The Real Estate News Brief: No Recession In Sight? Home Prices Peaking? Lot Prices Set New Records

In this Real Estate News Brief for the week ending September 17th, 2022... what the job market says about recession, why home prices might be peaking, and how much lot prices have contributed to high home prices.

Hi, I'm Kathy Fettke and this is Real Estate News for Investors. If you like our podcast, please subscribe and leave us a review.

Economic News

We begin with economic news from this past week. Moody’s chief economist, Mark Zandy, says “we’re not even close” to a recession right now. He spoke at the National Multifamily Housing Council’s fall meeting last week. He says it’s difficult to even think we’re in a recession with such great data on the job market. We’ve got high job creation numbers, a high number of unfilled positions, a high “quits rate” which means that employees feel confident about quitting one job to find another, and a low number of layoffs. (1)

He also says it’s likely that GDP numbers will be revised higher, and the average homeowner has about $185,000 in equity with money in the bank. According to Zandi, the only part of the economy that is unhealthy right now is the federal government’s debt. But he also says the government has a triple-A rating so he isn’t worried about that.

One thing he did warn about is the impact of monetary tightening on the housing market because housing costs are a big part of the Consumer Price Index. He says: “The Fed is telling us, ‘We have to raise interest rates,’ but this is complicating the situation significantly because now many are having a harder time affording to pay rents. This has or will cause ‘demand destruction’ and people will soon have to begin dipping into their bank accounts.”

And we did get some big numbers in the latest report on the CPI. The government says the index was up .1% in August, which isn’t much, but the core rate was up a worrisome .6%. That’s double the increase from July. The Fed considers the core rate a more accurate gauge of inflation because it omits volatile food and energy prices. (2) The annual core rate rose from 5.9% to 6.3% while the overall CPI came down from 8.5% in July to 8.3%.

The Producer Price Index also showed al .1% increase in wholesale prices, but the core rate was only up .2%. That brought the core rate down from 5.8% to 5.6%, and the overall rate from 9.8% to 8.7%. (3) Zandi is predicting that inflation will fall to 4% by the end of next year.

Consumers are feeling more confident about the economy. The University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment survey shows it rose to 59.5 which is a 5-month high, mostly because of lower gas prices. Prices for just about everything else are higher. Consumers are expecting to see a sharp decline in prices over the long term, however. The survey shows they expect to see it drop to 2.8% over the next five years. (4)

The big economic news will come from the central bank in the days ahead. Many economists Fed officials to hike the overnight lending rate by a hefty .75% to fight inflation. But some economists say the Fed may go higher than that, with a rate hike of 1%. The last time the Fed raised rates by that much was in 1982. (5)

Mortgage Rates

Mortgage rates rose above the 6% level last week. Freddie Mac says the average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage was up 13 basis points to 6.02%. The 15-year was up 5 points to 5.21%. (6)

In other news making headlines...

Are Home Prices About to Peak?

We could be getting close to a peak in home price growth. Although prices are still rising, the annual rate of growth fell to 11.7% for the week ending September 10th with a national home price median of $435,000. (7)

Prices have been growing but slowing at a rate of 15 to 16% in July and 13 to 15% in August. The September numbers represent a substantial slowdown.. Realtor.com’s chief economist, Danielle Hale, says: “the rate (of home price growth) took a notable step back this week to the lowest pace since January.”

It’s also the time of year that home price growth typically slows. In fact, Realtor.com says the best time to buy a home is the end of September. Prices are expected to be about $20,000 lower than they were in June.

The latest housing trends also include a 13% drop in new listings, an extra six days on the market, and an average mortgage rate that is now above 6%.

Home Lot Prices Still Heading Skyward

Contributing to high prices for new homes is the cost to purchase buildable lots. The National Association of Home Builders recently issued a report for last year that shows six out of nine census areas hit new records. (8)

The NAHB says the national median is now $55,000 per lot with the most expensive lots in New England. They were almost four times as much as the national median, at $200,000. That’s mostly due to low-density requirements and larger lots for single-family homes.

Lots along the West Coast were the second most expensive with a median of $143,000. Remember, these lots are also smaller than lots in other parts of the country. The Mid-Atlantic had a median of $90,000 and the mountain region had a median of $75,000. The South to South Atlantic and East South Central had the lowest price growth for lots.

Declining lot prices were found in a few places including the West South Central, which includes Texas, and the East North Central areas.

That’s it for today. Check the show notes for links. And please remember to hit the subscribe button, and leave a review!

You can also join RealWealth for free at newsforinvestors.com. In addition to becoming part of our RealWealth family, you get access to in-depth rental market data and real estate professionals who can help get you started as an investor. Just click on the “Join for Free” button at the top of our website.

Thanks for listening. I'm Kathy Fettke.

Links:

1 -https://www.globest.com/2022/09/19/mark-zandi-says-were-not-even-close-to-being-in-a-recession/

2 -https://www.marketwatch.com/story/coming-up-consumer-price-index-for-august-11663070838?mod=economic-report

3 -https://www.marketwatch.com/story/u-s-wholesale-inflation-falls-for-second-month-in-a-row-due-to-cheaper-gas-11663159253?mod=mw_latestnews

4 -https://www.marketwatch.com/story/consumer-sentiment-climbs-to-5-month-high-but-americans-still-worried-about-economy-11663337724?mod=economy-politics

5 -https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/markets/mortgage-rates-09162022

6 -https://www.freddiemac.com/pmms

7 -https://www.realtor.com/news/trends/column-weekly-housing-market-update-notable-turn/

8 -https://www.globest.com/2022/09/15/home-lot-values-approach-those-of-2005-housing-boom/