I have to go back to work on a number of projects, but… I had to puzzle this out with you all in public. The latest Redfin report on the housing market is… weird. The headline is “mortgage payments hit all time high” as the Fed keeps hiking rates. So the recommendation is for sellers … Read more
A while back, I put up a short little tweet with just pure data, because I found it interesting: Robert Hahn on Twitter: “2022 might come in at 5.12 million existing homes sold (July data, seasonally adjusted). At the end of July, there were 1.58 million REALTOR members of NAR.In 2000, 5.04 million existing homes … Read more
My last post made it pretty apparent that contrary to my expectations, most of the real estate industry remains completely ignorant of what the U.S. government is attempting to do with its latest fight against real estate commissions. I thought maybe 50% of REALTORS were aware of the civil lawsuits and the DOJ/FTC action; most … Read more
Last couple of days, I’ve given presentations and sat on a panel discussion talking about the class action lawsuits against NAR over the issue of commissions. I thought most people knew about these all-important cases that are making their way through the federal courts. Apparently, only about half of the REALTORS had even heard about … Read more
A quick thought today, brought on by a brief Twitter exchange that is otherwise unrelated. It is an economic law that you get more of what you subsidize, and less of what you tax. Human beings are remarkably good at responding to incentives and disincentives. So we subsidize solar power, EVs and corn — voila, … Read more
It appears that Opendoor has preemptively caved in to the Federal Trade Commission, agreeing to a consent order. As is usually the case, the Complaint was filed along with the Consent Order agreement earlier today. I initially thought, “Oh wow, this is bad for Opendoor.” Then I read the Complaint and the Consent Order, and … Read more
From Prof. Anthony Sanders over at Confounded Interest, one of the best housing economics blogs out there, we get this story: Miami, Tampa, Dallas and Phoenix (red states) are growing at over 30% YoY. Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Minneapolis, New York, Portland and Washington DC (blue states) are all growing at over 10% YoY. Cleveland … Read more
I’m working on a number of presentations these days, and a big chunk of them are me playing economist. I am pointedly and proudly not an economist, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night. Actually, no, I can’t remember the last time I stayed at a Holiday Inn of any kind, … Read more
This is just a quick look-see. Thanks to Jay Parsons, an economist with RealPage, I found the RealPage 2022 Market-Rate Apartment Affordability Report. There are some interesting findings in there with the main takeaway being that market-rate (i.e., non-subsidized) rentals are doing just great: But this first-of-its-kind study into one of the largest segments of … Read more