2 Key Factors that Drive House Prices – Double, Double, Quadruple
A $100,000 mortgage in 1990 at 9.8% interest would have the same real monthly mortgage payment (P&I) as a $400,000 mortgage in 2020 at 3.2% interest.Read more
U.S. House Prices Were Rising Fast Before Covid-19
Going into the Covid Crisis, none of the metros covered by Case-Shiller saw a decline in real, inflation-adjusted house prices. Phoenix saw a 7% real, inflation-adjusted house price increase over the previous 12 months.Read more
Why House Prices Won’t Fall in 2020 Despite the Covid-19 Chaos
Despite the Corona Recession, I think it’s unlikely U.S. house prices will fall, and if they do, it won’t be by much. Adjusted for inflation and interest rates, house prices aren’t high in most cities, and are nothing like in 1990 or 2006.Read more
House Prices Before Covid-19
Phoenix is still the hottest metro covered by Case-Shiller. In real, inflation-adjusted values, house prices in metro Phoenix increased 5% from February 2019 to February 2020. See data for all 20 cities covered by Case-Shiller.Read more
Quick Video Report – Will Mortgage Rates Fall Because of the Coronavirus?
The 30-Year Fixed Rate Mortgage Rate MAY go lower than it did in the past when the Fed Rate was zero.Read more
U.S. House Prices B.C. (Before Corona)
Phoenix is still the hottest metro covered by Case-Shiller. In real, inflation-adjusted values, house prices in Phoenix increased 4% from January 2019 to January 2020. For the USA as a whole, real prices were up 1%.Read more
Phoenix Still Hottest Metro – Seattle & San Francisco Bouncing Back
Phoenix is still hot. Since last June, house prices appreciated faster in metro Phoenix than in any of the other 20 areas covered by the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Home Price Index.Read more
The Shocking Truth About House Prices After You Adjust for Inflation AND Interest Rates
How have 30 years of falling mortgage rates changed the economics of homeownership? The answer shocked me and changed my view of how the real estate market really works.Read more
The Hidden Reason Why House Prices Are Too High (And Income Growth Is Too Low) — Appraisal Creep
Does the typical appraisal protect you from overpaying for a house? If it doesn’t, what would that mean for house prices in general?Read more
No House Price Appreciation In New York, Los Angeles, Chicago Or San Francisco
Real house prices fell in metropolitan San Francisco, Chicago and New York from 12 months earlier.Read more
The Surprising Way Real Estate Agents Are Adapting To “iBuyers” Buying Houses Directly From Sellers
One of the biggest trends in the residential real estate industry in recent years has been the introduction of the so-called “iBuyer” companies that buy houses directly from homeowners and then immediately resell them.Read more
Sen. Kamala Harris Proposes $100 Billion Reverse Redlining Housing Program
Democratic presidential candidate Senator Kamala Harris proposed a $100 billion program for “homebuyers who rent or live in historically red-lined communities.”Read more
3 Ways To Stop The Next Real Estate Crash & Save The Fed $1 Trillion
Did you know that for the same amount of money the Federal Reserve spent on buying mortgage-backed securities from Wall Street banks they could have bought ALL U.S. homes foreclosed on from 2006-2013? For the same cost the Fed could have stopped house prices from crashing and stopped the recession from becoming the worst since the Great Depression.Read more
Zillow Zestimate Accuracy Calculator – 2019
In June 2019, Zillow made a major update to how they calculate Zestimates for houses listed for sale. In addition, they now report the accuracy of the Zestimates for houses “Listed for Sale” separately from houses “Not Listed For Sale.” Check out this post for more details. Here’s a post from 2018 with a discussion…Read more
New Zillow Zestimate Accuracy – 2019
Zillow just updated its Zestimates of house values and using new technology improved the accuracy of its estimates for houses that are listed for sale.Read more
California House Prices Fall (Inflation-Adjusted)
Inflation-adjusted house prices fell in four West Coast metros and Chicago from April 2018 to April 2019.Read more
History Of American Real Estate Bubbles
From land speculation in New York state after the Revolutionary War, to a huge bubble in Chicago in the 1830s, to our 21st century bubble, the United States has always been a nation of real estate speculators…Read more
Real House Prices DOWN In These 5 Cities Over The Last 12 Months
The stock market bounced back from its December lows but house price increases continued to shrink and real, inflation-adjusted prices actually fell (slightly) over the last 12 months in five of the 20 major metro areas covered by Case-Shiller data. That’s what I found when I applied the Consumer Price Index (CPI-U) to the S&P…Read more
New Study Of Old Real Estate Bubbles (1582-1810) Finds Two Surprising Similarities With Modern Bubbles
Amsterdam had three large real estate bubbles from 1582 to 1810. The real estate market was entirely different 200-400 years ago but those Amsterdam bubbles shared at least two similarities with modern real estate bubbles.Read more
50 Years of Failure – The Black Home Ownership Rate and U.S. Affordable Housing Programs
(Parts of earlier versions of this piece appeared on Forbes.com here and here.) You may have seen stories in April about the Fair Housing Act being signed 51 years ago on April 11, 1968. The Act outlawed housing discrimination based on race, color, religion, and national origin. As a real estate numbers geek, I was…Read more