Market Advice • Real Estate Forecast • April 27, 2021

This Isn’t a Bubble. It’s Simply Lack of Supply.

by Sandi Tampa

It’s a discouraging scene: Bidding wars, soaring prices, and fears that homeownership is becoming out of reach for millions of Americans. We’re in a housing frenzy, driven by a massive shortage of inventory — and no one seems to be happy about it.

Why it matters: Not all bubbles burst. Real estate, in particular, tends to rise in value much more easily than it falls. Besides, says National Association of Realtors chief economist Lawrence Yun, this “is not a bubble. It is simply lack of supply.”

Data: National Association of Realtors; Chart: Axios Visuals

By the numbers: America has a record-low number of homes available for sale — just 1.03 million, according to the latest NAR data. That compares to a peak of more than 4 million at the height of the last housing bubble, in July 2007.

The total number of active listings this week is down a record 54% from the same week a year ago, per Realtor.com. That in turn has helped to drive national prices up 17.2% over last year.
Almost half of homes now sell within one week of being listed, per Redfin.
In Austin, Texas, the median listing price has risen 40% in one year to $520,000.

The big picture: Prices are being driven upwards by a combination of factors, including continued low mortgage rates, a pandemic-era construction slowdown, a desire for more space as people work increasingly from home, and a stock market driven increase in money available for downpayment.

A rise in financial buyers — large corporations buying up homes to rent them out — is only making the market tighter, and decreasing the number of owner-occupied properties available.
What’s missing: Unlike the mid-2000s, this time around there’s no exuberant culture of condo flipping. While interest rates are low, lending standards are still tight, making it hard to buy a house you can’t afford.

The good news is that rents have not been rising nearly as fast as prices. They stayed roughly flat during the pandemic, and are now rising at perhaps a 4% pace, Yun says.

Homebuyers are the biggest losers. In order to win bidding wars, many of them are being forced to make rushed and risky decisions. Successful bids often need to waive any financing contingency or right to inspect the property.

That raises the terrifying prospect of putting down a large downpayment and then not being able to get a mortgage — and/or finding that the house requires hundreds of thousands of dollars in repairs.

The worst-case outcome, says Yun, would be if “rates remain low, demand picks up with new jobs, there’s no increase in supply, and the only thing that moves is home prices, until people get priced out. That would mean we are creating a divided society of haves and have-nots.”

The best-case outcome, on the other hand, would be a construction boom accelerated by President Biden’s infrastructure plan, which would create more supply and help to stop the rise in prices.

The bottom line: Housing prices are likely to remain high and rising for a while yet.

Article written by

Felix Salmon, author of Capital

Video Blogs • April 21, 2021

Weekly Update – April 21st

by Sandi Tampa

Market Advice • April 20, 2021

4 Major Reasons Households in Forbearance Won’t Lose Their Homes to Foreclosure

by Sandi Tampa

There has been a lot of discussion as to what will happen once the 2.3 million households currently in forbearance no longer have the protection of the program. Some assume there could potentially be millions of foreclosures ready to hit the market. However, there are four reasons that won’t happen.

1. Almost 50% Leave Forbearance Already Caught Up on Payments

According to the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA), data through March 28 show that 48.9% of homeowners who have already left the program were current on their mortgage payments when they exited.

26.6% made their monthly payments during their forbearance period
14.7% brought past due payments current
7.6% paid off their loan in full

This doesn’t mean that the over two million still in the plan will exit exactly the same way. It does, however, give us some insight into the possibilities.

2. The Banks Don’t Want the Houses Back

Banks have learned lessons from the crash of 2008. Lending institutions don’t want the headaches of managing foreclosed properties. This time, they’re working with homeowners to help them stay in their homes.

As an example, about 50% of all mortgages are backed by the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA). In 2008, the FHFA offered 208,000 homeowners some form of Home Retention Action, which are options offered to a borrower who has the financial ability to enter a workout option and wants to stay in their home. Home retention options include temporary forbearances, repayment plans, loan modifications, or partial loan deferrals. These helped delinquent borrowers stay in their homes. Over the past year, the FHFA has offered that same protection to over one million homeowners.

Today, almost all lending institutions are working with their borrowers. The report from the MBA reveals that of those homeowners who have left forbearance,

35.5% have worked out a repayment plan with their lender
26.5% were granted a loan deferral where a borrower does not have to pay the lender interest or principal on a loan for an agreed-to period of time
9% were given a loan modification

3. There Is No Political Will to Foreclose on These Households

The government also seems determined not to let individuals or families lose their homes. Bloomberg recently reported:

“Mortgage companies could face penalties if they don’t take steps to prevent a deluge of foreclosures that threatens to hit the housing market later this year, a U.S. regulator said. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) warning is tied to forbearance relief that’s allowed millions of borrowers to delay their mortgage payments due to the pandemic…mortgage servicers should start reaching out to affected homeowners now to advise them on ways they can modify their loans.”

The CFPB is proposing a new set of guidelines to ensure people will be able to retain their homes. Here are the major points in the proposal:

The proposed rule would provide a special pre-foreclosure review period that would generally prohibit servicers from starting foreclosure until after December 31, 2021.
The proposed rule would permit servicers to offer certain streamlined loan modification options to borrowers with COVID-19-related hardships based on the evaluation of an incomplete application.
The proposal rule wants temporary changes to certain required servicer communications to make sure borrowers receive key information about their options at the appropriate time.

A final decision is yet to be made, and some do question whether the CFPB has the power to delay foreclosures. The entire report can be found here: Protections for Borrowers Affected by the COVID-19 Emergency Under the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA), Regulation X.

4. If All Else Fails, Homeowners Will Sell Their Homes Before a Foreclosure

Homeowners have record levels of equity today. According to the latest CoreLogic Home Equity Report, the average equity of mortgaged homes is currently $204,000. In addition, 38% of homes do not have a mortgage, so the level of equity available to today’s homeowners is significant.

Just like the banks, homeowners learned a lesson from the housing crash too.

“In the same way that grandparents and great grandparents were shaped by the Great Depression, much of the public today remembers the 2006 mortgage meltdown and the foreclosures, unemployment, and bank failures it created. No one with any sense wants to repeat that experience…and it may explain why so much real estate equity remains mortgage-free.”

What does that mean to the forbearance situation? According to Black Knight:

“Just one in ten homeowners in forbearance has less than 10% equity in their home, typically the minimum necessary to be able to sell through traditional real estate channels to avoid foreclosure.”

Bottom Line

The reports of massive foreclosures about to come to the market are highly exaggerated. As Ivy Zelman, Chief Executive Officer of Zelman & Associates with roughly 30 years of experience covering housing and housing-related industries, recently proclaimed:

“The likelihood of us having a foreclosure crisis again is about zero percent.”

Video Blogs • April 15, 2021

Weekly Update – April 14th

by Sandi Tampa

Market Advice • April 13, 2021

Eastside Market Update March 2021

by Sandi Tampa

We finally have enough time/data for the stats to accurately reflect our extreme Seller’s Market. Let’s start with the insanely low 0.2 months of inventory, I believe that is a record low and clearly represents the market’s craziness. I usually dismiss the appreciation number, as it’s tricky to measure, but the 30% year-over-year appreciation seems spot on, as I would speculate that we have had 15% to 25% appreciation in 2021 alone.

What does this mean for you? If you are a homeowner thinking of selling, now is the time. If you are a homeowner thinking of a move-up buy, it’s a good time, you just need a smart, strategic plan. If you are a homeowner wanting to keep your home, keep an eye on capital gains. If you are a buyer, stay strong and work with a broker who is dialed-in and a good negotiator. Please contact me if you want to discuss further.