Archive for the 'Housing Market' Category
You’ve seen the headlines. The combination of lower prices, increased rents and a weak dollar are drawing investor capital from all around the globe and funneling it into American housing. According to NAR, foreign investment is US real estate has increased by 20% in the 12 months ending march 2011, totaling $82 billion in just one year. What’s missing in most of these stories is why.
Why are overseas real estate investors, who are standing thousands of miles away with little if any personal experience in US real estate, pouncing on this opportunity? Low prices and great exchange rates don’t explain it. If you hear of a stock that has plummeted, would you buy it based on that fact alone? Or would you want to understand the fundamentals of the company behind the stock. What do they produce? Who are their customers? Why should you believe this investment will pay off, as opposed to seeing the new low price as an accurate reflection of the value of the company? In other words, if it’s a piece of junk, you wouldn’t care how cheap it is.
The question most real estate investors often ask is, “Where do I invest now?”
As always, there are local housing markets around the country where homes are affordable, the underlying economy is strong, and appreciation is imminent. These are markets you should consider for your next long-term real estate investment.
Norada Real Estate Investments tracks the economic conditions and real estate trends of nearly 400 markets across the country. Because of the dynamic nature of real estate market conditions, we continually monitor and rank the top markets to make it easier for you, as an investor, to concentrate on the areas that will give you the greatest opportunity for success.
While you might be inclined to look for bargains in areas that have seen the largest price corrections in the past, watch out – there is no guarantee that home prices in areas of high speculation will ever rebound to boom levels.
Unlike the stock market, local real estate markets usually move in slow, predictable cycles. Appreciation is not luck or magic. It correlates closely with economic development and population growth in a local market.
If you missed out on Phoenix, Vegas and Florida (or if you rode those waves and know what it’s about), download the current issue of our free report.
Download your free copy of the 2012 Housing Market Forecast Today!
In the third quarter of 2011, nationwide statistics from the real estate market have revealed numerous indicators that multiple markets may hit a resurgence in the early months of 2012. Home building projects have increased, as well as mortgage applications with rates lowering.
States across middle America have proved to be retaining the strongest numbers as areas such as Texas and Oklahoma cities have continued to stay afloat with job creation. Not all markets are hitting a full rebound; instead they are achieving small improvements in different categories that have an influence over the total market.
Home prices and sales may be flat, but the rental industry is booming. The percentage of renters is on the rise, the number of households is increasing, and more Americans are downsizing, all of which point in a single direction: rents are on the rise.
At the peak of the housing boom, home ownership in America reached an all-time high at 69.2%. Today that number has plummeted to fewer than 67%, which may not sound like a huge drop, but that represents roughly 3 million households that were owner-occupied and are now tenant-occupied.
The high foreclosure rate has accelerated the transition toward leasing, but there are a myriad of other trends coalescing to boost demand for rental housing.
USA investment property is becoming very popular these days, and many foreign investors, especially from the UK, Australia and Europe, would prefer purchasing properties in this country.
There are several economic reasons that are responsible for the US property market to work well, where investors can make large profits from relatively small investments. It is important therefore to comprehend the crucial elements that contribute to the unparalleled opportunities which are available now, as the country is fast becoming one of the top property investment locations.
Economy – Even with the economy still in recession, the USA remains the largest national economy in the world that is complemented by its huge land mass and population. The country has an appraised GDP of more than $14 trillion with a relatively low cost of living, and an advanced market with contemporary infrastructure consisting of large finance and private sectors.
Read the newspapers and we’re at the brink: Global Gloom, Deepening Pessimism, Markets Drop Sharply. Is another Great Depression just around the corner? Is the US slumping to a decade of stagnation a la Japan? Is China now eating the lunch we thought we had bought cheap? Is our financial system just a Vegas vacation, making the house rich but producing no growth?
The answer is no, even though China is nibbling at that burrito and bankers are at the slots. The hero coming to the rescue of the US economy is that trusty favorite, the US Consumer. It’s a Consumer with flaws, like any modern hero, with a tendency to binge, and again wielding the weapon that often leads to trouble: the Credit Card.
After 28 straight months of pulling back on the reins, consumers have finally found a level of debt that feels good enough to allow more spending to flow. During those 28 months, the level of consumer debt per person [let's leave mortgages out of this] fell 13 percent, from $8,600 to $7,500. During the last recession with a real estate crash, 20 years ago, consumer debt dropped 14 percent. Sure, many things are different now, but some things aren’t.
Categories are graded from A thru F:
Economic Growth: C- (June 2011: D+)
The U.S. economic recovery remains sluggish. Real GDP grew at a 1.3% pace in 2Q11, following downwardly revised growth of 0.4% in 1Q11; far below the 1.9% rate of expansion previously estimated for last quarter. We now have positive Y/Y employment growth for eleven consecutive months, with payrolls expanding by 117,000 in July, up from 46,000 in June, and the unemployment rate dropping from 9.2% to 9.1%. Initial jobless claims fell to 400,000 in July. Government payrolls decreased by 37,000 in July, the ninth straight sequential drop.
The average length of unemployment increased to 40.4 weeks (new record high), and the labor force percentage of those unemployed over 27 weeks dipped slightly from 4.1% to 4.0%. On a positive note, retail sales continue to improve, with Y/Y growth at 8.5%.
Leading Indicators: C- (June 2011: C)
Leading indicators for the economy are mixed this month, with our overall grade for this subsection of indicators dropping from a C in June to C- in July. Many of the leading indicators we analyze have been trending down over the past several months, returning to levels not seen since mid-2009, a time when the U.S. economy was still in the midst of the Great Recession. For example, the ISM Purchasing Managers Index has fallen two consecutive months, dropping to 50.9 (just above the expansion threshold value), a level not seen since July 2009. In addition, the Vistage CEO Confidence Index fell in 2Q11, crossing into negative Y/Y territory for the first time since 2Q09. Corporate profit growth was revised down from last quarter, rising at an 8.8% Y/Y clip in 1Q11, the weakest annual growth rate since Q309. Other leading indicators such as the ECRI Leading Index were relatively flat versus last month.
Real estate investors are likely to be three times more active than other types of home-buyers in their local markets within the next two years, according to a national survey by Realtor.com operator Move Inc.
Market research firm GfK Custom Research North America conducted the survey on behalf of Move from April 11-15, 2011. The survey included telephone interviews of 1,200 U.S. adults, of which about 200 were identified as real estate investors. Data was weighted by age, sex, education, race and geographic region.
A third of real estate investors are planning to buy in the next 24 months, compared to 8.6% of typical home-buyers — those planning to purchase a primary residence, vacation home or retirement property. Another 9.1% of typical home-buyers, and 28% of investors, plan to purchase between two and five years from now.
Among the investors, half plan to hold their properties for five or more years while 11% expect to sell within a year of purchase, according to the survey.
Jobs, jobs, jobs! That’s what we’ll hear from now on through the 2012 election, and rightly so. Although they claim otherwise, Wall Street and the Big Banks are not the essential, indispensable, must-be-bailed-out part of the national economy: it’s people with jobs. Those people account for 70 percent of the economy (the government is 20 percent).
As we’ve already seen, those people aren’t spending very much money these days, needing no more time-share condos, full-size SUVs, leather furniture, and flat-screen TVs. Which means there are fewer jobs for the people who were making those things a few years ago.
The national economy grew at a modest annual rate of 1.3 percent in the second quarter of this year, better than the 0.4 percent of the first quarter, but there is some cause for anxiety: personal spending was flat in the second quarter, after growing between 2 and 3 percent in 2010.
Most people think of the real estate market as something that’s measured like the stock market—bearish or bullish. In real estate, the common expressions for a bull market are “up,” “strong,” “good,” “hot,” and “seller’s.” A bearish market is described as “soft,” “bad,” “down,” or “buyer’s.” On a daily basis, you’ll hear the media use these expressions to describe the real estate market based on facts and figures, most of which are confusing to the average investor.
Let’s discuss each of the categories for the numbers you may be hearing and see how they affect the market and, more importantly, your investing strategies.
Most people think of the real estate market as something that’s measured like the stock market — bearish or bullish. In real estate, the common expressions for a bull market are “up,” “strong,” “good,” “hot,” and “seller’s.” A bearish market is described as “soft,” “bad,” “down,” or “buyer’s.” On a daily basis, you’ll hear the media use these expressions to describe the real estate market based on facts and figures, most of which are confusing to the average investor. Let’s discuss each of the categories for the numbers you may be hearing and see how they affect the market and, more importantly, your investing strategies.
Categories are graded from A thru F:
Economic Growth: D+
Trends were mixed this month, as a few metrics ticked up while the majority ticked down, resulting in a drop from C- last month to D+ this month for overall economic growth. The employment market improved once again this month, (albeit at a less than stellar pace) and Y-O-Y employment growth has now been positive for nine consecutive months.
Payrolls expanded by 54,000 in May, the smallest gain since September 2010 when 29,000 jobs were lost, while the unemployment rate increased marginally from 9% to 9.1%. The government continues to slash jobs (29,000 this month), and has now eliminated roughly 850,000 jobs over the last 12 months. In addition, the average length of unemployment increased to 39.7 weeks (a new record high), and the labor force percentage of those unemployed over 27 weeks rose to 4%. While still down Y-O-Y, mass layoffs have been trending up over the last several months, rising again this month.
The rate of inflation (both full and core) continued to increase this month, maintaining its steady upward trend that began in Spring/Summer 2010.
The only “hedge” against inflation that we are aware of that works consistently over time, in any market, and any economy is real estate. Well bought real estate can stand the scrutiny of analyses, using historic or current data, by investing using borrowed money.
To be clear, the ability of real estate to provide a real hedge against inflation only works if you get a mortgage to acquire the property. If you use your own cash, then this capital will be ravaged by the same inflation, and in a similar manner, as if you had purchased anything else.
Although we argue strenuously that there are other benefits of investing in real estate. However, the greater the proportion of the purchase price that is funded using borrowed money, the greater the inflation-beating benefits to you.
And this is where we come to one of those great benefits of real estate that is easy to miss. Since real estate prices are subject to inflation, by borrowing the purchase price (or a large proportion of it) you can largely beat inflation, and real estate is also about the only asset class against which banks and financial institutions will let you borrow money in the first place. It’s a marriage made in heaven!
With presidential elections coming up next year, and Osama Bin Laden now dead, we’re going to be hearing a lot of political talk about the old Bill Clinton mantra,“It’s the economy, stupid.” So, let’s look at the basics.
“The economy” means jobs. From the high point of the expansion that ended in 2007, to the low point of the recession in early 2010, the economy lost about 9 million jobs. Almost 2 million of those jobs have been recovered and the economy is adding new ones at a rate of 1.5 million a year, but even if this rate improves, that’s only another 2 million before election time, still leaving us down 5 million jobs from where we were.
The culprit, of course, is ourselves. Instead of freely spending money like we did, we’ve been putting it in the bank, an extra $400 billion a year. That equals a lot of jobs, even if some of them are in China. In the long run this is a good thing because we had gone over our eyeballs in debt, but in the short run it means the economy will grow only slowly.
The S&P/Case Shiller Home Price Indices reported Tuesday are, as usual, so far behind the curve that not only did they miss the “double dip” that has come and gone, it will be at least July or August before it reports an apparent upturn in prices in March and April. S&P’s view of the data was dour. “There is very little, if any, good news about housing. Prices continue to weaken, trends in sales and construction are disappointing, ” said S&P’s David Blitzer. “The 20-City Composite is within a hair’s breadth of a double dip.”
There’s just one problem with that. Other price indicators that are not constructed with the Case Shiller’s large built in lag, passed the 2009-2010 low months ago. The FHFA (the Federal Agency that runs Fannie and Freddie) price index showed a low in March 2010 that was broken in June 2010 and never looked back. That index is now 5.6% below the March 2010 low. Zillow.com’s proprietary value model never even bounced. It shows a year over year decline of 8.2% as of February. Zillow’s listing price index shows a low of $200,000 in November 2009, followed by a flat period lasting 6 months. As of March 31, that index stood at $187,500, down 6.25% from the 2009-2010 low for data.
The Case Shiller Indices for February held slightly above the January level (not seasonally adjusted). I follow their 10 City Index due to its longer history. It was at 153.70 in February versus 152.70 in January. These levels are still above the low of 150.44 set in April 2009.
The Case Shiller index showed a recovery in prices in 2009-10 only because of the weird methodology it uses. Read more »
Categories are graded from A thru F:
Economic Growth: C-
Economic growth trends were mixed this month, as several key metrics ticked up while others ticked down. The employment market improved once again as year-over-year employment growth has now been positive for seven consecutive months, and unemployment now stands at its lowest level since March 2009.
In addition, retail sales improved this month, while real GDP for the fourth quarter was revised slightly higher to 3.1%. On the downside, the rate of inflation (both full and core) continues to increase, while the average length of unemployment increased to an all-time high, currently at 39 weeks.
Affordability: D+
Affordability has rarely been better for entry-level buyers, and rarely worse for move-up and move-down buyers, who need to extract equity from their existing home. As such, we continue to grade our overall affordability indicator at a D+. After increasing every quarter from Q1-2009 through Q2-2010, owner equity declined for the second consecutive quarter in Q4-2010; a reflection of the continued downward pressure on home prices.
Mortgage rates remain near historical lows, and home prices have dropped from unrealistic boom levels to entirely sustainable levels, with some markets like Las Vegas well into “over-correction” territory. Our housing-cost-to-income ratio remains low, now at 22.4%, and our JBREC Affordability index stands at a remarkable 0.0, which is the highest possible rating for affordability. The median home price-to-income ratio has declined to 2.8, which is less than the long-term historical norm and near a level conducive to market health.
