Tag: housing industry

Is The Housing Bubble The Next To Burst?

Posted on by George Yacik

With stock prices cratering and bond yields soaring, it’s a fair question to ask if the housing bubble is about to burst, too. After all, home prices have skyrocketed in recent years thanks to artificially low-interest rates engineered by the Federal Reserve, which has kept mortgage rates well below historic levels ever since the 2008 global financial crisis, even well under 4% for most of the past three years. But with the average rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage now at more than 5% and climbing, is the home price boom still sustainable?

According to the National Association of Realtors, the median price of a single-family home has jumped by over $100,000, or more than 39%, to $382,000 in March from $274,000 in 2019. The median principal and interest payment has increased by nearly 50%, to $1,502 from $1,054 three years ago, while the percentage of monthly income the typical mortgage payment eats up has risen to more than 20% from less than 16% in 2019. Likewise, the group’s affordability index, which measures whether a typical family earns enough to qualify for a mortgage, has dropped to 124.0 from nearly 160. While the NAR says the median family income has increased more than 10% to $89,321 from $80,808 during that time, the amount of income needed to qualify for a mortgage to buy a median-priced home has jumped by more than 40%, to more than $72,000.

Now, these NAR figures are as of March, when the average rate on a 30-year mortgage was 4.24%. Since then, that figure has risen by more than 100 basis points, to more than 5.25%.
So, is this a bubble ripe for the popping? Continue reading "Is The Housing Bubble The Next To Burst?" →

Is The Housing Market About To Turn Positive?

Posted on by George Yacik

One of the anomalies of the current economic rebound compared to past recoveries is the virtual absence of the housing market in the upturn. Not only has the housing industry – and its symbiotic partner, the mortgage market – failed to lead or even participate in the recovery, as it usually does, it’s been a laggard most of the way.

The main reason, of course, is the huge change in perception among young Americans about the attractiveness of home ownership. Most of them grew up during the housing boom of the early 2000s and the subsequent bust following the financial crisis – indeed, the housing bust was the root cause of the crisis – so homeownership for many of them has mostly negative connotations, as opposed to a symbol of the American Dream.

Then there’s the burden of student loan debt, which has made homeownership unaffordable for many, so it’s not hard to see why the U.S. homeownership rate has dropped to 64.3% most recently, down from the peak of 69.2% at the end of 2004.

Making matters even worse is the relative lack of homes for sale, which has created a huge supply-and-demand imbalance pushing prices in most areas of the country higher. The reason for the lack of supply is threefold: Older homeowners don’t want to give up the 3.5% mortgage they’ve refinanced into over the past several years. And many of them still can’t sell their homes at the price they want because the value is still below where it was 10 years ago. They’re also reluctant to sell their homes only to have to find a new home at an inflated price. Continue reading "Is The Housing Market About To Turn Positive?" →