Rising interest rates are crushing the US housing market: Morning Brief

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Yahoo Finance

Rising interest rates are crushing the US housing market: Morning Brief

Myles Udland · Senior Markets Editor
Tue, July 12, 2022, 6:00 AM

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Tuesday, July 12, 2022

Today's newsletter is by Myles Udland, senior markets editor at Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter @MylesUdland and on LinkedIn.

Rising interest are crushing the U.S. housing market. ... To which readers will likely respond: "Tell me something I don't know."

But as the Federal Reserve remains resolute in its plans to aggressively raise interest rates in an effort to tamp down inflation, the U.S. housing market remains ground zero for where the most acute impacts are being felt.

In a great Twitter thread on Monday, Rick Palacios, Jr., director of research at John Burns Real Estate Consulting, offered some of the highlights from the firm's most recent survey of homebuilders.

The commentary ranges from concerned to apocalyptic. Things have changed that quickly.

Link to tweet

{snip}

[no_hypocrisy]

1. Which is more important:

A) Runaway inflation indefinitely
or
B) Short-term (hopefully) housing market woes. The markets will adjust. (Part of the reason why the price of homes have increased so much was the low interest rates, so it balanced out. You can't have hyper-inflated market prices with higher interest rates except for the buyers flush with money.)

[NoMoreRepugs]

2. Let me think here, housing prices rising 10-20% a year -

I’m a home builder so I’m going to buy all the land I possibly can and build as many homes as possible cuz this is going to last forever.

Yep, another case of “These are the smartest guys in the room? NOT!!”

[stopdiggin]

3. again, tell me something that I didn't know

and as follow-up - isn't this more or less by design? The housing market being pointed to for years - as being out of control and unsustainable?

So - the point is .. ?

[VMA131Marine]

4. People forget that...

Mortgage interest rates peaked at 18% in the early 80’s and were above 10% through the early 90’s. The low rates we’ve been experiencing are the anomaly

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MORTGAGE30US

[Auggie]

5. There's also this: investment groups are buying inventory, often with cash

No way an average homebuyer can compete.

[progree]

6. Median house price was 3x median income in the 80s, it's close to 7x now

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100216658196#post8

Something to keep in mind when someone posts about how tough the boomers had it in the 80's.

Also not many people were paying the sky-high interest rates some people cite. I bought a house in June 1980. About 2/3 of it was financed at 9% (I assumed a mortgage) and the rest at 12%. While that combination (10.0%) is almost double today's rates; like the title says, house prices were less than 1/2 what they are now when expressed in terms of median income.

[WarGamer]

7. What a great DU sub-forum (group)

Here's where all my trader brethren are hanging out!!!

[mahatmakanejeeves]

8. There's a Personal Finance and Investing group too.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=forum&id=1121