Housing Policy

housing policy

Financialization Of Housing And The Disturbing Gap In New Home Sales

The financialization of the U.S. housing market has led to a rather disturbing gap in new home sales relative to existing home sales. This is a subject I was referencing this week when I mentioned the problem builders are facing with the lack of affordable land to build new homes on. Today the Census Bureau reported new home sales for January came in at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 555,000. Previous months were also revised lower, with November taking a significant haircut. On a year-over-year basis January new home sales were up 5.5 percent. [...]

NAR Finally Gets Real About Home Affordability Issues

The National Association of Realtors is out with a new method of gauging home affordability. As part of NAR's look at the the growing rift between housing availability and home affordability, NAR has developed a new affordability distribution curve and a home affordability score. The new monthly research is designed to look at home affordability conditions among different income percentiles, gauging how many homes on the market are actually affordable to various buyer income groups. The new affordability distribution curve and score show that many U.S. homes are no longer affordable to typical prospective buyers. [...]

Texas Realtors Unwittingly Paying For Bad TAMU Economic Research

Texas Realtors are paying for some bad economic research. That's the only conclusion I can come to after looking at the current situation where highly educated economists are giving short shrift to the underlying causes of Texas home price inflation and market distortions. While the Fed has abdicated its responsibility to the American public, TAMU economists seem to be cooperating with the Fed in offering "alternative facts" surrounding the declining affordability of housing and real estate market imbalances. In a previous post I posited a guess as to why this is happening. After looking at [...]

By |2021-04-21T11:24:58+00:00February 8th, 2017|Education, Housing Policy, Politics, Real Estate, Spin Cycle, Video|0 Comments

Monkey Business – Expert Says Affordable Homes Are Going Away

Affordable homes are going away. With the prospect of rising rates, now is the time to buy a home. That is apparently the opinion of Dr. Luis Torres, a research economist with the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M. Torres, in a rather interesting piece in the Houston Business Journal seems to be confident that Houston's real estate market is on the road to recovery:  “I can say this with some certainty that the worst of the downturn is behind us.” I'm not surprised that HBJ would print a piece like this (after all it is [...]

Mortgage Rates Rip To Highest Level Since July 2015

Katy Texas mortgage rates rose to their highest levels since July 2015 as we ended the week. That new home you may have been looking to purchase just became more expensive. Unless you already had a mortgage rate locked in, higher rates likely means higher home payments or diminished expectations. As Friday came to a close, mortgage brokers were discussing the wreckage of higher yields and looking at a new interest rate landscape, at least in the short term. Mortgage News Daily explained the closing of the week in the mortgage market... "The most prevalent [...]

Debt, Deficits & Housing – The Smoke & Mirrors “Recovery”

Many among the status quo have defended the last 8 years as a productive "recovery" from the abyss of financial armageddon unleashed by our criminal banking sector. The efficacy of the recovery depends on the person responding to the question. For the vast majority of the U.S. population, there has been no recovery, but instead a steady decline. If you have been paying attention to the early release of season 5 of 'House of Cards', speaking of the email data dump exposing our corrupt political machine for all to see, the reasons behind the phony [...]

Fed Looks At Texas’ Affordable Housing Problem, Fails To Look In The Mirror

The Federal Reserve can be commended on one thing. They never cease to provide entertainment in terms of their complete ineptitude and functional obsolescence. The Fed continues to show no remorse for the damage they have inflicted on the general population and their destruction of what was formerly known as the U.S. housing market. The latest comedy from the Fed comes courtesy of the inaugural report from the Dallas Federal Reserve Community Outlook Series titled 'The Scarcity of Texas Affordable Housing' In this fun-filled trip down the rabbit hole, the Fed examines the problem of the lack [...]

Census: New Home Sales In June Rise To Highest Level Since 2008

The Census Bureau reported new residential sales for June that came in at a rate of 592,000 (SAAR). This was above expectations, and a continued indicator that the Fed's juicing of the market continues to provide a boost to new residential construction. The latest report shows that new home sales in June were 25.4 percent higher than last year. New home prices were also higher. The median price of a new home sold (contracted) in June was $306,700 and the average price was $358,200. This was a good report for new home sales, but it [...]

Foreign Investment In U.S. Real Estate Cools In 2016, But China Still Leads List Of Funny Money

The National Association of Realtors has published its latest survey profiling foreign buyers of U.S. real estate, and the latest data is remarkable for a number of reasons. Not surprisingly, China is still the largest source of foreign investment into U.S. homes and property. Something also worth noting is the decline of to total investment dollars reaching its way into the United States. It appears that the latest global central-bank-sponsored asset bubble may be finally popping once again. This will be a particular cause for concern for those wealthy property owners who have bought into [...]

New Home Sales Decline To 511,000 Annual Rate In March

The Census Bureau reported that new home sales for March declined to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 511,000. This was below expectations of 522,000, but higher than March of last year. The median price of a new home contracted in March was $288,000, a YoY decline of $5,400. The average price of a new home contracted in March was $356,200, $3,500 more than March of 2015. New home sales have remained grounded as the Fed's "wealth effect" continues to diminish within the real economy. New home sales are still hovering around 1991 levels, due [...]

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