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Housing price appreciation slows in June | Amonk Real Estate

Rising mortgage rates and inflation in the wider economy caused housing demand to drop sharply in June, forcing home prices to cool down.

Home prices are still higher than they were a year ago, but the gains slowed at the fastest pace on record in June, according to Black Knight, a mortgage software, data and analytics firm that began tracking this metric in the early 1970s. The annual rate of price appreciation fell two percentage points from 19.3% to 17.3%.

Price gains are still strong because of an imbalance between supply and demand. The housing market has had a severe shortage for years. Strong demand during the coronavirus pandemic exacerbated it.

Even when home prices crashed dramatically during the recession of 2007-09, the strongest single-month slowdown was 1.19 percentage points. Prices are not expected to fall nationally, given a stronger overall housing market, but higher mortgage rates are certainly taking their toll.

The average rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage crossed over 6% in June, according to Mortgage News Daily. It has since dropped back in the lower 5% range, but that is still significantly higher than the 3% range rates were in at the start of this year.

“The slowdown was broad-based among the top 50 markets at the metro level, with some areas experiencing even more pronounced cooling,” said Ben Graboske, president of Black Knight Data & Analytics. “In fact, 25% of major U.S. markets saw growth slow by three percentage points in June, with four decelerating by four or more points in that month alone.”

Still, while this was the sharpest cooling on record nationally, the market would have to see six more months of this kind of deceleration for price growth to return to long-run averages, according to Graboske. He calculates that it takes about five months for interest rate impacts to be fully reflected in home prices.

Markets seeing the sharpest drops are those that previously had the highest prices in the nation. Average home values in San Jose, California, have fallen 5.1% in the last two months, the biggest drop of any of the top markets. That chopped $75,000 off the price.

In Seattle, prices are down 3.8% in the past two months, or a $30,000 reduction. San Francisco, San Diego and Denver round out the top five markets with the biggest price reductions.

The cooling in prices coincides with a sharp jump in the supply of homes for sale, up 22% over the last two months, according to Black Knight. Inventory is still, however, 54% lower than 2017-19 levels.

“With a national shortage of more than 700,000 listings, it would take more than a year of such record increases for inventory levels to fully normalize,” said Graboske.

Price drops will not affect the average homeowner as much as they did during the Great Recession, because homeowners today have considerably more equity. Tight underwriting, and several years of strong price appreciation caused home equity levels to hit record highs.

Despite that, the strong demand in the market recently could present a problem for some. About 10% of mortgaged properties were purchased in the last year, so price drops could cause some borrowers to edge much lower in their equity positions.

cnbc.com

Building material prices up 14% | Armonk Real Estate

The prices of goods used in residential construction ex-energy climbed 1.8% in November (not seasonally adjusted), according to the latest Producer Price Index (PPI) report released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The monthly increase was driven by price increases in nearly every product category.

Building materials prices have increased 14.1% year-to-date, more than tripling the November YTD increase of the prior year (+3.9%) and well above the average YTD increase of 1.5% between 2015 and 2020. The index has climbed 2.5% over the past two months following a 1.5% decline between July and September.

The price index of services inputs to residential construction decreased 0.8% in November, continuing a four-month trend during which the index has declined 10.1%.

Wholesale and retail trade services decreased 1.3% in November which more than offset price increases in transportation and warehousing (+1.0%) and services less trade, transportation, and warehousing (+0.3%). Nonetheless, the price index of services used in residential construction (excluding labor) is 13.5% higher than it was 12 months prior and 22.3% higher and 22.3% than the January 2020 reading.

The PPI for all inputs to residential construction–which is a weighted average of goods and services, increased 0.3% in November–has climbed 17.3% over the past 12 months, and is 22.7% higher than its pre-pandemic level.

Product Detail: Goods

Softwood Lumber

The PPI for softwood lumber (seasonally adjusted) increased 6.9% in November and has gained 16.1% since September. Once again, as was stated in last month’s PPI post, the recent trend of mill prices—which have more than doubled since late August and are up 37% over the past four weeks—suggests that the softwood lumber PPI is headed for another sizable gain in December.

The PPI of most durable goods for a given month is largely based on prices paid for goods shipped, not ordered, in the survey month. This can result in lags relative to cash market prices during periods of long lead times.

Steel Products

Steel mill products prices rose 2.4% in November, the smallest monthly increase since May 2021. The last monthly price decrease in steel mill products occurred in August 2020, and the index has climbed 151.4% in the months since–with more than 80% of that increase taking place in 2021.

Since the inception of the steel mill products PPI, it has doubled over four non-overlapping periods which have averaged 181 months in duration. In other words, over the last 60 years it has taken roughly 15 years for the price of steel mill products to double, on average. Given that context, the recent pace of price increases has been incredible—it took only 11 months for steel prices to double between August 2020 and July 2021.

Ready-Mix Concrete

The PPI for ready-mix concrete (RMC) gained 0.9% in November after increasing 0.1% in October. The index for RMC has risen 8.3% since January 2020 and 6.6% YTD—the largest year-to-date increase in November since 2005.

At the regional level, prices increased in the Northeast (+2.5%%) and Midwest (+4.7%) while prices fell in the South (-0.9%) and West (-1.1%) regions.

Gypsum Products

In November, the PPI for gypsum products declined (-0.2%) for only the second time in 2021. Gypsum products prices have climbed 19.8% over the past 12 months and are up 18.8% in 2021—more than quadruple the largest percentage YTD increase in November since seasonally adjusted data became available in 2012.

Paint

The PPIs for exterior and interior architectural coatings (i.e., paint) increased 1.5% and 0.2%, respectively, in November. Neither index has declined since January 2021.

The YTD price increases of architectural coatings is unprecedented with exterior and interior paint prices climbing 16.7% and 10.9%, respectively, thus far in 2021. In contrast, November YTD price increases averaged just 2.1% for exterior paint and 1.4% for interior paint from 2013 through 2020 (the most recent data available).

Paint prices began a series of large monthly increases in the wake of the winter storm that devastated Texas earlier this year as the petrochemical industry—upon which paint manufacturing is heavily reliant—is highly concentrated in the state.

Other Building Materials

The chart below shows the 12-month and year-to-date price changes of other price indices relevant to the residential construction industry.

With the recent passage of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (a.k.a. the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill), the construction materials index is particularly salient. This index, which has increased 29.1% year-to-date and 40.9% since January 2020, is more heavily weighted with products used in large amounts in the production of “traditional” infrastructure (e.g., roads, bridges, rail).

Product Detail: Services

Building Materials Wholesaling and Retailing

The Producer Price Index for building materials wholesaling decreased 1.4% in November and the building materials retailing PPI declined 1.6%. The wholesale and retail services indices measure changes in the nominal gross margins for goods sold by retailers and wholesalers. Gross profit margins of retailers, in dollar terms, have declined 22.1% since reaching an all-time high in June 2021 but remain 33.4% higher than the January 2020 level.

Building materials wholesale and retail indexes which together account for roughly two-thirds of the PPI for “inputs to residential construction, services.”

Professional Services

Professional services is the third most heavily weighted category in the service inputs to residential construction PPI. The prices of legal, architectural, and engineering services rose 0.3%, 0.3%, and 0.2%, respectively, in November. Although the year-to-date increase in prices of professional services used in residential construction are quite modest compared to that of materials, prices have increased more in 2021 than they had by November 2020; the difference is especially striking for engineering and architectural services.

Although the difference in YTD price changes for legal services is small, the percentage increases are relatively large. This follows with a trend in recent years. Since November 2018, the price of legal services has risen 13.2%–much higher than the three-year increase in architectural (+1.7%) and engineering services (+5.9%).

Metal Treatment Services

Prices of metal treatment services increased 0.7%, on average, in November. The subset of these services used to calculate the services inputs to residential construction includes plating and polishing, coating and allied services, and heat treating. Metal coating and allied services have increased the most— +14.1% (NSA)—since the start of 2021. Metal heat treating and plating and polishing services have increased 5.4% and 2.0%, respectively, year-to-date. The average price increase of the three services averaged 0.1% over the course of 2020.

eyeonhousing.org

How Lumber Prices are Hammering Housing Affordability for Home Owners | Armonk Real Estate

Skyrocketing lumber prices and supply-chain challenges continue to slow home construction, even amid higher demand. Both new home sales and existing home sales have cooled as prospective buyers are priced out of the market.

As appraisals struggle to reflect these ever-rising costs, home owners and builders continue to look for opportunities to minimize the impact these prices are having on the overall cost of the home. But as they strategize, prices are only getting worse.

“I am trying to build my own home — we are general contractors — and the price of lumber has set us back twice,” Michelle Govro from Missouri explains. “My permits are waiting, but in the one month of waiting for permits, the price of our bids in lumber went up substantially.”

“We even redrew house plans and are trying to build a smaller 1,600-square-foot home, and the lumber price is outrageous,” she added.

Others, such as Angela Cross from New York, have been watching the market to try to build their home at a better time only to be met with continued disappointment.

The Cross family began their home-building journey in April 2020, with an initial quote from a contractor in July 2020 once their land had been surveyed. Lumber prices had begun to ramp up, so a final quote was prepared in September 2020. The price of their turnkey home jumped 20% in just those two months.

“That was over our budget at that time,” she notes, “and after discussing it with our contractor, we decided to wait until February 2021, as he was hopeful lumber prices would come down.”

However, lumber prices have continued to rise instead, and what had been a 20% increase in September had become a 38% increase as of April 2021. Like Govro, the Crosses have tried to find every opportunity to cut costs — including reducing the square footage from 1,656 square feet to 1,500 square feet, and exploring alternative construction methods such as modular — as they continue to rent a two-bedroom house with their two daughters. But the costs are still too high.

Even the existing home market isn’t providing any relief.

“The homes are either sold very quickly, or are out of our price range, or need so much work that it is not worth it to us,” she shares. “Especially since we now own our own piece of land and have dreamed of building our home.”

Problem with rising costs and supply chain challenges are only bound to make these issues worse, as they continue to complicate the home building process.

Mark Reifsnyder, a mortgage banker of 22 years in Michigan, observes: “With construction, there is always the likelihood that costs change during the build due to fluctuations in the supply chain in any given year, as well as the customer making costly changes along the way. We plan ahead for that.”

“But when a builder cannot bottom-line a total cost because the costs run out of control due to an endless list of issues, it leads to a lengthier build,” he adds. “The problems just compound themselves.”

Home buyers in the current market need to earmark an additional 20%, beyond their 20% down payment, just to cover ‘what-ifs’ — and in some cases, “that isn’t even enough,” he notes.

“What confuses things even more is one day there is a news story about supply shortages, but the next day there is a story about stocked lumber yards that simply don’t have the manpower to get materials out the door fast enough,” he adds. “Forrest infestations in Canada, resin factories in Texas still offline due to the ice storm five months ago — the lists go on. This only adds to the confusion and frustration for people.”

nahbnow.com

Mortgage rates average 2.73% | Armonk Real Estate

Freddie Mac released the results of its Primary Mortgage Market Survey (PMMS), showing that the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) averaged 2.73 percent.

“It’s a tale of two economies. The services economy remains in the doldrums, but the production side of the economy remains strong,” said Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s Chief Economist. “New COVID-19 cases are receding, which is encouraging and that has led to a rise in Treasury rates. But, the run-up in Treasury rates has not impacted mortgage rates yet, which have held firm.”

Khater continued, “The residential real estate market remains solid given healthy purchase demand while implied real-time home price growth is high, due to the inventory shortage that is plaguing the housing market.”

News Facts

30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 2.73 percent with an average 0.7 point for the week ending February 11, 2021, unchanged from last week. A year ago at this time, the 30-year FRM averaged 3.47 percent.
15-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 2.19 percent with an average 0.6 point, down from last week when it averaged 2.21 percent. A year ago at this time, the 15-year FRM averaged 2.97 percent.
5-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) averaged 2.79 percent with an average 0.2 point, up slightly from last week when it averaged 2.78 percent. A year ago at this time, the 5-year ARM averaged 3.28 percent.

House prices rise at fastest pace since June 2014 | Armonk Real Estate

The S&P/Case-Shiller national index rose a seasonally adjusted 0.7% during the three-month period ending in September, and was up 6.2% compared to the same period a year ago. The 20-city index rose a seasonally adjusted 0.5% for the month and 6.2% for the year.

What happened: Economists had forecast a 0.4% monthly increase, and a 6.2% yearly increase, for the 20-city tracker.

Case-Shiller’s national index regained its previous, bubble-era peak last year — and is 5.9% higher as of September. But the 20-city index, which is skewed toward the metro areas that experienced the biggest booms, is still 1.5% shy of its 2006 high.

Big picture: Home prices have surged in recent years as housing demand stirred to life amid ultra-lean supply. But Case-Shiller’s index, developed as a tool for tracking prices for real estate investors, may not capture the full story of what’s going on in the housing market.

An analysis by Trulia for MarketWatch shows that only 38% of U.S. homes have recovered their pre-recession peak. (That analysis is an update of a Trulia report from last spring, more on which can be found here.)

The two sets of data differ, in part because Case-Shiller’s is an index derived from observing price changes over time for a small subset of homes — and then extrapolating those across the broad market. The index also gives more weight to higher-priced homes, which are of greater interest to investors. In contrast, Trulia has individual price estimates of most of the homes in the U.S.

As Ralph McLaughlin, Trulia’s chief economist, told MarketWatch last spring, price trackers like Case-Shiller are a bit like stock indexes, like the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +1.09% , while data like Trulia’s is akin to the prices of individual equities.

Each method has its purpose, and each relies on assumptions. But using Case-Shiller to tell the story of how individual homeowners or neighborhoods may be faring “distorts the impression of how recovered the U.S. housing market is,” McLaughlin said.

Perhaps more striking is that McLaughlin thinks it will take years before all homes have regained pre-recession peaks. In fact, assuming a linear pace of recovery, that might not come until 2025, he thinks.

In September, Case-Shiller data showed that 16 cities saw annual prices accelerate from last month. Of three cities with monthly price declines, one was Seattle, continuing the trend of tepid monthly performances for one of the frothiest markets of the country.

Strong price gains were also seen in the FHFA’s house price index, released Tuesday. Nationally, prices were up 6.5% from the third quarter of 2016 to the third quarter of 2017.

Metro	Monthly change	12-month change
Atlanta	0.2%	5.4%
Boston	0.4%	7.2%
Charlotte	0.3%	6.2%
Chicago	0.0%	3.9%
Cleveland	0.7%	5.4%
Dallas	0.4%	7.1%
Denver	0.2%	7.2%
Detroit	-0.1%	6.9%
Las Vegas	1.0%	9.0%
Los Angeles	0.4%	6.2%
Miami	0.6%	5.0%
Minneapolis	0.0%	5.4%
New York	0.9%	5.2%
Phoenix	0.6%	6.1%
Portland	0.2%	7.3%
San Diego	0.5%	8.2%
San Francisco	0.5%	7.0%
Seattle	-0.3%	12.9%
Tampa	0.9%	7.2%
Washington	-0.2%	3.1%

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/house-prices-rise-at-fastest-pace-since-june-2014-case-shiller-says-2017-11-28?siteid=bnbh

China’s Real Estate Mirage | Armonk Real Estate

BEIJING — When the Chinese government privatized housing in the 1990s, enriching a vast swath of the urban population, it was hailed as a remarkable achievement of the reform economy. Since then, the housing industry has ballooned into a juggernaut that accounts for 70 percent of the country’s household wealth.

More than just a place to live, private housing in the past two decades came to underpin the aspirations of urban Chinese. Homeownership, especially in cities, proved to be a reliable investment outlet. The skyrocketing values of housing have been providing money for sickness and old age in a country where the state has largely dismantled the welfare system. Real estate profits have allowed parents to finance their children’s education abroad.

But the impressive size and wealth of the propertied class belies the growing strains plaguing new home buyers. The country now has some of the least affordable housing markets in the world. The ratio of median home price to median income, a common measure of affordability, in most first-tier cities has soared to higher than that of London.

To cool the markets, local governments have issued myriad purchasing restrictions, like requiring high down payments and banning the purchase of multiple apartments. The proliferation of red tape, together with the increasingly unaffordable real estate, has become a potent symbol of the thwarted economic hopes and the dwindling social mobility that characterize today’s urban China.

In newspapers and dinner table conversations, stories abound of husbands and wives filing fake divorces to get around stringent real estate purchasing restrictions for families. There are also tales of acrimonious disputes between the parents of divorcing couples when both sets claim ownership of the couple’s apartment because they contributed to the purchase. Recently, more than 10,000 home buyers in Beijing found themselves stuck in financial limbo when the government suddenly increased down payment requirements after they had agreements to buy, leaving them short overnight.

In some cases, the housing challenges affect decisions about having children. After the one-child policy was scrapped in 2015, several mothers with single sons confessed to me their reservation about giving birth again: Adding another son would wreck the family’s finances in the future, they explained, because parents are still expected to provide sons with apartments when they reach marriage age to make them eligible bachelors for potential mates.

Nowhere are home buyers’ struggles better reflected than in the saga surrounding “school-district apartments.” Home ownership guarantees owners access to public schools, and the fierce competition among parents for apartments near highly valued schools has long been considered a culprit of the exorbitant housing prices in prosperous metropolises. In certain areas in Beijing, families are now asked to own homes for at least three years before they can qualify for local schools.

Zillow kickback problem | Armonk Real Estate

Earlier this month, Zillow Group Z, +0.39% , the popular online real estate data provider, reported blowout earnings. Revenue rose 32% compared to a year ago, and online visits were up 18%.

But there was a note of caution in its earnings release. In April, the company said, it had received a notice from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that questioned whether some of Zillow’s advertising revenues violated regulations against kickbacks.

At issue is the question of how a real estate service provider, like a real-estate agent or lender, gets business from a home buyer. Congress passed the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, also known as RESPA, in 1974 to make sure those providers weren’t funneling customers to each other in exchange for kickbacks or other inappropriate rewards.

Real estate market observers say that while Zillow’s broad footprint and accessible data have been a boon for customers, deciding whom to hire for the transaction is often a fraught process that could benefit from more transparency and less of the old handshake-deal approach that has often characterized real estate.

In Zillow’s case, what’s called “co-marketing” works by allowing a real estate agent to share the cost of an ad on the web site with a preferred lender.

This practice makes it seem as though those lenders or agents are receiving a seal of approval from each other or from Zillow itself. Many industry participants see the co-marketing process as little more than advertising that may appear like due diligence to a captive and uninformed customer.

There’s broad recognition among consumer advocates – and the CFPB itself – that would-be home buyers don’t shop for mortgages. It’s hard to spend the time required with more than one lender, and there are concerns about checking credit scores too frequently. And many lenders use confusing jargon that makes it hard for consumers to compare one offer to another.

“People do real estate transactions rarely, a couple times in their lifetime, so it’s not like people can gain experience, and it’s hard to shop around because you don’t know what you’re asking for,” said Andrew Pizor, a staff attorney at the National Consumer Law Center.

“It’s opaque and there’s very little competition,” Pizor continued. “It’s a horrible market. As a consumer advocate I have my doubts about the free market, but this is not a free market in terms of supply and demand and transparency. It just puts consumers even more at risk.”

As Pizor puts it, “you only want people to be making a referral for reasons based on the merits of the product or the service: they’re good and you trust them or they have a product you can’t get elsewhere, not because you’re getting referrals.”

The CFPB’s interest dates back to 2015. The agency has requested information several times since then, with the most recent request, a civil investigative demand, coming in April. “We are continuing to cooperate with the CFPB in connection with their most recent request for information,” Zillow’s earnings report noted. “We continue to believe that our acts and practices are lawful and that our co-marketing program allows lenders and agents to comply with RESPA.”

The next step, Zillow added, could be what’s known as an “enforcement action,” which could include “restitution, civil monetary penalties, injunctive relief or other corrective action. We cannot provide assurance that the CFPB will not ultimately commence a legal action against us in this matter, nor are we able to predict the likely outcome of the investigation into this matter.”

A Zillow spokeswoman declined to answer MarketWatch questions on the scale of the co-marketing program. Company management fielded four analyst questions on the CFPB review on its quarterly earnings call and said little except that “it’s a small portion of overall revenue.”

But the prepared remarks for the earnings release noted that customer leads rose 30% compared to a year ago in the first quarter, and “we continue to expect that growth in contacts sent to Premier Agent advertisers will outpace unique user growth.”

In an emailed statement, the spokeswoman wrote, “Zillow offers myriad ways for consumers to comparison shop for lenders and agents. Rather than offer a few service providers, consumers can browse more than a million reviews for agents and lenders, including published, up-to-the-minute mortgage rates being offered and skill sets of particular agents. Zillow Group’s mission is to give consumers lots of information so they can make good choices when choosing agents and lenders for one of the most important transactions of their lives.”

The CFPB also declined to discuss the matter with MarketWatch.

The agency usually only takes actions like the ones against Zillow when it believes its case is “pretty clear-cut,” Pizor told MarketWatch. “I think the CFPB is being generous. I think the law is pretty clear.”

Still, Pizor said, a ruling from the CFPB would help bring clarity to the market – a step many real estate professionals would welcome. The National Association of Realtors has released best practices materials recommendations and industry lawyers are watching carefully.

The CFPB earlier this year fined Prospect Mortgage, a lender, with failing to comply with RESPA. It also fined two real estate brokers and a mortgage servicer, all of whom it said took kickbacks from Prospect.

To many industry participants, it seems clear that the co-marketing arrangement must be very profitable for Zillow. Why else would a new-media company founded to, as it says in its mission statement, “empower” customers with new ways of shopping for and maintaining a home cling to an outdated way of doing business, rather than trying to disrupt it with a newer, better model?

“Nobody is doing referral fees any more. They were done away with. Marketing service agreements are the next wave of that,” said Brian Faux, CEO of Morty, an online mortgage brokerage.

Faux describes Zillow as a “great web site with a lot of data that’s good for consumers,” including data that helps them understand the cost of owning a home.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/zillow-advertising-under-cfpb-fire-sets-real-estate-industry-on-edge-2017-05-18

Will Airbnb disrupt the housing market? | Armonk Real Estate

Greenwich Ct. Is Worst U.S. Home Market | Armonk Real Estate

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-13/starwood-s-sternlicht-says-greenwich-is-worst-u-s-housing-market

Home Price Index Continued Steady Climb | Armonk Real Estate

Buying Bedford Real Estate

Robert Paul Realtor buying Bedford real estate

Tag Archives: Armonk Homes for Sale

Housing price appreciation slows in June | Amonk Real Estate

Building material prices up 14% | Armonk Real Estate

How Lumber Prices are Hammering Housing Affordability for Home Owners | Armonk Real Estate

Mortgage rates average 2.73% | Armonk Real Estate

House prices rise at fastest pace since June 2014 | Armonk Real Estate

China’s Real Estate Mirage | Armonk Real Estate

Zillow kickback problem | Armonk Real Estate

Will Airbnb disrupt the housing market? | Armonk Real Estate

Greenwich Ct. Is Worst U.S. Home Market | Armonk Real Estate

Home Price Index Continued Steady Climb | Armonk Real Estate