- Foiled by the Banks? How a Lender’s Decision May Support or Undermine a Jurisdiction’s Environmental Policies that Promote Green Buildings, Darren A. Prum, Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law, 2015, Forthcoming.
- The Numerus Clausus Principle, Property Customs, and the Emergence of New Property Forms, Yun-chien Chang & Henry E. Smith, Iowa Law Review, Vol. 100, 2015.
- Building Self-Sufficiency for Housing Voucher Recipients: Interim Findings from the Work Rewards Demonstration in New York City, Stephen Nunez, Nandita Verma & Edith Yang, New York: MDRC, June 2015.
- Size Signals Success: Evidence from Real Estate Private Equity, Sebastian Krautz & Franz Fuerst, Journal of Portfolio Management, Vol. 41, No. 5, 2015.
- Debt, Poverty, and Personal ‘Financial Distress’, Stephen J. Ware, 89 American Bankruptcy Law Journal 493 (2015).
- Household Debt and Crises of Confidence, Thomas Hintermaier & Winfried Koeniger, CEPR Discussion Paper No. DP10865.
- Trend-Spotting in the Housing Market, Nikos Askitas, IZA Discussion Paper No. 9427.
- Large-Scale Buy-to-Rent Investors in the Single-Family Housing Market: The Emergence of a New Asset Class?, James Mills, Raven Molloy & Rebecca Zarutskie, FEDS Working Paper No. FEDGFE2015-84.
- How House Price Dynamics and Credit Constraints Affect the Equity Extraction of Senior Homeowners, Stephanie Moulton, Samuel Dodini, Donald R. Haurin & Maximilian D. Schmeiser, FEDS Working Paper No. FEDGFE2015-70.
- Real Estate Fund Openings and Cannibalization, David H. Downs, Steffen P. Sebastian & Rene-Ojas Woltering.
Tag Archives: housing market
What’s Pushing Down The Homeownership Rate?
S&P has posted a report, What’s Pushing Down The U.S. Homeownership Rate? It opens,
Seven years after the Great Recession began, a number of key economic factors today have reverted from their short-term extremes. Home prices are rebounding, unemployment is declining, and optimism is rising among economists if not among financial markets that the U.S. economy may finally be strong enough to withstand a rate hike from the Federal Reserve. All these trends point to reversals from the recession’s dismal conditions. Even so, one telling trend for the nation’s economy hasn’t yet reverted to its historic norm: the homeownership rate. The rising proportion of renters to owner occupants that followed the housing market turmoil has yet to wane. Compound this with tougher mortgage qualifying requirements over recent years, and it’s not surprising that the homeownership rate, which measures the percentage of housing units that the owner occupies, dropped to a 50 year low of 63.4% in first quarter 2015. However, the further decreases in unemployment and increases in hourly wages that our economists forecast for the next two years may set the stage for an eventual comeback, if only a modest one. (1)
S&P concludes that many have chosen not to become homeowners because of diminished “mortgage availability and income growth.” (8) Like many others, S&P assumes inthat the homeownership rate is unnaturally depressed, having fallen so far below its pre-bubble high of 69.2%. While the current rate is low, S&P does not provide any theory of a “natural” rate of homeownership (cf. natural rate of unemployment). Clearly, the natural rate in today’s economy s higher than something in the 40-50 percent range that existed before the federal government became so involved in housing finance. And clearly, it is lower than 100% — not everyone should be or wants to be a homeowner. But merely asserting that it is lower than its high is an insufficient basis for identifying the appropriate level today.
I think that the focus should remain on income growth and income inequality. If we address those issues, the homeownership rate should find its own equilibrium. If we push people into homeownership without ensuring that they have stable incomes, we are setting them up for a fall.
Friday’s Government Reports Roundup
- The National Housing Conference released its 2015 “Paycheck to Paycheck” report, which reports how the gap between housing and wages has increased.
- The National Bureau of Economic Research released a working paper, Housing Booms and Busts, Labor Market Opportunities, and College Attendance, which reports a correlation between the state of the housing market and college attendance.
- CoreLogic released its August 2015 National Foreclosure Report, showing that, since August 2014, there has been a decrease in the amount of foreclosures.
- Center on Budget and Policy Priorities released “How Housing Vouchers Can Help California’s Rental Crisis”.
Buy-To-Rent Investing
James Mills, Raven Molloy and Rebecca Zarutskie have posted Large-Scale Buy-to-Rent Investors in the Single-Family Housing Market: The Emergence of a New Asset Class? to SSRN. The abstract reads,
In 2012, several large firms began purchasing single-family homes with the stated intention of creating large portfolios of rental property. We present the first systematic evidence on how this new investor activity differs from that of other investors in the housing market. Many aspects of buy-to-rent investor behavior are consistent with holding property for rent rather than reselling quickly. Additionally, the large size of these investors imparts a few important advantages. In the short run, this investment activity appears to have supported house prices in the areas where it is concentrated. The longer-run impacts remain to be seen.
I had been very skeptical of this asset class when it first appeared, thinking that the housing crisis presented a one-time opportunity for investors to profit from this type of investment. The conventional wisdom had been that it was too hard to manage so many units scattered over so much territory. The authors identify reasons to think that that conventional wisdom is now outdated:
To the extent that technological improvements, economies of scale, and lower financing costs have substantially reduced the operating costs of buy-to-rent investors relative to smaller investors, large portfolios of single-family rental property may become a permanent feature of the real estate market. As such, the events of the past three years may signal the emergence of a new class of real estate asset. A similar transformation occurred in the market for multifamily structures in the 1990s, when large firms began to purchase multifamily property and created portfolios of professionally-managed multifamily units that were traded on public stock exchanges as REITs. (32-33)
Nonetheless, the authors are cautious (rightfully so, as far as I am concerned) in their predictions: “only time will tell whether the recent purchases of large-scale buy-to-rent investors reflect the emergence of a new asset class or whether the business model will fail to be viable over the longer-term.” (33, footnote omitted)
Wednesday’s Academic Roundup
- Pricing Residential Real Estate Derivatives, Mark Michael Richter.
- Local House Prices and Mental Health, Nayan Krishna Joshi, International Journal of Health Care Finance and Economics, 2015.
- Why Did So Many Subprime Borrowers Default During the Crisis: Loose Credit or Plummeting Prices?, Christopher Palmer.
- Large-Scale Buy-to-Rent Investors in the Single-Family Housing Market: The Emergence of a New Asset Class?, James Mills, Raven Molloy & Rebecca Zarutskie, FEDS Working Paper No. 2015-084.
- Measuring Total Mortgage Market Credit Risk, Douglas A. McManus.
- What Affects Children’s Outcomes: House Characteristics or Homeownership?, Steven C. Bourassa, Donald R. Haurin & Martin Hoesli, Swiss Finance Institute Research Paper No. 15-42.
- Housing Booms and Busts, Labor Market Opportunities, and College Attendance, Kerwin Kofi Charles, Erik Hurst & Matthew Notowidigdo, NBER Working Paper No. w21587 (Paid Access).
State of Lending for Latinos
The Center for Responsible Lending has posted a fact sheet, The State of Lending for Latinos in the U.S. It reads, in part,
At 55 million, Latinos represent the nation’s largest ethnic group and the fastest growing population. However, Latinos continue to face predatory and discriminatory lending practices that strip hard-earned savings. These abusive practices limit the ability of Latino families to build wealth and contribute to the growing racial wealth gap between communities of color and whites. The Center for Responsible Lending (CRL), along with its numerous partners, has sought to eliminate predatory lending products from the marketplace. High-cost, debt trap lending products frequently target Latinos and other communities of color. (1)
No disagreement there. The fact sheet continues,
Barriers to Latino Homeownership
According to a 2015 national survey of Latino real estate agents, nearly 60 percent said that tighter mortgage credit was the No. 1 barrier to Latino homeownership; affordability ranked second.
In 2014, Latino homeownership dropped from 46.1 percent in 2013 to 45.4 percent. In 2013, Latinos were turned down for home loans at twice the rate of non-Latino White borrowers and were more than twice as likely to pay a higher price for their loans. (1)
I have a few problems with this. First, I am not sure that I would unthinkingly accept the views of real estate agents as to what ails the housing market. Real estate agents make their money by selling houses. They are less concerned with whether the sale makes sense for the buyer long-term. Second, it is unclear what the right homeownership rate is. Many people argue that higher is always better, but that kind of thinking got us into trouble in the early 2000s. Finally, stating that Latinos are rejected more frequently and pay more for their mortgages without explaining the extent to which non-discriminatory factors might be at play is just sloppy.
The fact sheet quotes CRL Executive Vice President Nikitra Bailey, “As the slow housing recovery demonstrates, there is a market imperative to ensure that Latino families have access to mortgages in both the public and private sectors of the market. The market cannot fully recover without them.” (1) But what Latino households and the housing market need is not just more credit. They need sustainable credit, mortgages that are affordable as homeowners face the expected challenges of life — unemployment, sickness, divorce. It is a shame that the CRL –usually such a thoughtful organization — did not address the bigger issues at stake.
Buying in a Boom
TheStreet.com quoted me in How Consumers Can Buy Houses in a Booming Market. The story reads, in part,
The housing market has been rebounding and the increased competition is leaving the number of available homes scarce in many cities.
Home prices have also risen compared to last year as the number of homes sold rose in all parts of the country except for the Midwest, according to a recent report from PNC, the Pittsburgh-based financial institution. The median sale price for an existing single-family home was $288,300 in July, up from $279,700 in June.
“The housing market continues to gradually recover from the Great Recession, supporting economic growth,” Stuart Hoffman, chief economist for PNC. “Stronger demand and good affordability are supporting home sales and pushing up house prices.”
Many economists are predicting that home prices will continue to increase this year. PNC said prices will rise by 3.7% in 2015 and 2.7% in 2016, down from 6.6% in 2014.
“This year we [saw] inventory continue to grow in August and while overall demand is strong, the trend in median days on market is suggesting that the market is finding more of a balance,” said Jonathan Smoke, chief economist of Realtor.com, the San Jose, Calif. real estate service company. “This bodes well for would-be buyers who have been discouraged by the inability to find a home to buy this spring and summer.”
Consumers who are still eager to purchase a home still have many opportunities left to negotiate a deal within their price range. While it is tougher to buy a house in a tight market, here are some tips to give homebuyers a head start.
Looking for a house in the fall is generally a better bet. Even though there are fewer homes on the market right now, there are “definitely less buyers, so there’s less competition,” said Mark Lesses, a broker with Coldwell Banker in Lexington, Mass.
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Renters Who Wait Can Benefit
Buying a house during a tight market could prove to be an expensive endeavor. Staying out of the market might be a good option, because housing prices could level off and decline, said David Reiss, a law professor at Brooklyn Law School in N.Y.
“Sometimes it is cheaper to rent,” he said. “Don’t try to time the real estate market. Look at your needs and what you could afford, and consider if it is a good choice.”
