Category: Matthew Gardner

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Renting vs. Buying a Home: The Financial Benefits of Homeownership

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.

 

Renting vs. Buying a Home

One of my followers asked me about some of the financial benefits of owning your home as opposed to renting. I find this topic interesting as there really is a “laundry list” of reasons that, from a financial standpoint, owning a home is better than renting.

I’m Matthew Gardner Chief Economist at Windermere Real Estate and welcome to this month’s episode of Monday with Matthew. Let’s get to the topic at hand. Of course, I don’t have time to go through them all today but here are the ones that I think are the most compelling: wealth building and tax benefits.

The Financial Benefits of Homeownership 

The first thing to understand is that, over time, a mortgage becomes easier to afford. You see, when you buy a home, the mortgage payments themselves don’t change and, over time, your earnings rise but the mortgage payment doesn’t. Simply put, unlike renters who generally see their rents going up every year, your mortgage payment never will and because you’ll hopefully be making more money as time goes by, the share of your income that you spend on a mortgage payment becomes less & less.

The next advantage to owning your home is that it is a good long-term investment. Of course, some will say that this is not the case because we went through the housing bubble bursting back in 2006 but there have actually been very few times in history when home prices have seen any long-term downward adjustment.

Now I know some will say that investing in stocks would give you a higher long-term return. My response to that would be I’ve never seen anyone living under a stock certificate. Have you?

My next reason for believing that ownership is better than renting is rather simple, and that is because a portion of every mortgage payment you make goes toward reducing the principal amount of the loan. Of course, during a majority of the term of the mortgage most of the payment is going towards interest but, a small portion is paying down the debt itself—in essence making it a forced savings plan, building wealth along the way.

Tax Advantages of Owning a Home

But what about the tax advantages? Owning a home offers unique and substantial ways to save on your taxes every year. Firstly, you can deduct your real estate taxes every year. Now, tax reform has limited the total allowed deduction, but it is still meaningful. You can also deduct the interest you pay on your mortgage. Again, there are some limitations but, depending on where you live you could save a significant amount.

And finally, let’s talk Capital Gains Taxes. When you sell your primary residence and have seen its value grow since you purchased it, up to $250,000 of that profit (if you’re a single person) or $500,000 if you’re married and filing jointly is tax free. Now, this is only true if you meet certain requirements with the biggest one being that you have to have lived in the house for a minimum of two years during the preceding five-year period.

If that’s not enough to convince you that there are very significant advantages to owning a home over renting, I will leave you with one last datapoint that you may find of interest.

Renting vs. Owning a Home: Household Net Worth

Using Federal Reserve data as a base, I’ve been able to calculate the median net worth of a household in America who owned their homes versus a household that rents.

  • In 2022, the median household wealth of a homeowner household here in America was approximately $330,000.
  • The median household wealth for a renter household in this country last year was just $8,000.

As you can see, that’s quite the discrepancy between the two. I think it’s very clear that homeownership for a vast majority of families is how they create most of their wealth.

I hope you found this topic of interest. Of course, if you have any questions or comments please do let me know as I do enjoy hearing from you. Take care and I look forward to talking to you all again next month.

 

Data combined and calculated by Windermere Economics

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.

The post Renting vs. Buying a Home: The Financial Benefits of Homeownership appeared first on Windermere Real Estate.

2023 Real Estate Forecast: Why This Market Won’t Be Like 2008

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 Real Estate’s Chief Economist Matthew Gardner and welcome to the first episode of “Monday with Matthew” for 2023. As has become tradition, this first episode of the year will be dedicated to my real estate forecast for the U.S. housing market, so let’s get straight to it.

2023 Real Estate Forecast

Existing Home Sales & Forecast

Image Source: Matthew Gardner

 

U.S. home sales trended lower through all of 2022 and, although I believe that sales will still have held above five million, this certainly won’t be the case in 2023. Affordability and higher financing costs will continue to act as headwinds when it comes to sales, but I think that the bigger issue will be that listing activity will not rise significantly as we move through the year.

As I have been saying for several months now, I don’t see why many households who don’t have to move will move and lose the historically low interest rate that they currently benefit from. That said, sales will still occur this year but at just 4.8 million, sales will be lower than we have seen since 2014.

Annual Change in Median Sale Prices

From Matthew Gardner's 2023 real estate forecast, a bar graph showing the annual change in median sale prices for homes in the U.S. real estate market. The years 2015 through 2023 are on the x-axis and percentages -4% through 20% run the length of the y-axis. The numbers are as follows: 6.8% in 2015, 5.1% in 2016, 5.7% in 2017, 4.9% in 2018 and 2019, 9.1% in 2020, 18.2% in 2021, 8.7% (forecasted) in 2022, and -1.1% (forecasted) in 2023.

Image Source: Matthew Gardner

 

Much has been said about the future of home prices, with some forecasters even suggesting that housing prices will collapse in a similar fashion to that seen following the bursting of the housing bubble back in 2008. Now, although price growth through the pandemic period was clearly excessive, fundamentally speaking, the two periods cannot be considered to be similar at all.

It’s my opinion that sale prices in 2023 will be very modestly lower than last year and I certainly don’t expect to see a collapse in home values.

But not all markets are created equal. The pandemic created what has become known as “Zoom-Towns.” These were cheap markets that affluent buyers flocked to because of their newly found ability to work from home and this led sale prices there to soar. It’s these locations that will likely see prices fall more significantly. Ultimately, expect to see prices fall through the first half of this year before starting to recover in the second half.

New Home Starts & Forecast (Single Family)

From Matthew Gardner's 2023 real estate forecast, a bar graph of the single-family new home starts. The y-axis shows numbers in thousands from 0 to 1,200 and the x-axis shows the years 2015 through 2023. The numbers are as follows: 715 in 2015, 782 in 2016, 849 in 2017, 876 in 2018, 888 in 2019, 991 in 2020, 1,127 in 2021, 1,009 (forecasted) in 2022, and 837 (forecasted) in 2023.

Image Source: Matthew Gardner

 

Looking now at the new construction market, housing starts fell last year as construction costs remained high and mortgage rates rose which lowered demand.  And I’m afraid that I do not see 2023 as being one where builders will deliver more inventory, with starts pulling back to a level the country hasn’t seen since 2016. That said, I am expecting a recovery in 2024 when new home starts will break back above the 1,000,000 level.

New Home Sales Forecast

From Matthew Gardner's 2023 real estate forecast, a bar graph showing the new home sales numbers from the U.S. housing market. The y-axis shows (in thousands) the numbers 200 to 900 and the x-axis shows the years 2015 through 2023. The number of new home sales are as follows (in thousands): 501 in 2015, 561 in 2016, 613 in 2017, 617 in 2018, 683 in 2019, 822 in 2020, 771 in 2021, 653 (forecasted) in 2022, and 584 (forecasted) in 2023.

Image Source: Matthew Gardner

 

New home sales in 2023 will fall further coming in below 600,000 but there is some light at the end of the tunnel with sales picking up fairly significantly again in 2024. We all understand that the country has a significant undersupply of ownership housing, but the costs associated with building new homes is still making it remarkably hard for builders even though they understand that demand will be significant for at least the next decade and a half given current demographics.

But the problem they will continue to face is that demand will primarily come from entry level buyers and, simply put, the cost to build a home precludes many developers from being able to meet this demand.

Average 30-Year Mortgage Rate & Forecast

A bar graph showing the average 30-year mortgage rate for the years 2015 through 2023. The y-axis shows percentages ranging from 0% to 7% and the years are displayed on the x-axis. The numbers are as follows: 3.9% in 2015, 3.7% in 2016, 4% in 2017, 4.5% in 2018, 3.9% in 2019, 3.1% in 2020, 3% in 2021, 5.4% in 2022, and 6.1% (forecasted) in 2023. This is the mortgage rate component of Matthew Gardner's 2023 real estate forecast.

Image Source: Matthew Gardner

 

And finally, my forecast for mortgage rates in 2023. Although this might not look good at all, as they say, “the devil is in the details.” Rates skyrocketed last year as the Fed stopped buying treasuries and mortgage-backed securities and, although they are off the highs we saw toward the end of last year, they are still significantly higher today than the market has become used to seeing.

As you can see here, I’m anticipating the average 30-year conventional rate to average 6.1% in 2023, but my forecast is actually a bit better than this shows.

Average 30-Year Mortgage Rate Forecast 2023

A bar graph showing the average 30-year mortgage rate in recent quarters, plus a forecast of the mortgage rate for each quarter in 2023. The y-axis displays percentages ranging from 0% to 7% and the x-axis displays the quarters from Q4 2021 to Q4 2023. The numbers are as follows: 3.1% in Q4 2021, 3.8% in Q1 2022, 5.3% in Q2 2022, 5.6% in Q3 2022, 6.8% in Q4 2022, 6.4% (forecasted) in Q1 2023, 6.1% (forecasted) in Q2 2023, 6% (forecasted) in Q3 2023, and 5.6% (forecasted) in Q4 2023. This is the mortgage rate component to Matthew Gardner's 2023 real estate forecast.

Image Source: Matthew Gardner

 

You see, my quarterly forecast suggests that rates have actually already peaked, and that they will trend lower as we move through this year and break below 6% by the fourth quarter. I would add that if anything my forecast may be a little pessimistic, and rates may end 2023 a little lower than I am showing here.

But that will depend on the Fed, and how long they will continue raising rates, and how long it will take before they start to lower them if the US enters a recession this year, which many forecasters including myself believe will be the case.

So, there you have it, my 2023 U.S. housing forecast. I will leave you with this one last thought. 2023 will be a transition year when the housing market will come off the “high” we saw during the pandemic and borrowing costs were artificially low.

I don’t see any reason for buyers or sellers to panic though. By the end of 2023, most markets will have corrected themselves and I believe we will see prices and demand start to pick up again toward the end of this year, but at a far more normalized pace.

As always, I look forward to your comments on my forecasts and I’ll see you all again next month. Take care 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.

The post 2023 Real Estate Forecast: Why This Market Won’t Be Like 2008 appeared first on Windermere Real Estate.

Matthew Gardner’s Top 10 Predictions for 2023

This video shows Windermere Chief Economist Matthew Gardner’s Top 10 Predictions for 2023. 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.

Matthew Gardner’s Top 10 Predictions for 2023

1. There Is No Housing Bubble

Mortgage rates rose steeply in 2022 which, when coupled with the massive run-up in home prices, has some suggesting that we are recreating the housing bubble of 2007. But that could not be further from the truth.

Over the past couple of years, home prices got ahead of themselves due to a perfect storm of massive pandemic-induced demand and historically low mortgage rates. While I expect year-over-year price declines in 2023, I don’t believe there will be a systemic drop in home values. Furthermore, as financing costs start to pull back in 2023, I expect that will allow prices to resume their long-term average pace of growth.

2. Mortgage Rates Will Drop

Mortgage rates started to skyrocket at the start of 2022 as the Federal Reserve announced their intent to address inflation. While the Fed doesn’t control mortgage rates, they can influence them, which we saw with the 30-year rate rising from 3.2% in early 2022 to over 7% by October.

Their efforts so far have yet to significantly reduce inflation, but they have increased the likelihood of a recession in 2023. Therefore, early in the year I expect the Fed to start pulling back from their aggressive policy stance, and this will allow rates to begin slowly stabilizing. Rates will remain above 6% until the fall of 2023 when they should dip into the high 5% range. While this is higher than we have become used to, it’s still more than 2% lower than the historic average.

3. Don’t Expect Inventory to Grow Significantly

Although inventory levels rose in 2022, they are still well below their long-term average. In 2023 I don’t expect a significant increase in the number of homes for sale, as many homeowners do not want to lose their low mortgage rate. In fact, I estimate that 25-30 million homeowners have mortgage rates around 3% or lower. Of course, homes will be listed for sale for the usual reasons of career changes, death, and divorce, but the 2023 market will not have the normal turnover in housing that we have seen in recent years.

4. No Buyer’s Market But a More Balanced One

With supply levels expected to remain well below normal, it’s unlikely that we will see a buyer’s market in 2023. A buyer’s market is usually defined as having more than six months of available inventory, and the last time we reached that level was in 2012 when we were recovering from the housing bubble. To get to six months of inventory, we would have to reach two million listings, which hasn’t happened since 2015. In addition, monthly sales would have to drop below 325,000, a number we haven’t seen in over a decade. While a buyer’s market in 2023 is unlikely, I do expect a return to a far more balanced one.

5. Sellers Will Have to Become More Realistic

We all know that home sellers have had the upper hand for several years, but those days are behind us. That said, while the market has slowed, there are still buyers out there. The difference now is that higher mortgage rates and lower affordability are limiting how much buyers can pay for a home. Because of this, I expect listing prices to pull back further in the coming year, which will make accurate pricing more important than ever when selling a home.

6. Workers Return to Work (Sort of)

The pandemic’s impact on where many people could work was profound, as it allowed buyers to look further away from their workplaces and into more affordable markets. Many businesses are still determining their long-term work-from-home policies, but in the coming year I expect there will be more clarity for workers. This could be the catalyst for those who have been waiting to buy until they know how often they’re expected to work at the office.

7. New Construction Activity Is Unlikely to Increase

Permits for new home construction are down by over 17% year over year, as are new home starts. I predict that builders will pull back further in 2023, with new starts coming in at a level we haven’t seen since before the pandemic.

Builders will start seeing some easing in the supply chain issues that hit them hard over the past two years, but development costs will still be high. Trying to balance homebuilding costs with what a consumer can pay (given higher mortgage rates) will likely lead builders to slow activity. This will actually support the resale market, as fewer new homes will increase the demand for existing homes.

8. Not All Markets Are Created Equal

Markets where home price growth rose the fastest in recent years are expected to experience a disproportionate swing to the downside. For example, markets in areas that had an influx of remote workers, who flocked to cheaper housing during the pandemic, will likely see prices fall by a greater percentage than other parts of the country. That said, even those markets will start to see prices stabilize by the end of 2023 and resume a more reasonable pace of price growth.

9. Affordability Will Continue to Be a Major Issue

In most markets, home prices will not increase in 2023, but any price drop will not be enough to make housing more affordable. And with mortgage rates remaining higher than they’ve been in over a decade, affordability will continue to be a problem in the coming year, which is a concerning outlook for first-time buyers.

Over the past two years, many renters have had aspirations of buying but the timing wasn’t quite right for them. With both prices and mortgage rates spiraling upward in 2022, it’s likely that many renters are now in a situation where the dream of homeownership has gone. That’s not to say they will never be able to buy a home, just that they may have to wait a lot longer than they had hoped.

10. Government Needs to Take Housing More Seriously

Over the past two years, the market has risen to such an extent that it has priced out millions of potential home buyers. With a wave of demand coming from Millennials and Gen Z, the pace of housing production must increase significantly, but many markets simply don’t have enough land to build on. This is why I expect more cities, counties, and states to start adjusting their land use policies to free up more land for housing.

But it’s not just land supply that can help. Elected officials can assist housing developers by utilizing Tax Increment Financing tools, whereby the government reimburses a private developer as incremental taxes are generated from housing development. There are many tools like this at the government’s disposal to help boost housing supply, and I sincerely hope that they start to take this critical issue more seriously.

 

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.

The post Matthew Gardner’s Top 10 Predictions for 2023 appeared first on Windermere Real Estate.

Are We in a Housing Recession?

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. A little while ago, a housing analyst was being interviewed about the current state of the residential market and they suggested that the country is in a “housing recession.” Well, needless to say, this got a lot of attention from the media and the public at large—for obvious reasons.

Any time the word “recession” is mentioned we almost subliminally cast our minds back to 2007. And when the word “recession” is combined with the word “housing,” then panic starts to set in with flashbacks of headlines about burgeoning housing supply, plummeting home prices, and surging foreclosures.

As this is a topic being discussed by many across the country right now, I wanted to share with you my opinion as to whether the phrase “housing recession” is an appropriate one when describing today’s market.

So, what is a recession? To answer this, I will turn to my trusted Oxford English Dictionary, and this is how they describe that word.

Definition of a Recession

Image Source: Matthew Gardner

 

Recession:

  • a difficult time for the economy of a country, when there is less trade and industrial activity than usual, and more people are unemployed
  • the movement backward of something from a previous position

Well, how do we use these definitions when it comes to the ownership housing market?

I guess that “less trade” could mean lower sales and we have certainly seen sales pull back. “Movement backward” could be how someone might describe the fact that sale prices have been pulling back in many markets across the country.

But although some may say that we really are in a housing recession given the definition of the word, is it really accurate? Are we are inextricably headed down a road that leads to the bursting of some sort of bubble as we all remember from 2007? I don’t believe we are. To explain my thinking let’s start out by looking at housing supply.

Inventory of Homes for Sale

A line graph titled "Inventory of Homes for Sale," showing the months January 2021 through July 2022 on the x-axis and numbers in millions on the y-axis ranging from 0.8 to 1.3. The graph shows that listing activity has risen from an all-time low of 900,000 during February 2022 to over 1.2 million units in July 2022—a 35.6% increase. Between January 2021 and October 2021, inventory ranged between 1.1 and 1.2 million before plummeting steadily toward the all-time low of 900,000 in February. Since then, inventory has rebounded to over 1.2 million again almost as quickly as it dropped.

Image Source: Matthew Gardner

 

Yes, listing activity is up—can’t argue with that—with the number of resale homes for sale jumping by more than a third from the start of this year. But there’s more to it than that. You see, we have to look a little further back to better understand what’s really going on.

And to do this, let’s check out the number of homes for sale during the first seven months of this year and compare those numbers to the same periods in 2018 through 2021.

Active Listings By Month

A multi-line graph titled "Active Listings by Month" showing the number of active listings for the years 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022. The x-axis contains the months January through July, and the y-axis shows the number of listings ranging from 600,000 to two million. Overall, the graph indicates that listings remain well below the long-term average, and that the number of homes for sale in July 2022 exactly matches that of July 2021. 2022's January value is the lowest of the selected years, followed in order by 2021, 2020, 2018, and 2019. 2019 began the year with around 1.6 million active listings. In short, the July numbers show that there were hundreds of thousands more active listings in 2018 and 2019 than 2020 through 2022.

Image Source: Matthew Gardner

 

I don’t know about you, but this doesn’t look like a chart showing a massively oversupplied market! The number of homes for sale in July of this year was almost exactly the same as we saw last July and is still well below the levels seen in 2018, 2019, or 2020.

Sure, listings are up. But are we at levels that will cause prices to tumble? Remember that it was a massive increase in the number of homes for sale that led to the housing bubble bursting back in 2007. Listings peaked at almost 3.9 million units in 2006; but today there are 2.6 million fewer units on the market than we saw back then. Now that we’ve seen that supply isn’t at concerning levels, let’s look at demand.

Existing Home Sales

A line graph titled "Existing Home Sales." The x-axis shows every other month from January 2020 to July 2022, and the y-axis shows numbers in millions ranging from 0 to 7.0. Overall, the graph shows that, although they remain higher than the levels we saw at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, home sales have been falling since January 2022. Home sales dipped sharply in March 2020 due to the onset of the pandemic, going from above 5 million to 4 million. By September 2020, existing home sales rose above 6 million, and hovered around that mark until January 2022. In July 2022, existing home sales dipped below 5 million again.

Image Source: Matthew Gardner

 

This chart doesn’t look too good. On an annualized basis, sales have been pulling back since the start of the year but that’s not the full story. Let’s look at this in a slightly different way.

Year-to-Date Sales

A multi-bar chart titled "Year-to-Date Sales" showing non-seasonally adjusted and seasonally adjusted sales for the past five years. The years 2018 through 2022 are represented on the x-axis, while the y-axis shows numbers in millions ranging from 0 to 4.0. 2022 year-to-date sales are lower than they were last year, but unadjusted for seasonality, year-to-date sales are higher than 2019 or 2020. And when adjusted for seasonal shifts, 2022's year-to-date sales are higher than 2018, 2019, and 2020. 2021 has the highest year-to-date sales totals, with both non- and seasonally adjusted sales figures right around 3.5 million.

Image Source: Matthew Gardner

 

The bars here show year-to-date sales through July—both adjusted and unadjusted for seasonality—and although unadjusted sales so far this year are lower than we saw during the first seven months of 2021, they are at about the same level as we saw in 2018 and are higher than in 2019 or 2020.

But when we adjust the monthly sales data for seasonality, year-to-date sales in 2022 were higher than all years shown here other than 2021.

So, although sales have fallen, it appears to me that we are heading back to a more realistic market rather than one that is hemorrhaging. Yet another indicator we need to consider when examining the market for evidence of some sort of recession are months of inventory , which shows how long it would take to sell every home for sale using the current monthly sales pace.

Months of Inventory

A line graph titled "Months of Inventory," which reflects how long it would take every home on the market to sell given the current housing market conditions. The x-axis displays the months January 2021 through July 2022, and the y-axis shows the number of months ranging from 0 to 3.5. The chart shows a figure of 3.3 months of inventory for July, indicating a seller's market. A balanced market is 4 to 6 months of inventory. From January 2021 to August 2021, months of inventory rose from below 2.0 to above 2.5, then dipped to just above 1.5 in January 2022. Since then, months of inventory has steadily risen to the 3.3-month figure in July 2022.

Image Source: Matthew Gardner

 

This graph shows that it would take three months to sell every home on the market given the sales we saw in July. That is quite a jump from the January pace but, again, perspective is everything.

Months of Inventory: Seller’s Market

A line graph titled "Months of Inventory," which presents an expanded view of inventory dating back to the year 2000. The x-axis shows the years 2000 through 2022, and the y-axis shows the months of inventory ranging from 0 to 13. The graph shows that as of 2022, we are still in a seller's market, even though listings have risen and sales have slowed. A balanced market—marked by 4-6 months inventory—is still not present. From 2000 to early 2006, the housing market stayed below 6, then leapt up to roughly 10 months by 2008. The highest months of inventory displayed is 13 between 2010 and 2011. Since then, the overall direction of the chart has trended downwards, with the lowest figure—below 2 months of inventory—appearing in late 2021/early 2022.

Image Source: Matthew Gardner

 

At three months, it is still a seller’s market. It’s generally accepted that the definition of a seller’s market is any number below four months; a balanced market is four to six months of inventory, and a buyer’s market is when the month of inventory is above six.

And a simple bit of math shows us that, for the market to shift from favoring sellers to favoring buyers, the number of homes for sale must break above two million—which we haven’t seen since 2015—and monthly sales would have to drop to below 300,000. We’ve only seen that happen three times in history: November 2008, and again in July and August of 2010.

Yes, listings are up, and sales are down. There’s no denying it. But, again, does the data justify the term recession? My answer would be no. But, if you’re still not convinced, let’s turn our attention to sale prices. I think that might help make things even clearer.

Median U.S. Existing Home Price

A line graph titled "Median U.S. Existing Home Price." It shows home sale price figures (displayed on the y-axis from $100,000 to $450,000) for the months January and July from 2012 through 2022 (displayed on the x-axis). a solid line tracks the median home price, showing a gradual increase over time from roughly $150,000 in January 2012 to over $400,000 in July 2022. A dotted line runs through the middle of the undulations in the solid line, following the same upward trend from 2012 through the end of 2020. But during early 2021, the solid line breaks away from the trend line, which reflects the historically low levels of mortgage rates at that time. Sale prices are starting to pull back, given the affordability constraints and high financing costs in the housing market status quo. Windermere Chief Economist Matthew Gardner expects this pull-back of prices to continue.

Image Source: Matthew Gardner

 

The solid line represents the median sale prices of homes over time and the dotted line shows the trend. You can clearly see that we started breaking away from the trend line in early 2021 and that’s not at all surprising as it started the month after mortgage rates hit their historic all-time low.

But today’s financing costs are significantly higher, and prices have started to slide. Although I certainly expect that we will see sale prices fall further, it appears to me as if they are simply moving back to the long-term trend, and not collapsing.

Mortgage Rate Forecasts

A multi-bar chart titled "Mortgage Rate Forecasts" showing how several institutions foresee mortgage rates in 2023. The chart shows Fannie Mae's 2023 prediction of 4.5%, followed by Freddie Mac's 5.1%, Mortgage Bankers Association's (MBA) 4.9%, 6.0% for the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR), 5.3% for Wells Fargo, and Matthew's forecast of 5.3%. Overall, rates remain higher than buyers are used to, but will not get close to the long-term average of 7.5%. It is generally accepted that mortgage rates are likely to start pulling back modestly in 2023.

Image Source: Matthew Gardner

 

With mortgage rates doubling from their 2021 lows, downward pressure on sale price was to be expected. But will they—as some think—rise to a level that will cause home prices to plummet? To answer that, here are the forecasts of several associations. You’ll see that all, bar the National Association of Realtors and Freddie Mac, see rates pulling back—albeit modestly—in 2023.

Of course, all these are annual averages and today’s rates are higher with the latest Freddie Mac data showing the average 30-year fixed rate above 6%—a level we haven’t seen since 2008.

However, economists including myself find it unlikely that rates will continue rising significantly from where they are today. The mortgage market is certainly in a bit of disarray right now with the yield curve inverting, but that should correct itself by early next year and that’s why we generally expect rates to start pulling back from their current levels by the start of 2023.

But if rising rates are triggering memories of 2008, you wouldn’t be alone. There are some expecting that the spike in rates will trigger a surge in foreclosures and that will doom the market. But as you see here, although foreclosure filings have certainly risen, they are still remarkably low compared to historic standards.

U.S. Foreclosure Filings

A bar graph titled "U.S. Foreclosure Filings" showing the number of home foreclosures (displayed on the y-axis from 0 to 250,000) in the U.S. from Q1 2017 to Q2 2022 (displayed on the y-axis). From Q1 2017 to Q2 2019, U.S. foreclosures remained above 150,000. Between Q1 and Q2 2020, foreclosures dropped from just below 150,000 to well below 50,000. This figure dropped further in Q3 2020 but has increased every quarter since. Windermere Chief Economist Matthew Gardner opines that this increasing trend of foreclosures is not concerning, since it does not yet represent a level of foreclosures sufficient to create an oversupply in the market.

Image Source: Matthew Gardner

 

In the second quarter, newly delinquent mortgages represented just 1.9% of all mortgages outstanding1 and that’s the lowest share the market has seen since 2006. Although I do expect the number of homes being foreclosed on will rise as we move into 2023, I just don’t see it getting to the levels necessary to materially impact the market. And a big part of the reasoning behind my thinking is this:

Equity Rich Households (Q2 2022)

A slide titled "Equity Rich Households (Q2 2022)" showing a map of the United States where each state's equity rich household percentage is displayed. "Equity rich" in this context signifies people with a mortgage that are sitting on more than 50% equity. The highest equity-rich state in the country is Vermont at 71.4%, followed by Idaho at 69.5%, and Arizona at 64.8%. The least equity rich state in the country is Louisiana at 23.4%, followed by Illinois at 25.4%, and Alaska at 26.7%.

Image Source: Matthew Gardner

 

In the second quarter of 2022, over 48% of homeowners with a mortgage were sitting on more than 50% equity.

Simply put, for enough homeowners to be put in a negative equity situation that would lead them to enter foreclosure and materially damage the market, home prices across the country would have to fall by a percentage greater than we saw during the market crash. And I just don’t see this happening.

The word “recession” has many connotations, and when it’s used to describe the housing market, it can engender a significant level of panic. So, I will ask you all. Given the data I have showed you today, do you think that we are in a housing recession?

Yes, supply levels have risen. But they are still relatively low when compared to historic averages and with builders slowing construction activity to a crawl, it’s unlikely that housing supply will grow much organically. Over the longer term, I believe that the supply of resale homes for sale will remain below historic averages. I say this for one simple reason: mortgage rates.

In 2020, a record number of households refinanced their homes to take advantage of the mortgage rates that had been plummeting. And in 2021, over six million home buyers got mortgages with rates averaging below 3%.

I would suggest to you that we will not see the number of homes for sale even get back to normalized levels in the mid-term, as many potential sellers will decide not to sell, because if they did, they would lose the never seen before and likely never to be seen again mortgage rate that they currently have.

Of course, there will be sellers who have to move because of factors such as job relocation, death, or divorce, but I would contend that listing activity may well be tight for a long time. And if supply remains below the level of demand, the market is further protected.

And as far as demand goes, let’s not forget that the age makeup of the country suggests that we will see a lot more potential buyers as Millennials and Generation Z mature, with current numbers suggesting significant buyer demand for the next two decades.

As for sale prices, I still believe (as do almost all economists) that the median home price next year will be higher than we will see this year, but a very significant drop in the pace of sales growth is likely as we trend down to historic averages.

Of course, all real estate is local and there are markets across the country that will see prices drop in absolute terms. But even in the most highly susceptible markets, it will be a temporary phenomenon. By 2024, homeowners in these markets will see the value of their homes start to rise again.

I’m going to leave you with my quote to describe today’s market today and it’s that we are in a “housing reversion,” NOT a housing recession.

As always, I’d love to hear your comments on my thoughts so feel free to reach out. In the meantime, stay safe out there and I’ll see you all again next month.

 

1: New York Fed Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit

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.

The post Are We in a Housing Recession? appeared first on Windermere Real Estate.

The Continued Decline of the Housing Market Index

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. Today we are going to take a look at the new home market where headwinds are certainly growing. And the reason this particular subject piqued my interest was that the National Association of Home Builders just released their Housing Market Index for August, and the numbers were certainly eye-opening.

Now, for those of you who may not be particularly familiar with this index, it is based on a survey of home builders which asks them to give their opinions on the single-family home market and asks them to rate current market conditions for the sale of homes today as well as in six months’ time. It also asks their opinion regarding foot traffic of prospective buyers to their new home communities.

NAHB Housing Market Index

 

And as you can see, the headline index level fell six points to 49. The drop in August marked the eighth consecutive monthly decline for the Housing Market Index. It was also notable because it was the first time since May of 2020 that the index has dropped below the key 50 breakeven level. This is significant, as it tells us that today more home builders currently rate sales conditions as poor than good.

Now, while the August number was certainly lower than some economists had forecast, I was actually not too surprised as builders have been reporting a spike in cancelled contracts recently. In fact, a report I just read that was put out by John Burns Consulting suggested that the cancellations have more than doubled since April with 17.6% of buyers pulling out of their purchases in July. That compares to 8% in April and 7 ½% a year ago.

Housing Market Index Components

A multi-line graph titled "HMI Components." This chart shows the components behind home builder's falling confidence in the current market, displayed in the Housing Market Index. The three components displayed here are present single-family home sales, expectations (future sales), and traffic. All three are at their lowest levels since May 2020. Of the chart, Matthew Gardner says, "the present sales index fell seven points to 57 but is still above the breakeven point. The future sales series fell two points to 47, while prospective buyer traffic fell five points to 32 which, if we exclude the pandemic, represents the lowest index level since April of 2014."

 

This chart shows a breakdown of three components of the Housing Market Index which are all at their lowest levels since May of 2020, which was just before housing activity rebounded following the lockdown due to COVID-19.

  • The present sales index fell seven points to 57 but is still above the breakeven point
  • The future sales series fell two points to 47
  • Prospective buyer traffic fell five points to 32 which, if we exclude the pandemic, represents the lowest index level since April of 2014

I find this index has a very strong correlation with new home sales, but I also use it as a pretty reliable leading indicator when it comes to single-family housing starts. I’ll get to that shortly. The survey also stated that one in five builders had reduced prices in August. That might help to explain the 10-point spread between builders’ perception of current versus future sales. But there are limits on home builders’ ability to keep cutting prices in order to support sales. This has become a significant issue because many of them are currently holding a large stock of inventory.

New Homes for Sale

A bar graph titled "New Homes for Sale." It shows inventory levels for the period January 2020 through June 2022. Listings have risen 32.1% year over year, and are up 16% since the start of the year. Of the homes currently for sale, 67% are under construction, 24% have yet to break ground, and 95 are ready to occupy. The y-axis displays the number of new homes for sale in the thousands. June 2022 has the highest value on the chart, with an inventory level just above 450,000.

 

Here is what current inventory levels look like. Although you might think that it’s not that bad given that only 9% of available homes are finished are ready to move into, I would tell you that builders incur costs every day that a home is not sold, even if that home has yet to be built. And with inventory at a level not seen since 2008, I’m sure there are a lot of builders not sleeping too well right now.

I would add that by the time the above video is released, the July new home sales report will have been published. I can almost guarantee that the number of homes for sale will have grown further.

New Home Sales

A bar graph titled "New Home Sales." When taken in context of the "New Homes for Sale" chart mentioned earlier in this month's episode, Matthew Gardner is showing a decline in the pace of sales activity. Sales fell by over 8% month over month in June 2022, and are 17.4% lower than a year ago. On an adjusted basis, monthly sales were the lowest seen since before the pandemic.

 

Higher inventory levels are due to slower sales activity, which is continuing to decline. Sales are 17% lower than a year ago. With more homes for sale and lower transactions, it would now take more than nine months to absorb all available homes using the current sales pace. I would also tell you that the last time months of supply broke above nine was all the way back in 2010.

  • It’s my forecast that sales in July will have dropped from the annualized rate of 590,000 shown in the chart above to somewhere between 570,000 and 580,000.

U.S. Single-Family Housing Starts

A chart titled "U.S. Single Family Housing Starts." It shows the number of new home starts from January 2019 to July 2022. The most recent figures show starts have fallen 18.5% year over year. As Matthew Gardner explains, "With fewer buyers and rising inventory levels, builders have pulled back significantly. The number of building permits issues is 11.7% lower than a year ago."

 

With high supply levels and lower sales, it’s not at all surprising to see builders hitting the brakes, with new home starts falling by 10.1% between June and July of this year. Starts are down by 18 ½% from a year ago. Starts have dropped on a sequential basis for five consecutive months now, and I am afraid that they will drop further before finding a bottom.

So, what’s the bottom line here? Well, there are several issues I see, the first of which is affordability. Home prices have been spiraling upward since the start of the pandemic not only because mortgage rates dropped, but construction costs started jumping and builders had to charge more for a home.

Builders saw prices rise by almost 18% last year. This had already taken a significant toll on affordability even before the mortgage rates spike we saw earlier this year. The upshot, as I see it, is that tighter monetary policy from the Fed, in concert with construction costs that remain well above normal levels, has hit builders and hit them hard. Of course, they are doing their best to address the situation by slowing construction activity significantly, but I think that they are going to have a pretty rough time for the next several months.

Ultimately, I see little option for home builders other than lowering prices further, especially now that they are competing with rising inventories in the resale market. I also believe that there are buyers out there waiting patiently on the sidelines for prices to drop in the coming months as they know that builders at some point have to solve the current supply demand imbalance and lowering prices is the easiest way of doing this. Last month the average price drop was 5%, but this is very likely to increase as we move toward the fall.

Will builders get through the situation they find themselves in? I believe that they will. And there are some glimmers of light out there with inflation appearing to be peaking, interest rates are, if not dropping, then certainly stabilizing, and this will help.

Builders also understand that the country has a significant housing shortage. In fact, a recent report published by “Up For Growth” suggested that we have a housing shortage today of around 3.8 million homes. Although this includes rental and ownership housing, some basic math tells me that there is a need today for around 2.5 million new owner-occupied homes. So, light is definitely at the end of the tunnel, but there is a way to go before they get out of it.

And there you have it. I hope that you’ve found my thoughts on this topic of interest. As always, if you have any questions or comments about the current new home environment, please do reach out to me. In the meantime, stay safe out there and 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.

The post The Continued Decline of the Housing Market Index appeared first on Windermere Real Estate.

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.

  1. Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine
  2. 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

Three line graphs titled "Consumer Price Index," "Inflation Adjusted Consumer Spending," and PCE Price Index. The Consumer Price Index shows year-over-year percentage changes from present day back to January 2021, with two lines showing all items and all items less food and energy. The all items line starts around 1.5% in January 2021, gradually increasing to 9.1% in June 2022, while the all items less food and energy line also starts around 1.5% in January 2021 and undulates to 5.9% in June 2022. The "Inflation Adjusted Consumer Spending" chart shows month-over-month percentage changes from January 2021 to May 2022. The line spikes up and down throughout the first half of 2021, going as high as roughly 4.5% around March 2021 and as low as roughly negative 1.5% in February 2021. The line stabilizes for the remainder of the x-axis, ending at 0.4% in May 2022. The "PCE Price Index" graph shows year-over-year percentage changes from January 2021 to May 2022. The line starts around 1.5% in January 2021, gradually increasing through February 2022 around 5% before tapering to 4.7% in May 2022.

 

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

Two line graphs titled "5-Year Inflation Breakevens" and "Producer Price Index." The breakevens graph shows percentage changes from January 2022 to July 2022, starting at 3.0% in January 2022, increasing to 3.59% in March 2022, before gradually decreasing to 2.50% in July 2022. The "Producer Price Index" graph shows year-over-year percentage changes from January 2020 to May 2022, with two lines showing Total PPI and Core PPI. Both lines gradually increase along the x-axis, peaking around March 2022. Total PPI increases from 2.0% from 10.8 in May 2022, while core PPI increases from 1.6% to 8.3% over the same time period.

 

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

Four line graphs titled "Natural Gas Prices," "Copper Prices," "Soybean Prices," and "Wheat Prices." Natural Gas, Soybean, and Wheat prices all share a similar trend in that they gradually increase from January 2022 to June 2022 before dropping from June to July 2022. Natural gas prices fell by 34% from June to July 2022, while soybean prices fell 10% and wheat prices fell 27% over that same time period. Copper prices are steady from January 2022 to April 2022, before gradually dropping through April and May, then drastically falling 26% from June to July 2022. In summary, prices of all commodities are falling a significant amount over the past month (June to July 2022).

 

  • 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.

A line graph titled "Retail Gas Prices" with three lines: U.S., West Coast, and West Coast excluding California. All three lines show increases in price per gallon from January 2021 to July 2022. All three lines peak in June 2022. The West Coast gas prices went from roughly three dollars per gallon to $5.68 per gallon in July 2022, the West Coast excluding California line goes from roughly $2.50 per gallon in January 2021 to $5.28 in July 2022, and the U.S. line goes from just below $2.50 per gallon in January 2021 to $4.75 per gallon in July 2022.

 

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

A line graph with two lines showing the U.S. Treasury Yields 10-year constant and 2-year constant from January 2022 to July 2022. The 10-year constant gradually increases over this period of time from 1.5% in January 2022 to 2.99% in July 2022. The 2-year constant gradually increases as well, from roughly 0.75% in January 2022 to 3.07% in July 2022.

 

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.

The post The Landscape for Mortgage Rates and Inflation in 2022 appeared first on Windermere Real Estate.

The Growing Housing Affordability Problem

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.

If you’ve listened to me at all over the past several years, you’ll know that I am pretty passionate about one subject: housing affordability. And, given the significant price growth that we’ve seen over the past decade, as well as the recent spike in mortgage rates, I wanted to talk a little bit about what might be done to address this very serious issue.

The Growing Housing Affordability Problem

Now, when we think about housing affordability and how it might be solved, a lot of people get tied up in the minutiae when, quite frankly, it really isn’t that hard a problem to solve. You see, there’s one very simple way to address this: to build more housing units. But, as easy as that may sound, there are a lot of obstacles that are holding new supply back. But before I get to that, I want to share some data with you that might help to demonstrate how serious an issue we all face.

Every quarter, the National Association of Homebuilders puts out its affordability numbers for metro areas across the country. An analysis of sales and incomes allows them to show the number of homes—both new and existing—sold in a quarter that were affordable to households making median income.

Housing is Increasingly Unaffordable

Here you will see numbers from just a few of the 240 metropolitan areas across the country and the share of sales in the first quarter of this year that were “technically” affordable. I think you’ll agree that it’s eye opening.

 

Although I am only showing you a few of the U.S. markets I will tell you that the ten least affordable US housing markets were all in California. The Golden State is also home to 21 of the top 25 least affordable markets in the country. But what you might also find interesting is that our primary cities aren’t the only ones that are suffering from affordability issues, with markets like Bend, Oregon; Boise, Idaho; and even Las Vegas, Nevada becoming increasingly unaffordable for a lot of households.

And it’s worth mentioning that that 48 of the 69 markets where less than half of the homes sold were affordable were in states that have at some point in the past implemented comprehensive planning and growth management legislation. And when governments mandate where homes can and cannot be built, one thing happens: it pushes land prices higher which makes new homes more expensive and limits the amount of new supply that builders are able to provide. So, what can be done?

Well, I will start out by saying that states who have implemented growth management plans, which they generally did to slow or stop suburban sprawl, remain disinclined to move these boundaries, and that means it becomes paramount to not look further out but to concentrate within the urban growth boundaries and decide whether it’s time to think about removing single-family zoning altogether.

This is a fascinating thought, but I must add that I am not suggesting that we do away with single-family homes. Absolutely not! What I am thinking about is the ability for a market to decide what makes the most sense. In order to do so, single-family zones need to allow for the development of denser housing, but also allow the market to decide what’s best. Areas that have implemented such change has given rise to a movement in order to address what is being referred to as “missing middle housing.” For those of you who are unfamiliar with this term let me try and explain.

Missing Middle Housing

A depiction of different housing types from Optico Design Inc. that illuminates the "missing middle" housing types that were common prior to World War II but are now far less common and, therefore, "missing". The housing types in the "missing middle" include duplexes, fourplexes, courtyard buildings, cottage corts, townhouses, medium-sized multiplexers, stacked triplexes, and live-work buildings. The housing types outside of the "missing middle" include detached single-family houses and mid-rise apartment buildings.

 

This is a great image courtesy of Opticos, a team of urban designers, architects, and strategists who are passionate about adding sorely needed housing options.

They came up with the term “missing middle” as it describes housing types that were actually very common prior to World War II where duplexes, row-homes, and courtyard apartments were in high demand. Unfortunately, however, they are now far less common and, therefore, “missing.”

And the key function of this type of housing is to meet the rising demand for walkable neighborhoods, respond to changing demographics, and provide housing at different price points. You see, rather than focusing on the number of units in a structure—think high rise apartments or condominiums—this type of housing emphasizes scale and heights that are appropriate for and sympathetic to single-family or transitional neighborhoods.

The Decline of Missing Middle Housing Construction

A bar chart showing the number of duplexes to 8-unit buildings built over roughly the past half-century dating back to 1974. The years 1974 through 2021 appear on the x-axis and the number of completed units built appears in thousands on the y-axis, ranging from 0 to 300. On the z-axis, the chart shows what percentage of total new homes completed the y-axis values for that year accounted for. The z-axis ranges from 0% to 18%. The highest values in the chart are 1974 and 1984, when roughly 250,000 units were completed, which was roughly 15% of the total new homes completed that year. The chart gradually declines from the mid-1980s to present day. Since 2007, there hasn't been a single year where over 50,000 units were completed.

 

And to show you how supply of these types of units has changed, this chart shows the number of duplexes to eight-unit buildings built over the past almost half-century and you can clearly see that up until the late 1980s they were being built in decent numbers, but the 1990s saw a significant shift toward traditional single-family home ownership and builders followed the demand and this type of product started to become scarcer.

Almost 16% of total new homes built in America in the early 1980s were of this style, but that number has now shrunk to just 1.4%—or a paltry 19,000 units.

But I see demand for these housing types growing as we move forward and that buyers or renters, young and old, will be attracted as it will meet their requirements not only in regards to the type of home they would want to live in but, more importantly, it can be built cheaper than traditional single-family housing and therefore it will be more affordable.

But although this sounds like it’s a remarkably simple solution that can solve all our woes, in reality it’s not that easy for two very specific reasons. The first is that many markets are already essentially built out, meaning that in order to develop this type of product, a builder would have to purchase a number of existing homes and raze them in order to rebuild. But given current home values, it’s very hard for a builder to be able to make such a proposal financially.

And the second issue is that current residents within these “transition” areas—which have been developed as traditional single-family neighborhood—simply don’t want to see change. But is this type of product bad? Here are some examples.

This shows row-homes in Brooklyn on the left and traditional “triple-deckers” in Massachusetts on the right:

A side-by-side look at two different types of East Coast building types: the horizontal Brooklyn Row-Homes and the more vertically constructed Massachusetts "Triple Deckers."

 

This is a bungalow court project in California:

 

An interconnected building of California "Bungalow Courts" with low-pitched roofs and small porches, all connected by a winding sidewalk.

 

Here are some Live/Work Units in Colorado:

 

A white live/work unit in Buena Vista, Colorado with a second-story patio built onto the right side of the building.

 

These are some amazing mews homes in Utah:

 

A community of Mews Homes in South Jordan, Utah painted white with arched windows and small eaves hanging above the doorsteps.

 

And finally, a new terrace housing project that will be built in Washington DC:

 

A drawing of Terrace Housing in Washington DC showing facades with many windows lined side-by-side on a city street.

 

Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure that some of you who simply aren’t inspired by this type of architecture, and that is understandable. But can we simply stick with the status-quo? I don’t think so. And some state legislators have already implemented significant zoning amendments in order to try and encourage this type of development.

Back in 2018, Minneapolis was the first city to allow this type of development inside single-family zoned areas. This was followed by Oregon State in 2019. Senate Bill 9 was signed by Governor Newsom of California last year which made it legal for property owners to subdivide lots into two parcels and turn single-family homes into duplexes, effectively legalizing fourplexes on land previously reserved for single-family homes. So, we are starting to see some change.

This is a good start but as I mentioned earlier in areas that are already built out, even this type of forward-thinking legislation will not be the panacea that some want. But I’m not giving up hope.

Addressing the “missing middle housing” would allow for homes of all shapes and sizes, for people of all incomes including workers who are essential to our economy and community. Here I am talking about our teachers, firefighters, administrative assistants, childcare providers, and nurses—just to name a few!

There are currently 45 million Americans aged between 25 and 34 and most aspire to homeownership. However, the massive price growth which, by the way, many of us have benefitted from over the past several years, has simply put a “starter home” out of their reach.

I will leave you with one last statistic. Over 28% of American households today are made up of a single people living alone, and it is anticipated that up to 85% of all U.S. households will not include children by the year 2025. Finally, by 2030, one in five Americans will be over the age of 65.

Are we going to meet the needs of the country’s changing demographic going forward? I certainly hope so, but it will take a lot of work for us to get there. 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.

The post The Growing Housing Affordability Problem appeared first on Windermere Real Estate.

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

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 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

Two charts showing that on average, renters move more often than owners in the span of years between 2000 and 2021. Over this stretch of time, the percentage of renters staying put rose from 67.5% to 84%, while homeowners staying put rose from 90.9% to 95.1%.

 

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)

A chart showing the reasons why owners and renters moved. Moving due to a change in marital status was virtually the same, while more renters moved for things like getting a new job and moving closer to work. More owners moved due to retirement and because they lost their job.

 

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)

A graph showing the housing-related reasons to move for both owners and renters. Noticeable differences include that more renters moved to find cheaper housing and to attend or leave college, while more owners moved for change of climate and health reasons.

 

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

Six pie charts showing the non-moving and moving percentages for 2021 among populations of White, Black, and Asian owners (95.1%, 95.6%, and 95.7% respectively for non-movers and 4.9%, 4.4%, and 4.3% respectively for movers) and White, Black, and Asian renters (83.7%, 85.3%, and 84.9% for non-movers respectively, and 16.3%, 14.7%, and 15.1% for movers respectively.)

 

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)

Six pie charts showing the non-moving and moving percentages for 2021 among populations of Hispanic, Mixed (White & Other), and Mixed (Black & Other) owners (94.8%, 95%, and 94.9% respectively for non-movers and 5.2%, 5%, and 5.1% respectively for movers) and Hispanic, Mixed (White & Other), and Mixed (Black & Other) renters (87.7%, 83.6%, and 85.2% for non-movers respectively, and 12.3%, 16.4%, and 14.8% for movers respectively.)

 

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

Six pie charts showing the percentages of staying in state vs moving out of state for 2021 among populations of White, Black, and Asian owners (82.1%, 81.8%, and 75.2% respectively for those who stayed in state and 17.9%, 18.2%, and 24.8% respectively for out-of-state movers) and White, Black, and Asian renters (82.6%, 81.4%, and 74.1% for those who stayed in state respectively, and 17.4%, 18.6%, and 25.9% for out-of-state movers respectively.)

 

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)

Six pie charts showing the percentages of staying in state vs moving out of state for 2021 among populations of Hispanic, Mixed (White & Other), and Mixed (Black & Other) owners (86.6%, 81.9%, and 80.9% respectively for those who stayed in state and 13.4%, 18.1%, and 19.1% respectively for out-of-state movers) and Hispanic, Mixed (White & Other), and Mixed (Black & Other) renters (83.6%, 82.4%, and 81.1% for those who stayed in state respectively, and 16.4%, 17.6%, and 18.9% for out-of-state movers respectively.)

 

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.

The post Moving Patterns for U.S. Homeowners and Renters in 2021 appeared first on Windermere Real Estate.

The Current State of the U.S. Housing Market

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. With home prices continuing to defy gravity, mortgage rates spiking, the Fed raising interest rates significantly, a yield curve that is just keeping its nose above water, and some becoming vocal about the possibility that we are going to enter a recession sooner rather than later, it’s not at all surprising that many of you have been asking me whether the housing market is going to pull back significantly, and a few of you have asked whether we aren’t in some sort of “bubble” again.

Because this topic appears to be giving many of you heartburn, I decided that it’s a good time to reflect on where the housing market is today and give you my thoughts on the impact of rising mortgage rates on what has been an historically hot market.

The Current State of the U.S. Housing Market

Home Sale Prices

 

As usual, a little perspective. Between 1990 and the pre-bubble peak in 2006, home prices rose by 142%, which was a pretty impressive annual increase of 5.6% over a 16 1/2-year period. When the market crashed, prices dropped by 33%, but from the 2012 low to today, prices have risen by 131%, or at an even faster annual rate of 8.6% over a shorter period of time—10 years.

You may think that prices rising at an annual rate that exceeds the pace seen before the market crash is what has some brokers and home buyers concerned, but that really isn’t what has many people scared. It’s this.

Mortgage Rates in 2022

A slide titled "Mortgage Rates in 2022" showing the increase in 30-year fixed conforming mortgage rates between December 30, 2021 (3.11%) and April 14, 2022 (5%).

 

At the start of 2022, the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate was just a little above 3%. But, over a brief 15-week period, they have skyrocketed to 5%. This has led some to worry that the market is about to implode. Of course, nobody can say that the run-up in home prices hasn’t been phenomenal over the past few years, and it’s certainly human nature to think that “what goes up, must come down,” but is there really any reason to panic? I think not, and to explain my reasoning, let’s look back in time to periods when rates rose significantly and see how increasing mortgage rates impacted the marketplace.

Housing and Mortgage Markets During Times of Rising Rates

A slide titled "Housing & Mortgage Markets During Times of Rising Rates." Two extreme statistics are as follow: Between June 2005 and July 2006 there was a negative 32.3% change in housing starts and between October 1993 and December 1994 there was a negative 12.7% change in home sales.

 

This table shows seven periods over the past 30 years when mortgage rates rose significantly. On average, rates trended higher for just over a year before pulling back, and the average increase was 1.4%. But now look at how it impacted home prices: it really didn’t. On average, during these periods of rising financing costs, home prices still rose by just over 5%.  Clearly, not what some might have expected. But there were some negatives from mortgage rates trending higher, and these came in the form of lower sales in all but one period and new housing starts also pulled back.

So, if history is any indicator, the impact of the current jump in mortgage rates is likely to be seen in the form of lower transactions rather than lower prices. And this makes sense. Although rising financing costs puts additional pressure on housing affordability, what people don’t appear to think about is that mortgage rates actually tend to rise during periods of economic prosperity. And what does a flourishing economy bring? That’s right. Rising wages. Increasing incomes can certainly offset at least some of the impacts of rising mortgage rates.

Static Equilibrium Analysis – 1/3

A slide titled "Static Equilibrium Analysis" showing that the P&I payment would be $1,365 for a $357,300 home with a 4% mortgage rate, using the February 2022 U.S. median sale price. This assumes the buyer has put down 20% on the home.

 

To try and explain this, I’m using the median US sale price in February of this year, assuming a 20% down payment and the mortgage rate of 4%. And you can see that the monthly P&I payment would be $1,365. But as mortgage rates rise, and if buyers wanted to keep the same monthly payment, then they would have to buy a cheaper home. Using a rate of 5%, a buyer could afford a home that was 9% cheaper if they wanted to keep the payment the same as it would have been if rates were still at 4%.

But, as I mentioned earlier, an expanding economy brings higher wages, and this is being felt today more than usual, given the worker shortage that exists and businesses having to raise compensation. Average weekly wages have risen by over five-and-a-half percent over the past year—well above the pre-pandemic average of two-and-a-half percent. Although increasing incomes would not totally offset rising mortgage rates, it does have an impact.

Static Equilibrium Analysis – 2/3

A slide titled "Static Equilibrium Analysis" showing what home buyers would be able to afford at different mortgage rates, using the U.S. average household income of $70,611, assuming they've put 20% of their gross income down for the down payment. At 4%, they could afford a home just under $360,000 and at 5%, they could afford a home at $321,038.

 

To demonstrate this, let’s use the U.S. average household income of $70,611.  Assuming that they’ve put aside 20% of their gross income for a down payment, they could afford a home priced just under $360,000 if mortgage rates were at 4%. As rates rise—and assuming that their income doesn’t—their buying power is reduced by over 10%, or just over $38,000.

Static Equilibrium Analysis – 3/3

A follow up to the "Static Equilibrium Analysis" slide showing that if the average income were raised to $74,848, the buyer would be able to afford a home of $340,302 at a 5% mortgage rate.

 

But if we believe that incomes will rise, then the picture looks very different. Assuming wages rise by 6%, their buying power drops by just 5% if rates rose from 4% to 5%, or a bit less than $19,000.

Although rates have risen dramatically in a short period, because they started from an historic low, the overall impacts are not yet very significant. If history is any indicator, mortgage rates increasing are likely to have a more significant impact on sales, but a far smaller impact on prices.

But there are other factors that come into play, too. Here I’m talking about demand. The only time since 1968 that home prices have dropped on an annualized basis was in 2007 through 2009 and in 2011, and this was due to a massive increase in the supply of homes for sale. When supply exceeds demand, prices drop.

So, how is it different this time around? Well, we know that the supply glut that we saw starting to build in mid-2006 was mainly not just because households were getting mortgages that, quite frankly, they should never have gotten in the first place, but a very large share held adjustable rate mortgages which, when the fixed interest rate floated, they found themselves faced with payments that they could not afford. Many homeowners either listed their homes for sale or simply walked away.

Although it’s true that over the past two or so months more buyers have started taking ARMs as rates rose, it’s not only a far smaller share than we saw before the bubble burst, but down payments and credit quality remained far higher than we saw back then.

So, if we aren’t faced with a surge of inventory, I simply don’t see any reason why the market will see prices pull back significantly. But even if we do see listing activity increase, I still anticipate that there will be more than enough demand from would-be buyers. I say this for several reasons, the first of which is inflation.

What a lot of people aren’t talking about is the proven fact that owning real estate is a significant hedge against rising inflation. You see, most buyers have a mortgage, and a vast majority use fixed-rate financing. This is the hedge because even as consumer prices are rising, a homeowner’s monthly payments aren’t.  They remain static and, more than that, their monthly payments actually become lower over time as the value of the dollar diminishes. Simply put, the value of a dollar in—let’s say 2025—will be lower than the value of a dollar today.

But this isn’t the only reason that inflation can actually stimulate the housing market. Home prices historically have grown at a faster pace than inflation.

Hedge Against Inflation

A slide titled "Hedge Against Inflation" showing a line graph of the average annual inflation and change in median home price from 1969 to 2021. While the average annual inflation fluctuates between 1% and 5% for most of the chart except for the mid-70s and early-80s, the change in median home price fluctuates between 25% in the late-70s to roughly negative 12% in 2009.

 

This chart looks at the annual change in total CPI going back to 1969. Now let’s overlay the annual change in median U.S. home prices over the same time period. Other than when home prices crashed with the bursting of the housing bubble, for more than fifty years home price growth has outpaced inflation. And this means we are offsetting high consumer prices because home values are increasing at an even faster rate.

But inflation has additional impacts on buyers. Now I’m talking about savings. As we all know, the interest paid on savings today is pretty abysmal. In fact, the best money market accounts I could find were offering interest rates between 0.5% and 0.7%. And given that this is significantly below the rate of inflation, it means that dollars saved continue to be worth less and less over time while inflation remains hot.

Now, rather than watching their money drop in value because of rising prices, it’s natural that households would look to put their cash to work by investing in assets where the return is above the rate of inflation—meaning that their money is no longer losing value—and where better place to put it than into a home.

Housing as a Hedge Against Inflation

A slide titled "Housing as a Hedge Against Inflation" showing that most home buyers finance their purchase at a fixed-rate of interest, which is not susceptible to inflation. Mortgage payments are fixed, therefore as incomes rise, the payments actually become cheaper.

 

So, the bottom line here is that inflation supports demand from home buyers because:

  1. Most are borrowing at a fixed rate that will not be impacted by rising inflation
  2. Monthly payments are fixed, and these payments going forward become lower as incomes rise, unlike renters out there who continue to see their monthly housing costs increase
  3. With inflation at a level not seen since the early 1980s, borrowers facing 5% mortgage rates are still getting an amazing deal. In fact, by my calculations, mortgage rates would have to break above 7% to significantly slow demand, which I find highly unlikely, and
  4. If history holds true, home price appreciation will continue to outpace inflation

Demand appears to still be robust, and supply remains anemic. Although off the all-time low inventory levels we saw in January, the number of homes for sale in March was the lowest of any March since record keeping began in the early 1980’s.

But even though I’m not worried about the impact of rates rising on the market in general, I do worry about first-time buyers. These are households who have never seen mortgage rates above 5% and they just don’t know how to deal with it! Remember that the last time the 30-year fixed averaged more than 5% for a month was back in March of 2010!

And given the fact that these young would-be home buyers have not benefited from rising home prices as existing homeowners have, as well as the fact that they are faced with soaring rents, making it harder for them to save up for a down payment on their first home, many are in a rather tight spot and it’s likely that rising rates will lower their share of the market.

So, the bottom line as far as I am concerned is that mortgage rates normalizing should not lead you to feel any sort of panic, and that current rates are highly unlikely to be the cause of a market correction.

And I will leave you with this one thought. If you agree with me that a systemic drop in home prices has to be caused by a significant increase in supply, and that buyers who are currently taking out adjustable-rate mortgages are more qualified, and therefore able to manage to refinance their homes when rates do revert at some point in the future, then what will cause listings to rise to a point that can negatively impact prices?

It’s true that a significant increase in new home development might cause this, but that is unlikely. And as far as existing owners are concerned, I worry far more about a prolonged lack of inventory. I say this for one very simple reason and that is because a vast majority off homeowners either purchased when mortgage rates were at or near their historic lows, or they refinanced their current homes when rates dropped.

And this could be the biggest problem for the market. Even if rates don’t rise at all from current levels, I question how many owners would think about selling if they were to lose the historically low mortgage rates that they have locked into. It is quite possible that for this one reason, we may experience a tight housing market for several more years.

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.

The post The Current State of the U.S. Housing Market appeared first on Windermere Real Estate.

The Impact of Rising Mortgage Rates

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. 

 

 

The Impact of Rising Mortgage Rates

Hello there. I’m Windermere Real Estate’s Chief Economist Matthew Gardner. Welcome to the latest episode of Monday with Matthew.

Over the past several weeks I’ve gotten a lot of messages from you wanting me to discuss the spike in mortgage rates that followed comments by the Federal Reserve, but also asking me if there will be any impacts to the housing market following Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine. This is clearly a hot topic right now, so today we are going to take a look at how these events have impacted mortgage rates, but also look at how this may have changed my mortgage rate outlook for 2022. So, let’s get to it.

Weekly Mortgage Rates

 

Here is a chart that shows how rates have moved over the past two years or so using Freddie Mac’s average weekly rate for a conforming 30-year mortgage. You’ll see that rates were falling in early 2020, but when COVID-19 was announced as a pandemic they spiked, but almost immediately the Fed announced their support for the economy by implementing a broad array of actions to keep credit flowing and limit the economic damage that the pandemic would likely create. And part of that support included large purchases of U.S. government and mortgage-backed securities. With the Fed as a major buyer of mortgage securities, rates dropped ending 2020 at a level never seen in the more than 50 years that the 30-year mortgage has been with us.

In early 2021, rates started to rise again as the country became more confident that the pandemic was coming under control, but all that changed with the rise the Delta variant of COVID-19 which pushed rates lower through mid-summer. As we again started to believe that COVID was under control and a booster shot became available, you’ll see rates resumed their upward trend in August.

What has everyone worried today is this spike that really took off at the end of last year. A jump of almost a full percentage point in just eight short weeks understandably has a lot of agents, buyers, and sellers, concerned about what impacts this might have on what has been a remarkably buoyant housing market. Now, rates rising so quickly was unusual, but not unprecedented. If you really wanted to be scared, I’d regale you with stories from 1980 when mortgage rates jumped by over 3.5% in less than eight weeks.

Anyway, before we really dig into this topic, some of you may be thinking to yourselves that my numbers have to be wrong because they differ from the rates you have been looking at. This is due to the fact that the Freddie Mac survey methodology is different from other rate surveys but, even though their rates may not match the ones you’ve been seeing from other data providers, the trend is still consistent.

So, let’s chat for a bit about what caused the spike in rates. You know, it’s always good to have a villain in any story and the primary but certainly not sole culprit responsible for the jump in rates is—you guessed it—the Federal Reserve.

As I mentioned earlier, the Fed was the biggest buyer of pools of home loans (otherwise known as mortgage-backed securities) as we moved through the pandemic, but last December they announced an end to what had been an era of easy money by winding down these purchases in order to lay the groundwork for shrinking their 2.7 trillion—yes I said “trillion”—dollar stockpile of MBS paper they had built up. This decision to move from “quantitative easing” to “quantitative tightening” so rapidly had an almost immediate impact on mortgage rates simply because the market was going to lose its biggest buyer of mortgage bonds.

Immediately on the heels of their announcement, bond sellers raised the interest rate on their bond offerings to try and find buyers other than the Fed, so lenders raised the rates on mortgages housed within these bond offerings. Finally, mortgage brokers moved quickly to raise the rates that they were quoting to the public. The result of all this was that rates leapt. Although we know that the primary party responsible for rates rising was the Fed, there were other players too, and here I am talking about inflation—and as you are no doubt aware—it too started to spike at the beginning of this year and now stands at a level not seen since 1982. And if you’re wondering why inflation is important. Well, high inflation is a disincentive to bond buyers because if the rate of return, or interest on mortgage bonds, is lower than inflation, investors lose interest pretty quickly.

So, we can blame the Fed, we can blame inflation, but what about Russia? Well, their invasion of the Ukraine on February 24 has certainly influenced mortgage rates, but maybe not in the way you might expect. In general, when there’s any sort of global or national geopolitical event, investors tend to gravitate to safety, and this invariably means a shift out of equities and into bonds.

So you would be correct is thinking that at face value Russia was actually responsible for the tiny drop in rates we saw following the invasion, and also the more significant drop we saw last week when the market saw the biggest two-day drop in rates in over a decade. But before you start to think that rates are headed back to where they were a year ago, I’ve got some bad news for you. That is almost guaranteed not to happen.

Given what we know today, the terrible conflict in Eastern Europe is highly unlikely to push rates back down to where they were at the start of this year, but they will—at least for now—act as a headwind to rates continuing to head higher at the pace we have seen over recent weeks. That will continue until the conflict is hopefully peaceably concluded. And although the Ukraine situation is unlikely to have any significant impact up or down on mortgage rates, there are some indirect impacts which could negatively hit the housing market. Now I’m talking about oil.

Russia is the third largest energy producer in the world and an already tight global oil supply could get even tighter following newly announced financial sanctions on Russia. A barrel of oil has jumped by almost $20 to $109 a barrel since the start of the occupation and, if the occupation is sustained, and Russia is faced with even greater sanctions, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the price of gas rise by between 20 and 40 cents a gallon. And it’s this, in concert with already high inflation, which will directly hit consumers wallets and this itself could certainly impact mortgage borrowing. So we can blame the Fed, we can blame inflation and we can blame Russia for the jump in rates, but are the rates you are seeing today really something to lose sleep over? I actually don’t think so. At least not yet.

Even with mortgage rates where they are today, I look at them and think to myself that they are still exceptionally low by historic standards and that there really is no need for panic. But let me explain my thinking to you. To do this, we will take a look at the impact of rising mortgage rates, not as it relates to buyers’ ability to finance a home purchase, but on how it impacts their monthly payments.

Hypothetical Home Purchase

A graphic title "Hypothetical Home Purchase." It shows that a home sold at the same price of $370,100 in June 2021 versus February 2022, financed at 2.96% and 4.06% respectively, generates a PITI payment of $1,682 and $1,864 respectively, meaning that buyers will pay just $182 more per month to buy the same home.

 

For this example, we’ll use the peak sale price for a single-family home in America, which was just over $370,000 back in June of last year. And to finance this purchase, a buyer was lucky enough to lock in the lowest mortgage rate for that month at 2.96%. Assuming that they put 20% down, and are paying the U.S. average homeowners insurance premium and average property taxes a buyer closing on that home in June of last year would have a monthly payment of $1,682.

Now, what if a buyer had bought the exact same house but in February of this year? Well, the average rate for the third week of February was 4.06%—a big jump from last June—and higher mortgage rates would have increased their payment to $1,864. What does this all mean? Well, a jump of over a full percentage point means that the monthly payment is more, but only a relatively modest $182. So, even though rates have risen by almost a full percentage point, the increase in payments was, I think you’ll agree, relatively nominal.

But what if rates had risen to 5%? Well, that would be a very different picture with payments increasing by a far more significant $348. Of course, this is a very simplistic way of looking at it as I have not included any other debt payments that a buyer may have, but I hope that it does demonstrate that, even though mortgage rates are certainly significantly higher than they were last summer, because we started from such a low basis, monthly payments have seen a relatively modest increase. The bottom line is that rates were never going to hold at the record lows we have seen, and we need to just accept the fact that they will continue trending higher as we move through the year but are yet at a level that suggests impending doom for the housing arena. So, where do I think that rates will be by the end of this year? Well, here is my very latest forecast for the rest of this year.

Mortgage Rates Forecast

A bar graph titled "Mortgage Rates Forecast" showing the average 30-year mortgage rate history. In Q1 of 2020, the rate is at 3.51%, dipping to 2.76% in Q4 2020 before rising back up to 3.08% in Q4 2021. Matthew Gardner forecasts a rate of 3.71% in Q1 2022, 3.84% in Q2 2022, 3.92% in Q3 2022, and 4.07% in Q4 2022.

 

Given all we know in respect to the Fed and the current situation in Ukraine, my model suggests a significant jump in the first quarter, but then the pace of increase slows significantly and we will end this year at a rate that is almost half a percentage point above the forecast I offered at the start of the year.

Forecasts From Various Analysts

A bar graph titled "Forecasts from Various Analysts" showing Q4 2022 forecasts for conventional 30-year fixed rate mortgages. Fannie Mae forecasts 3.7%, Freddie Mac forecasts 3.74%, NAR forecasts 3.9%, Redfin forecasts 3.9%, Kiplinger and Wells Fargo both forecast 4%, Mortgage Bankers Association forecasts 4.3%, and Matthew Gardner forecasts 4.07%.

 

Of course, this is the opinion of just one economist, so I thought it would be useful for you to see what others are thinking. And amazingly enough, most of us—at least for now—are still in a pretty tight range regarding our expectations for the average rate in the 4th quarter of 2022 with Fannie Mae at the low end of the spectrum and the Mortgage Bankers Association at the high end.

I honestly believe that, all things being equal, the impact of higher mortgage rates is unlikely to significantly impact the U.S. market this year and, even with rates rising, the market will remain tight in terms of supply and will continue to favor home sellers. That said, once we break above 4.5%, I would expect to see the increased cost of financing having a greater impact on not just on demand but on price growth, too.

And if you are wondering why I am so sure about this, it’s simply because we saw the exact same situation in 2018 when rates rose to 4.9% and we saw a palpable pull back in sales; which dropped from an annual rate of 5.4 million to 5 million units and the pace of price growth dropped from 5.9% to 3.3%. Now, I don’t see rates getting close to 5% for quite some time and therefore still expect demand to remain robust—off the all-time highs we have seen—but still solid given demographically-driven demand as well as increasing demand from buyers trying to find a new home before rates much further.

Of course, the impact of rates rising will not be felt equally across all markets. Many areas, and especially in coastal States, have seen home values skyrocket to levels that are well above the national average. Although incomes are generally higher in these markets, buyers in more expensive areas will feel more pain from higher financing costs.

And there you have it. I hope that today’s chat has not only given you some additional tools to use in your day-to-day business but has also given you enough information to hopefully ease some of the worry that many of you are feeling right now. 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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