to 4% than 7%.

But COVID-19 changed all that. Mortgage rates dropped, households decided for several reasons to move and, in concert with a historically low level of homes available to buy, prices have risen significantly.

Now – and as I have said for years – there must always be a relationship between incomes and home prices, and mortgage rates dropping can only allow prices to rise by so much.

And, along with other factors, it’s partly due to affordability issues that I see prices rising by a more modest 4.1% in 2021.

OK – looking now at the new home market – and for the purposes of this discussion I am just looking at the single-family market – so far this year we have seen a significant jump in new home sales and this very robust demand has encouraged builders to start construction of more homes and my forecast for single-family housing starts shows them rising by 8% this year, but next year I’m seeing starts up by a very significant 16.4%.

This is good news for several reasons, the biggest of which is that more new construction will add to supply and that should take some of the demand and price pressure off the resale market.

And with more starts, I expect to see sales rising with an increase of 21.5% this year and a further 18.7% in 2021. Notably, this will put new home sales at a level again that we haven’t seen since 2006.

But I do have one concern regarding the new home market, and my worry is all about cost.

Builders want to do what they do best, and that’s build homes, but they have to reconcile the costs to build a home, which are extremely high today, with the prices that would-be buyers can afford.

Now I see them managing this issue by looking to areas where land is cheaper and where there is still demand from buyers who, as we just talked about, are now looking at markets further away from major job centers.

The bottom line is that the new construction market will see very solid gains next year.

And finally, it would be remiss of me if I weren’t to address the one thing that is troubling a lot of brokers – and their clients –and that’s forbearance.

Although we saw a modest uptick in active forbearance plans earlier last month, I think it’s important to put things in perspective.

Despite small increases in the number of homes we saw entering the program, the number of active forbearances is still down by 8% (or 246,000 homes) from the end of October.

In total, as of November 30, there are 2.76 million homeowners in active forbearance plans and that represents approximately 5.2% of all mortgages but again, for perspective, the number of owners in forbearance is down by almost 2 million from the peak back in May – that’s a drop of 42%.

So, let’s talk about this for a bit.

As is human nature, there are some out there predicting that the housing market is going to crash again purely because of the number of owners in forbearance – all 2.76 million of them –will be foreclosed on when forbearance ends next spring, and this flood of foreclosed homes will lead to a spike in supply and this will lead prices to drop in a manner similar to 2008.

I get the theory, and I guess that at face value you might say that it seems plausible, but is it?

Although there’s no getting around the fact that foreclosures will rise next year as forbearance terms end, will it really be that dramatic?I think not.

There are several reasons why I’m not overly pessimistic about this. Although I see foreclosures rising next year, I actually expect the numbers to be very mild when compared to the carnage we saw between 2008 and 2010.

Why do I think this? Well, the housing bubble burst for very different reasons than we are currently experiencing. Back then there was a frenzy of reckless lending, irresponsible borrowing, and the unbridled speculation that did nothing more than set the housing market up for a crash. And crash it did. Home prices collapsed, and millions lost their homes.

But, back in March of this year – when COVID-19 really kicked in – homeowners were actually in a very good place. Credit standards were still very tight, down payments were significant, and the housing market, along with the economy as a whole, was extremely healthy and that’s the difference.

The COVID-19 pandemic has primarily hit renters, but it has impacted a lot of homeowners too and, as much as I am very sorry to say that we will see a rise in mortgage defaults and foreclosures but as the housing market muscles its way through the current economic downturn, I see foreclosures forming more of a trickle rather than a flood.

And, to support this, my colleagues over at ATTOM Data Solutions are currently forecasting more than 200,000 homeowners are likely to default next year but, if there is a longer-term Coronavirus related slowdown in the economy, the foreclosure count could get as high as 500,000 homes.

But as dramatic as their projections may seem, it’s worth noting a few things.

One. During the Great Recession, foreclosure filings spiked with 1.65 million American homes going into foreclosure in the first half of 2010, but this is well above the most pessimistic forecasts for foreclosures next year and even if defaults rise dramatically, they’ll still come in well below the levels we saw following the bursting of the housing bubble.

Two. As I talked about earlier, home prices have risen steadily since 2012 and homeowners have built up large reserves of equity. This is the total opposite of the situation we saw in 2008.

And it’s because home values have been rising, a lot of borrowers in forbearance will be able to escape foreclosure by simply selling – we know that there is more than enough demand and they will sell to make sure that they get the equity out of their homes rather than to potentially lose it because of foreclosure.

Third. Lenders really have no stomach for a repeat of the foreclosure crisis we saw back in 2008.

Today, I am seeing lenders positioning themselves to use a more-cooperative, less-punitive approach to delinquent borrowers and that they will do a better job of keeping people in homes.

And finally. Many, but not all, of the owners in forbearance, will not enter foreclosure because they will be able to catch up on their past-due amounts by paying more each month and some may be allowed to add the past-due amount to the end of the mortgage by lengthening its term.

The bottom line is that the housing market, and homeowners, are in a much better position today than they were back in the bubble days. Homeowners today have far more options to avoid foreclosure, and equity is surely helping to keep many afloat. Put it this way, even if today’s rate of foreclosures doubles, it will still only hit a mark that’s more in line with a historically normalized range.

Ultimately, I’m not concerned that we will see the housing market collapse because of forbearance.

And finally, a few more nuggets to think about.

Even if we ignore concerns over forbearance, there are still some talking about a housing bubble purely because prices have risen so rapidly over the past several years but I, along with my colleagues, just don’t see it. It is true that prices have been rising at above-average rates, but fundamentals are still in place. As I mentioned earlier, borrowers are well qualified, and they have solid equity in their homes.

But, as I have shown you, price growth is set to slow and I think that, because of this slowdown in price increases, there will surely be some homeowners who will think that the market has collapsed just because real estate agents aren’t telling them what they want to hear as far as the value of their home is concerned. What they need to understand is that the market isn’t collapsing, it’s just normalizing.

Sellers have had the upper hand for a very long time now, and many may have forgotten what a normal housing market looks like.

In the early days of the pandemic, it is true that buyers did gravitate toward the suburbs and I know this because 57% of buyers who bought between April and June of this year chose suburban locations and this compares with 50% before the pandemic. But it’s hardly the exodus from cities that some had speculated, and I would also note that there was even a small uptick in urban home purchases in that 3-month period – 12% before the pandemic, and 14% after. Meanwhile, sales actually fell a little in small towns and rural areas in the same timeframe, so I do not anticipate a massive move to the countryside.

Yes! You’ve heard this from me for a long time now. First-time buyers will be a major force again this year – and for years to come – brokers need to figure out how to work with them. Their numbers are only going to grow.

Condos – Hmmm this is interesting. Although I don’t see the condo market collapsing across the country – although I do see significant issues in markets like Manhattan and San Francisco – I am seeing inventory levels rise fairly significantly as opposed to single-family homes for sale whose numbers continues to drop but, for now, there still appears to be demand as sales are higher too. My concern is really in regard to the urban condominium market. You see, for many, the primary reasons to buy a downtown condo are twofold. Convenient access to work, and lifestyle.

Well, some won’t have to live close to work if they are working a majority – or all – of the time from home and secondly, if we lose some of the lifestyle reasons to live in a city – restaurants, retail, and the like, well that takes away some of the rationale behind buying a downtown condo.

There’s no need to panic yet but I will be watching urban condo markets to see if demand continues to keep up with rising supply. If it doesn’t, then we may well see prices softening.

And finally, well done, you made it through 2020!

So, there you have it. My 2021 US housing forecast.

I really hope that you have found this video – and the ones I have published before – of use to you and your clients.

As always, take care out there, and remember to wear your masks.

In all seriousness though, it really has been an honor to speak with you all this year and, hopefully, we will meet again –in person this time – at some point next year.

So, between now and then, stay safe, have a wonderful holiday, and here’s to a great 2021 for all of us.

Bye now.

The post Matthew Gardner COVID-19 Housing & Economic Update: 12/7/2020 appeared first on Windermere Real Estate.