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Today, in the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter: FHFA’s National Mortgage Database: Outstanding Mortgage Rates, LTV and Credit Scores A brief excerpt: Here are some graphs on outstanding mortgages by interest rate, the average mortgage interest rate, borrowers’ credit scores and current loan-to-value (LTV) from the FHFA’s National Mortgage Database through Q4 2024 (just released). Here is some data showing the distribution of interest rates on closed-end, fixed-rate 1-4 family mortgages outstanding at the end of each quarter since Q1 2013 through Q4 2024. There is much more in the article.
2 weeks ago

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More from Calculated Risk

TSA: Airline Travel up 1% YoY

This is something to watch with less international travel. Here are the daily travel numbers from the TSA. This data is as of April 16, 2025. Click on graph for larger image. Air travel is up about 1.3% YoY.

3 hours ago 1 votes
Real Estate Newsletter Articles this Week: Housing Starts at 1.324 million Annual Rate in March

At the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter this week: Click on graph for larger image. Housing and Demographics Housing Starts Decreased to 1.324 million Annual Rate in March Watch Inventory and Why Measures of Existing Home Inventory appear Different 3rd Look at Local Housing Markets in March

23 hours ago 2 votes
Schedule for Week of April 20, 2025

The key reports scheduled for this week are March New and Existing Home sales. ----- Monday, April 21st ----- No major economic releases scheduled. ----- Tuesday, April 22nd ----- 10:00 AM: Richmond Fed Survey of Manufacturing Activity for April. ----- Wednesday, April 23rdh ----- 7:00 AM ET: The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) will release the results for the mortgage purchase applications index. 10:00 AM: New Home Sales for March from the Census Bureau. Architecture Billings Index for March (a leading indicator for commercial real estate). Federal Reserve Beige Book, an informal review by the Federal Reserve Banks of current economic conditions in their Districts. ----- Thursday, April 24th ----- 8:30 AM: The initial weekly unemployment claims report will be released. Initial claims were at 215 thousand last week. Durable Goods Orders for March from the Census Bureau. The consensus is for a 0.8% increase in durable goods orders. Chicago Fed National Activity Index for March. This is a composite index of other data. 10:00 AM: Existing Home Sales for March from the National Association of Realtors (NAR). The consensus is for 4.14 million SAAR, down from 4.26 million. Kansas City Fed manufacturing survey for April. ----- Friday, April 25th ----- 10:00 AM: University of Michigan's Consumer sentiment index (Final for April). The consensus is for a reading of 50.8.

yesterday 2 votes
April 18th COVID Update: COVID Deaths Continue Declining

Note: Mortgage rates are from MortgageNewsDaily.com and are for top tier scenarios. For deaths, I'm currently using 4 weeks ago for "now", since the most recent three weeks will be revised significantly. Note: "Effective May 1, 2024, hospitals are no longer required to report COVID-19 hospital admissions, hospital capacity, or hospital occupancy data."  So, I'm no longer tracking hospitalizations. COVID Metrics  NowWeek AgoGoal Deaths per Week419474≤3501 1my goals to stop weekly posts. 🚩 Increasing number weekly for Deaths. ✅ Goal met. Click on graph for larger image. This graph shows the weekly (columns) number of deaths reported since Jan 2023. Although weekly deaths met the original goal to stop posting in June 2023 (low of 314 deaths), I've continued to post since deaths are above the goal again - and I'll continue to post until weekly deaths are once again below the goal. Weekly deaths are now decreasing following the winter pickup and just under double the low of last June. And here is a graph I'm following concerning COVID in wastewater as of April 17th: This appears to be a leading indicator for COVID hospitalizations and deaths.  This has been moving down. Nationally COVID in wastewater is "Low".

2 days ago 3 votes
Housing and Demographics

Today, in the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter: Housing and Demographics A brief excerpt: I’ll return to the above graph and discuss some of the implications for the next decade, but first, here is a similar graph for July 2010. The arrow points to the large cohort moving into the key renter age group in 2010. It was fifteen years ago that we started discussing the turnaround for apartments. Then, in January 2011, I attended the NMHC Apartment Strategies Conference in Palm Springs, and the atmosphere was very positive. The drivers were 1) very low new supply, and 2) strong demand (favorable demographics, and people moving from owning to renting). ... What are the implications for the next decade?

2 days ago 3 votes

More in finance

A stupid decision to sell my rental property

I sold my rental property last year, after owning it over 20 years. It’s a lovely property, worth around £1m, right in the heart of London – near the middle of the map below. I used to live in it, I travel past it regularly, I know its neighbourhood well. The Modern Flat has genuinely… Continue reading A stupid decision to sell my rental property →

8 hours ago 3 votes
Real Estate Newsletter Articles this Week: Housing Starts at 1.324 million Annual Rate in March

At the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter this week: Click on graph for larger image. Housing and Demographics Housing Starts Decreased to 1.324 million Annual Rate in March Watch Inventory and Why Measures of Existing Home Inventory appear Different 3rd Look at Local Housing Markets in March

23 hours ago 2 votes
Longreads + Open Thread

Moon, Welch, Robinhood, Heterodoxy, Bots, Liquidity, Trade, Google

yesterday 2 votes
Schedule for Week of April 20, 2025

The key reports scheduled for this week are March New and Existing Home sales. ----- Monday, April 21st ----- No major economic releases scheduled. ----- Tuesday, April 22nd ----- 10:00 AM: Richmond Fed Survey of Manufacturing Activity for April. ----- Wednesday, April 23rdh ----- 7:00 AM ET: The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) will release the results for the mortgage purchase applications index. 10:00 AM: New Home Sales for March from the Census Bureau. Architecture Billings Index for March (a leading indicator for commercial real estate). Federal Reserve Beige Book, an informal review by the Federal Reserve Banks of current economic conditions in their Districts. ----- Thursday, April 24th ----- 8:30 AM: The initial weekly unemployment claims report will be released. Initial claims were at 215 thousand last week. Durable Goods Orders for March from the Census Bureau. The consensus is for a 0.8% increase in durable goods orders. Chicago Fed National Activity Index for March. This is a composite index of other data. 10:00 AM: Existing Home Sales for March from the National Association of Realtors (NAR). The consensus is for 4.14 million SAAR, down from 4.26 million. Kansas City Fed manufacturing survey for April. ----- Friday, April 25th ----- 10:00 AM: University of Michigan's Consumer sentiment index (Final for April). The consensus is for a reading of 50.8.

yesterday 2 votes
The Family Home: From Shelter to Asset to Liability

The deflation of asset bubbles and higher costs are foreseeable, but the magnitude of each is unpredictable. With the rise of financialized asset bubbles as the source of our "growth," family home went from shelter to speculative asset. This transition accelerated as financialization (turning everything into a financial commodity to be leveraged and sold globally for a quick profit) spread into the once-staid housing sector in the early 2000s. (See chart of housing bubbles #1 and #2 below). Where buying a home once meant putting down roots and insuring a stable cost of shelter, housing became a speculative asset to be snapped up and sold as prices soared. The short-term vacation rental (STVR) boom added fuel to the speculative fire over the past decade as huge profits could be generated by assembling an STVR mini-empire of single-family homes that were now rented to tourists. Now that housing has become unaffordable to the majority and the costs of ownership are stair-stepping higher, housing has become a liability. I covered the increases in costs of ownership in The Cost of Owning a Home Is Soaring 11/11/24). Articles like this one are increasingly common: 'I feel trapped': how home ownership has become a nightmare for many Americans: Scores in the US say they're grappling with raised mortgage and loan interest rates and exploding insurance premiums. The sums of money now required to own, insure and maintain a house are eye-watering. Annual home insurance for many is now a five-figure sum; property taxes in many states is also a five-figure sum. As for maintenance, as I discussed in This Nails It: The Doom Loop of Housing Construction Quality, the decline in quality of housing and the rising costs of repair make buying a house a potentially unaffordable venture should repairs costing tens of thousands of dollars become necessary. Major repairs can now cost what previous generations paid for an entire house, and no, this isn't just inflation; it's the result of the decline of quality across the board and the gutting of labor skills to cut costs. Here's the Case-Shiller Index of national housing prices. Housing Bubble #2 far exceeds the extremes of unaffordability reached in Housing Bubble #1: Here's a snapshot of housing affordability: buying a house is now an unattainable luxury for those without top 20% incomes and help from parents. The monthly payments as a percentage of income are at historic highs: Property taxes are rising in many locales as valuations bubble higher and local governments seek sources of stable revenues: Home insurance costs vary widely, but all are skewing to the upside. As I often note, the insurance industry is not a charity, and to maintain profits as payouts for losses explode higher, rates have to climb for everyone--and more for those in regions that are now viewed as high-risk due to massive losses in fires, hurricanes, wind storms, flooding, etc. All credit-asset bubbles pop, and that inevitable deflation of home valuations will take away the speculative punchbowl. What's left are the costs of ownership. As these rise, they offset the rich capital gains that home owners have been counting on for decades to make ownership a worthwhile, low-risk investment. The deflation of asset bubbles and higher costs are foreseeable, but the magnitude of each is unpredictable. The ideas that have taken hold in the 21st century--that owning a house is a wellspring of future wealth, and everything is now a throwaway destined for the landfill--are based on faulty assumptions, assumptions that have set a banquet of consequences few will find palatable. My recent books: Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases originated via links to Amazon products on this site. The Mythology of Progress, Anti-Progress and a Mythology for the 21st Century print $18, (Kindle $8.95, Hardcover $24 (215 pages, 2024) Read the Introduction and first chapter for free (PDF) Self-Reliance in the 21st Century print $18, (Kindle $8.95, audiobook $13.08 (96 pages, 2022) Read the first chapter for free (PDF) The Asian Heroine Who Seduced Me (Novel) print $10.95, Kindle $6.95 Read an excerpt for free (PDF) When You Can't Go On: Burnout, Reckoning and Renewal $18 print, $8.95 Kindle ebook; audiobook Read the first section for free (PDF) Global Crisis, National Renewal: A (Revolutionary) Grand Strategy for the United States (Kindle $9.95, print $24, audiobook) Read Chapter One for free (PDF). A Hacker's Teleology: Sharing the Wealth of Our Shrinking Planet (Kindle $8.95, print $20, audiobook $17.46) Read the first section for free (PDF). Will You Be Richer or Poorer?: Profit, Power, and AI in a Traumatized World (Kindle $5, print $10, audiobook) Read the first section for free (PDF). The Adventures of the Consulting Philosopher: The Disappearance of Drake (Novel) $4.95 Kindle, $10.95 print); read the first chapters for free (PDF) Money and Work Unchained $6.95 Kindle, $15 print) Read the first section for free Become a $3/month patron of my work via patreon.com. Subscribe to my Substack for free NOTE: Contributions/subscriptions are acknowledged in the order received. Your name and email remain confidential and will not be given to any other individual, company or agency. Thank you, Roger H. ($70), for your splendidly generous subscription to this site -- I am greatly honored by your steadfast support and readership.   Thank you, Jackson T. ($7/month), for your marvelously generous subscription to this site -- I am greatly honored by your support and readership. Thank you, John K. 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2 days ago 3 votes