Since our client webinar last January, we have been defending our realism, which was viewed as optimism by most of our clients, whether they are builders, developers, product manufacturers, private equity investors or public markets investors. We called for home prices to fall slightly (we projected a 3% decline in Case Shiller in our 3/11 US Housing Analysis and Forecast report), a tough three years selling homes, and a construction recovery that is exactly the time for patient money (5-10 year money) to invest wisely. Most money is not that patient, so the challenge for each of our clients continues to be when to increase their investments.
One year later, despite almost every statistic showing that housing has been bouncing along the bottom since mid-year, even Shibani Joshi of Fox Business News, a former Morgan Stanley real estate analyst, is calling us optimistic. I hardly view our outlook as optimistic, but I guess when consensus is negative, projected stabilization and a modest recovery is considered optimistic.
Interviews never go as planned, and I still have to figure out how not to have a stone face while staring into a blank camera with a delayed audio feed in one ear, so here are the notes I provided to the producer beforehand. I hope they help you make the right decisions for your business in 2012, and I hope we are right!
Overall Thoughts
- Prices are still falling in the highest priced neighborhoods where listings are still priced at 2004 levels or higher, but prices have generally stabilized where investor activity is high or renters can become homeowners without increasing their monthly payment, which is in many neighborhoods.
- New home construction bottomed in 2011 and we believe it will grow 21% in 2012, which will still make it the 4th lowest year on record.
- Apartment construction bottomed in 2009 and we believe it will grow 30% in 2012 and even faster thereafter as renters are in for a steady dose of rent hikes the next few years.
Hurdles
There are four hurdles: the economy, excess vacancy, distressed home sales and mortgage availability:
- Economy – This goes without saying, but the economy has to grow for housing to recover and our view is that it grows slowly, with a lot of volatility, due to the excess leverage worldwide.
- Vacancy – Construction won’t return to normal until the excess vacancy clears. We have already reduced excess vacancy from 3.2 million to 2.4 million and we are on pace to clear it all out in some markets in 2012, but in most markets in 2014. The faster the economy grows, the faster the vacancy clears out.
- Distressed Home Sales – This is the real wild card and where government policy can make a huge difference. Lawsuits, understaffing and government intervention have kept many foreclosures stuck inside the loan servicing system. If they allow them to come out quickly, housing will take a huge nose dive and everything I said earlier about housing bottoming will be wrong. I don’t think this is the most likely scenario.
- Mortgage Availability – I am betting on continued aggressive credit being provided by FHA and the GSEs that will become slightly more expensive as FHA and the GSEs increase fees, which they should. I am also betting that we will get some more underwriting clarity, which will make it easier to get a mortgage. Right now, the banks don’t know what the putback risk and risk retention rules are, so they are lending more conservatively than they would otherwise.
NAR Revision
The NAR revision is big news to national firms that make investment and policy decisions based on NAR data, which they use because it is free. Local real estate executives have been relying on their local MLS and therefore using the correct data the whole time. We have been reporting this misstatement to our clients since 2007 since we buy the correct data locally.
Case Shiller
Today’s Case Shiller release says “October” but it is really only telling us what was going on in the housing market in July – five months ago! Again, this is a big deal to national players who don’t do their homework, but it is old news to those who work in the industry full-time.
Home Price Trends
We purchase and study a dizzying array of proprietary home price metrics, some of which have very comprehensive sample sizes and others of which are far more timely but have smaller sample sizes. We built our own price measure to summarize it all, and it has been showing us that the typical home in America is declining in value at an annual rate of about 0.2% per month, which isn’t very much.
Timing
If I had to wager on three things going up in the next 5-10 years, it would be 1) home prices, 2) mortgage rates, and 3) rental rates. Things could get more affordable next year, but if you are a qualified, prospective home buyer sitting on the fence waiting for affordability to get even better, at some point you are going to get burned. I would buy now.
Happy New Year,
John
