Affordability

The Fed Has Successfully Destroyed The U.S. Housing Market

A few days ago a friend of mine sent me a link to some "insight" on the coming economic developments that we should be preparing for in terms of debts and deficits. The company providing this research piece has over a $trillion in assets under management. Since I have a healthy skepticism of anything the financial "services" industry is selling I decided to give it a read. It was very informative, partly due to a complete fundamental ignorance of basic economics, but also because of an obvious contradiction with the author's stated assumptions. As I [...]

Meritage: “Strong Demand For Entry Level Homes” Drives New Orders Increase

Meritage Homes reported first quarter sales yesterday, and the publicly traded home builder admitted what many, including myself, have been saying. New home prices have eclipsed the threshold of what most Americans can afford (or are willing) to pay. Meritage saw a 2 percent increase in closed sales for the quarter on average new home prices that were up by just 1 percent. New orders grew 10 percent compared to the same quarter last year on average sales prices that were 2 percent lower. This is the dilemma now facing most new home builders with [...]

Denton, Collin County See Declining Home Affordability

Denton and Collin County continue to suffer from declining home affordability. A recent Q1 2018 report from Attom Data Solutions shows that several North Texas housing markets saw worsening affordability rankings compared to last year. Grayson and Ellis Counties were near the top of the list of the most unaffordable counties in the U.S. to buy a home based local home prices and weekly average wages. Grayson and Ellis rank high on the list due to the relatively low average wages and the recent bout of home price inflation that has far exceeded wage gains. [...]

DFW Home Prices Pushing Limits Of Affordability

DFW home prices have been on a tear during the last 5 years. That begs the question of whether the recent price gains are sustainable. The answer to that inquiry generally boils down to who is selling what. In our hyper-financialized housing market it is not surprising when real estate practitioners or lenders suggest that we are not in a housing bubble. Whether you call it a housing bubble or not, there is no denying that the past decade has seen some dramatic shifts in the real estate market. Dallas/Fort Worth is certainly part of [...]

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

Texas Housing Market Meets The Fed’s ‘Game of Thrones’ Economy

The latest issue of Tierra Grande is out, and it contains more examples of the Federal Reserve's fingerprints on the Texas housing market. This new batch of evidence is contained in an article titled 'Game of Homes - The Supply-Demand Struggle'. What is thoroughly entertaining is that the two Dallas Fed employees (both recent college graduates apparently) working on this latest missive appear to completely ignore their employer's responsibility for the distortions in the Texas housing market while making a complete mockery of the economics profession. Collaborating with a PhD from TAMU, they lay out [...]

By |2016-11-20T13:26:48+00:00October 23rd, 2016|Economy, In the Press, Politics, Real Estate, Spin Cycle|0 Comments

NAR: Existing Home Sales Fizzle In February As Affordability Evaporates

The National Association of Realtors reported that existing home sales fizzled in Februrary, falling to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.08 million. This was a sharp decline from January numbers but 2 percent higher than a year ago. NAR's chief economist, Lawrence Yun, mentioned the stock market, poor weather on the East coast, as well as supply and affordability issues. At least he got one of the four correct! The real problem surrounding the U.S. real estate market is a lack of affordability. Home prices have been levitated back to the previous bubble levels [...]

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