Credibility Trap

October New Home Sales Collapse, Near Three-Year Low

The Census Bureau numbers for October new home sales posted at a seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR) of 544,000 units. This was way below expectations of a 575,000 print, and near a three-year low. As I have been detailing for much of the year, much of that "pent-up demand" that you hear real estate industry mouthpieces talking about is a giant work of fiction, a tired marketing ploy that the media, economists and Realtors have been using in attempt to justify grossly inflated home prices across the U.S. Well, it appears the cat is officially [...]

RECenter A&M Economists Still Wasting Texas Realtors’ Money

RECenter at A&M economists and data junkies are still wasting the dues of Texas Realtors that pay a good chunk of their salaries. It seems the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M economists are phase-locked in a myopic pursuit to somehow rationalize or justify the status quo situation with Texas housing. "Intellectual Phase-Locking is a condition that results when dogmatic 'scientific' assumptions inhibit further inquiry." Rupert Sheldrake Last year I wrote about some of the interesting details on the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M and their funding. I have also clued readers in on the [...]

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 [...]

DC’s Fiscal Lunacy, Fed’s Unwind Creating Waves For Housing Market

The fiscal lunacy in Washington and the Federal Reserve's balance sheet unwind are creating waves for the housing market. 2018 was starting off on the right foot with a noticeable, yet moderate rise in bond yields. As we received more concrete evidence that the Federal Reserve was actually unwinding some of that gigantic balance sheet, volatility erupted pretty quickly. After a 12oo point plunge in the Dow, some savvy mortgage borrowers probably took advantage of the temporary fear in the market to score a decent mortgage rate. It was a small window of opportunity, because [...]

Federal Reserve Sowed The Seeds Of The Next Housing Downturn

The Federal Reserve is poised to cause yet another housing downturn in the U.S. I'm not talking about a spectacular Lehman style apocalypse mind you, but an honest downturn that will be unavoidable. Today's S&P Case-Shiller home price index showed another rise in Dallas home prices in November. This is essentially lagged data confirming what most prospective DFW home buyers already knew, namely that Dallas area home prices are pretty damn high. The national index showed that U.S. home prices were up 6.2 percent, or roughly three times average U.S. hourly income growth. The BEA [...]

New Home Sales Rebound In May

The Census Bureau reported a rebound for new home sales in May. New residential home sales posted at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 610,000. This was 2.9 percent higher than the revised April numbers and 8.9 percent higher than a year ago. The median price of a new home contracted in May was $345,800 while the average new home price in May came in at $406,400. Just like we saw with existing home sales this week, median home prices hit a new all-time high. New home sales volume, while up from last month, is [...]

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