New Home Sales: August 2012

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Best Real Estate “For Sale” Sign Ever

Posted by Jonathan Miller - Wednesday, May 30, 2012, 11:26 AM

Getting to the point in Knoxville, TN.

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[Rising Tide] 2Q 2012 Manhattan Rental Report

Posted by Jonathan Miller - Thursday, July 12, 2012, 4:25 PM

We published our report on the Manhattan rental market for 2Q 2012 this morning.   This is part of an evolving market report series I’ve been writing for Douglas Elliman since 1994.

Key Points

-Rents are at their highest level in two years; the year-over-year pace has accelerated over the past 4 quarters.
-Use of concessions has all but evaporated with only 3.7% of new rentals having some sort of give back from landlords.
-Largest year-over-year rental price gains seen in smaller apartments.
-Tight credit conditions, rising rents and improving regional economy are pushing more tenants into purchase markets.

Here’s an excerpt from the report:

The average rent was $3,778, the highest rent in two years as tight mortgage lending conditions and regional economic gains continued to drive rental prices higher. Median rent was $3,125, the second highest level over the same period. Since landlord concessions were used in only 3.7% of new rental activity with those transactions averaging only 1 month of free rent, the year-over-year gain in median rent with or without concessions was the same at 7.9%. The average year-over-year median rental increase in each quarter of the past year has been 7.6%, indicating there has been no ease in the pace of rental price gains…

You can build your own custom data tables on the Manhattan rental market – now updated with 2Q 12 data. I’ll have the latest charts on the Manhattan rental market uploaded this evening.

Here’s some of the media coverage for the report today.

The Elliman Report: 2Q 2012 Manhattan Rentals [Miller Samuel]
The Elliman Report: 2Q 2012 Manhattan Rentals [Prudential Douglas Elliman]

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ISM Non-Manufacturing Report on Business: August 2012

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[9/11] 11 Years Ago

Posted by Jonathan Miller - Tuesday, September 11, 2012, 9:13 AM

I remember it like it was yesterday.

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PM Linkage: New Parklet Coming to SoMa; America's Cup Woes; Home Bar Envy; More!

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On the Market: Pacific Heights Manse Seeks Victorian Enthusiast and $5.5M

× Like us and you'll find top breaking news in your Facebook newsfeed. Sign up for our daily email newsletter and get top stories and breaking news delivered to your inbox. Wednesday, September 26, 2012, by Sally Kuchar Broker babble tells us that this big abode is "grand and elegant," and we're going to have to agree. So grand and elegant, that we'd feel bad if we wanted to switch out the Louis XVI stool for something a little more modern like an Eames LCW chair. And yes, while we understand that the furnishings are not included in the sale, it's hard to imagine this home without all its glamourous antiques. The 5-bed, 4.5-bath, 5,000 sq. ft. home just landed on the market asking $5,500,000. The original details have been meticulously preserved, but "tasteful updates" have been added. Property highlights include over four fireplaces and a legal inlaw apartment to help with those mortgage payments. The only bummer we can find is that there appears to be no elevator in the 5+ story house.
· 2053 Vallejo [Redfin] 2053 Vallejo Street, San Francisco, CA

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[Stable and Sandy] 1Q 2012 Hamptons/North Fork Sales Report

Posted by Jonathan J. Miller -Thursday, April 26, 2012, 2:36 PM
3 Comments

We published our report on Hamptons/North Fork sales for 1Q 2012 this morning.   I’ve been authoring this report series for Douglas Elliman since 1994.

Here are some takeaways:

Overall housing prices (median sales price up 1.2% ) continued to show stability.The luxury market showed larger year over year increases in the price indicators than the overall market.Number of sales were up nominally from same period last year (0.5%).Listing inventory is down sharply year over year (down 17.5%) – home sellers are more cautious about entering the market (ie sales flat but inventory falling).Properties taking somewhat longer to sell and there is a little more negotiability on price between buyer and seller (days on market and listing discount expanded)Despite strength in prices at high end, we saw an uptick in market share of sub-million sales – the decline in mortgage rates and warm weather brought buyers out sooner.

Here’s an excerpt from the report:

Median sales price edged up 1.2% to $630,000 from $622,500 in the prior year quarter. Average sales price increased 17% to $1,437,597 from $1,228,857 over the same period, largely due to continued strength at the upper end of the market. In the median sales price by quintile analysis, the fifth quintile increased 24.8% yearover- year, while the remainder of the market segments showed modest change and mixed results over the same period…

I’ve got a tool to build custom data tables and view charts on the market.

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Video Game Inspired Housewares

On my latest online shopping discovery, I came across a number of home items inspired by video games and video game design. From soap to a pencil set to baby clothes, here are my favorite video game inspired housewares to show your gamer style at home.

Video Game Controller-Shaped Soap: Probably one of the coolest things I've seen recently, each one of these soap bars has been made to look like a video game controller. My favorite is the very accurate looking PS3 controller. Each soap bar is made with vegan ingredients. These would look pretty awesome inside the bathroom.

Nintendo Print: One of the things we like most about video game inspired design the retro quality. This print of an old school Gameboy is cheerful and a little feminine, which is nice for girls who love games but don't want to make their apartment look masculine.

Video Game Pencil Set: I like to decorate my desk with a set of new pencils in a nice holder or case. It just sets the right "work" mood. This pencil set is engraved with video game "engrish." These are a cute and funny alternative to your classic yellow pencil set.

NES Controller USB: Another fun adaptation of the classic NES controller, this one lets you use one as a USB drive. It's not exactly the most portable USB drive to carry in your pocket, but if you need one that you usually leave at your desk, it could provide for a nice conversation piece.

Mario and Luigi Onesie: Introduce your baby to the world of gaming with these adorable onesies with hand-stitched Mario Brothers hats and moustaches. You can get either Mario, Luigi or a twin set. All materials used to make these are eco-friendly - a definite plus.

The Art of Video Games: Add some retro nerdiness to your coffee table book collection with The Art of Video Games: From Pac-Man to Mass Effect. This book is a testament to the gaming industry's cultural impact and explores how gaming crosses the boundary into culture and art.

(Images: As credited above.)

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Recovery-less Recovery: Unemployment Duration August 2012

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[Three Cents Worth Miami #209] The Miami Vice Of Sales & Price

Posted by Jonathan Miller - Saturday, September 15, 2012, 12:23 PM

It’s time to share my Three Cents Worth (3CW) on Curbed Miami, at the intersection of neighborhood and real estate in the Magic City. And I’m simply here to take measurements.

Read this week’s 3CW column on @CurbedMiami:

…I’ve been on a “rotating gif” tear lately so I took a look at the ebb and flow of Miami sales and price trends since the mid-decade peak and the current market resurgence. I think people get hung up on the idea that prices represent the health of a housing market when they really are a vice. As prices continued to surge during the boom, sales fell sharply and most consumers looked the other way. I contend a recovery is all about sales activity because it leads prices – and Miami is seeing more sales activity these days…

[click to read column]

Curbed NY : Three Cents Worth Archive
Curbed DC : Three Cents Worth Archive
Curbed Miami : Three Cents Worth Archive

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Production Pullback: Industrial Production August 2012

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Existing Home Sales Report: August 2012

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In Miami Housing Market, Cash Really is King

Posted by Jonathan J. Miller -Friday, May 4, 2012, 8:16 AM
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[click to expand]

I wanted to illustrate how little of the Miami housing market today is financed with a mortgage. And despite that, sales activity is trending higher. Counter intuitive but a reflection of its two drivers of demand: investor at the lower end and cash buyers, often foreign, at the upper end.

Any thoughts on the FHA, Conventional financing cross over back in 2Q 2011?

I’m slowly starting to build our Miami chart archive.

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Bits Bucket for September 27, 2012

ft dot com

Markets Insight
September 27, 2012 6:19 pm
Watch house prices, stupid, for US election risk
By Gillian Tett

Two decades ago, James Carville, the Democratic strategist, observed that it is “the economy, stupid” that matters in elections. This year that slogan is packing a particularly powerful punch, given the high unemployment rate and wider economic gloom.

But as politicians hurl mud ahead of the November 6 vote, investors might do well to ponder at what “the economy, stupid” actually means; or, more specifically, how it is being experienced by voters on the ground, rather than in boardroom suites or lobbyist bunkers.

In the financial markets, it is generally assumed that “the economy” is something defined by GDP data; the figures that excite analysts are data on inflation, say, or output and unemployment.

However, if a recent survey from Absolute Strategy Research, an economics research group, is correct, it is not necessarily the GDP figures that matter to voters, nor even just the jobless numbers.

Instead, a crucial – but oft-ignored – factor that shapes how voters feel is that slippery issue of house prices. And judging from the ASR survey, a subtle-but-significant distinction has opened up between how people perceive those housing prices – and the wider economy – which reflects whether people define themselves as Democrats, Republicans, or part of that ever-swelling group of “independents”.

Now this ASR survey, like all polls, needs to be handled with some wariness. The pollsters surveyed just over 1,000 people, spread across the country (a sample size which is quite small, albeit relatively typical for polls). Since this survey has only been conducted for three years, there is a limited back-run of data and it only covers working-age people.

Nevertheless, even allowing for those caveats, the findings are striking.

For one thing, they reinforce a point that I discussed a couple of weeks ago: namely that American households are now deeply entrenched in a “deleveraging” mindset.

Only 49 per cent of households told ASR they have a mortgage (10 percentage points lower than two years ago), and 29 per cent of households are debt-free (10 percentage points higher than two years back). Meanwhile, 70 per cent of households say that the financial crisis changed their attitudes to debt, 32 per cent hope to reduce debt over the next year and another 38 per cent simply do not want to borrow at all.

Little wonder, then, that credit card debt is at a decade low, and mortgage debt is falling too.

And that retrenchment reflects a real sense of pain. ASR found that 35 per cent of consumers “worried a lot” about their personal finance, a fifth of households considered their job situation “very insecure” and half of consumers are so fearful that they do not want to take any risk at all with their investments.

But that fear is not just down to jobless issues or generalised economic gloom. Instead, as David Bowers, head of ASR, says: “It is housing which is key.” Notably, households which had seen their home fall in value were much more downbeat about all aspects of the economy. And this is a significant group: a third of households say the value of their home is worth less than they paid for it, and almost as many are underwater on their mortgages.
…

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[Three Cents Worth NY #195] The Kitchen (Sales and Listings) Sync

Posted by Jonathan Miller - Wednesday, June 13, 2012, 8:02 AM

It’s time to share my Three Cents Worth (3CW) on Curbed NY, at the intersection of neighborhood and real estate in the capitol of the world. And I’m simply here to take measurements.

Read my most recent 3CW post on @CurbedNY:

Coming off of last week’s listing theme and my near obsession with figuring out what is normal these days, I thought I’d compare listing and rental trends over an extended period of time. My in-house rental listing data only goes back to 2002 so I began both series with 2003 to get the year-over-year trend.

[click to expand]

Curbed NY Three Cents Worth Archive
Curbed DC Three Cents Worth Archive
Curbed Miami Three Cents Worth Archive

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Bits Bucket for September 26, 2012

I will reiterate a question I raised yesterday, as perhaps it was buried too deep in the Bits Bucket: Does the Fed really ever need to exit from all the asset purchases it has recently made, or can it simply keep them forever entombed on its balance sheet, similar to the fate of poor Fortunato in The Cask of Amontillado?

What future course of events could or would force a Fexit?

P.S. I was happy to discover language in Plosser’s speech questioning the wisdom in using monetary policy to preferentially support the mortgage market. So far it seems as though MSM writers have missed this point.

Speeches
Economic Outlook and Monetary Policy
Presented by Charles I. Plosser, President and Chief Executive Officer, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia
CFA Society of Philadelphia/The Bond Club of Philadelphia, September 25, 2012

Introduction

Let me welcome you all to the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia and to thank both the CFA Society and the Bond Club for inviting me to speak today. In October of 2006, I gave my first speech as president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia to the CFA Society of Philadelphia. Well, a lot has happened since then, and the world is a different place. So I will use my time with you today to offer my perspective on the current state of the economy and monetary policy.
…
Before continuing, I should note that my views are my own and not necessarily those of the Federal Reserve Board or my colleagues on the FOMC.
…
Monetary Policy

Let me now turn to some thoughts on monetary policy. Even before the actions taken this month, the Fed had put into place an extraordinary amount of accommodation to support the recovery. The Fed has kept the federal funds rate near zero for more than 45 months; it has completed two rounds of asset purchases that more than tripled the size of the Fed’s balance sheet; and it is implementing a maturity extension program, known as “operation twist,” which is lengthening the maturity of our holdings of Treasury securities. These actions have changed the composition of the portfolio from mainly short-term Treasuries before the crisis to mostly longer-term Treasuries and housing-related securities today.

Many of these actions were taken at the height of the financial crisis and during the ensuing deep recession. But the financial crisis has substantially abated and the economy has been healing, if somewhat more slowly than we would like. In fact, if you compare today’s economic and financial conditions to the conditions that prevailed when the FOMC previously took bold actions, you will see that the economy is undoubtedly in a better position.

At its latest meeting in September, the FOMC decided to begin a third round of quantitative easing, commonly known as QE3, with the purchase of additional agency mortgage-backed securities at a pace of $40 billion per month. The FOMC statement indicated that if the outlook for the labor market does not improve substantially, the Fed would make these purchases and more and would employ other policy tools as appropriate until such improvement is achieved within a context of price stability. I interpret “within a context of price stability” to mean so long as the inflation outlook remains near the Committee’s goal of 2 percent. The FOMC statement also said that the Committee expects a highly accommodative stance of monetary policy to remain appropriate for a considerable period after the economic recovery strengthens. It also stated that the Committee currently anticipates that exceptionally low levels for the federal funds rate are likely to be warranted at least through mid-2015.

The Committee’s decision was based on the view that with unemployment far above the level typically seen in normal times and inflation near its goal, increasing the amount of monetary accommodation should help bring unemployment down without jeopardizing our inflation goal. And since the Fed said it expects to keep substantial accommodation in place even after the recovery strengthens, people and businesses should be reassured that the recovery will remain intact, even in the face of future adverse shocks. This should make households and firms comfortable spending more today rather than saving, which should, in turn, spur hiring.

I opposed the Committee’s actions in September because I believe that increasing monetary policy accommodation is neither appropriate nor likely to be effective in the current environment. Every monetary policy action has costs and benefits, and my assessment is that the potential costs and risks associated with these actions outweigh the potential meager benefits.

Given the magnitude and nature of the shocks that hit our economy, one should not be particularly surprised by the slow recovery. Both the housing and the financial sectors suffered large declines, and it will take time for the economy to adjust. While unemployment is expected to remain above FOMC participants’ range of estimates of its longer-run level for some time, it is not at all clear that monetary policy can speed up that transition. In other words, the slow pace of the recovery should not be taken as evidence that the stance of monetary policy is inappropriate or that ever more aggressive accommodation can speed up that pace.

Indeed, many economists expect that further asset purchases by the Fed are unlikely to reduce long-term interest rates by a significant amount; some studies suggest that the effect will be quite small and transitory. Given our current economic situation and my reading of the empirical evidence, I do not believe that lowering interest rates by a few more basis points will spur further growth or higher employment. Business leaders who have talked to me continue to cite uncertainty about fiscal decisions — here and abroad — as the greatest hindrance to hiring and investment. Hopefully these uncertainties will abate over time, but the central bank can do little to alleviate them.

And as far as households are concerned, they continue to try to repair their balance sheets in the wake of substantial losses of housing wealth, as I indicated earlier. They are deleveraging and saving more. It seems unlikely that a small drop in interest rates will overturn the strong desire to save and, instead, induce households to spend more. In fact, driving down interest rates even further may encourage consumers to save even more to make up for lower returns.

Thus, in my view, we are unlikely to see much benefit to growth or to employment from further asset purchases. If I am right, then conveying the idea that such action will have a substantive impact on labor markets and the speed of the recovery risks the Fed’s credibility. This is quite costly: If the public loses confidence in the central bank, our ability to set effective monetary policy in the future will be harmed and households and businesses will feel the consequences.

The recent actions risk the Fed’s credibility in other ways as well. The rationale for the actions leading to increased spending today depends on the Fed’s ability to convince the public that it will conduct policy in a fundamentally different way than it has in the past. People must believe that we will delay raising interest rates compared to when we normally would and, by so doing, make the economy stronger than it otherwise would be. At the same time, people must believe that we will ensure that inflation expectations do not take off and threaten longer-run price stability. Making such a change in the policy regime believable will be very hard to do. If the public doesn’t believe that we will delay raising rates, they won’t bring spending forward and the policy will be ineffective. But if they do believe we will delay raising rates, they may infer that the Fed is willing to tolerate considerably higher inflation. This may spur an increase in inflation expectations, which would require a response from the FOMC, or else risk the credibility of its commitment to keep inflation low and stable. I do not think it prudent to risk that hard-won credibility. The subtlety and complexity of successfully managing expectations in this manner make this quite a risky policy strategy in my view, with little evidence of quantitatively meaningful results for employment.

Continued expansion of the Fed’s balance sheet has other costs as well. By greatly expanding the size of the Fed’s balance sheet, the new asset-purchase program will exacerbate the challenges that the Fed will face when it comes time to exit this period of extraordinary accommodation, risking higher inflation and harm to the Fed’s reputation and credibility. I have been a student of monetary theory and policy for over 30 years. One constant is that central banks tend to find it easier to lower interest rates than to raise them. Moreover, identifying turning points is difficult even in the best of times, so timing the change in the direction of policy is always a challenge. But this time, exit will be even more complicated and risky. With such a large balance sheet, our transition from very accommodative policies to less accommodative policies will involve using tools we have not used before, such as the interest rate on reserves, term deposits, and asset sales. Once the recovery takes off, long rates will begin to rise and banks will begin lending the large volume of excess reserves sitting in their accounts at the Fed. This loan growth can be quite rapid, as was true after the banking crisis in the 1930s, and there is some risk that the Fed will need to withdraw accommodation very aggressively in order to contain inflation. At this point, it is impossible to know whether such asset sales will be disruptive to the market. A rapid tightening of monetary policy may also entail political risks for the Fed. We would likely be selling the longer maturity assets in our portfolio at a loss, meaning that we may be unable to make any remittances to the U.S. Treasury for some years. Yet, if we don’t tighten quickly enough, we could find ourselves far behind the curve in restraining inflation.

While these risks are very hard to quantify, it is clear that the larger the Fed’s portfolio becomes, the higher the risk and the potential costs when it comes time to exit. And based on my economic outlook, that time may come well before mid-2015. In my view, to keep the funds rate at zero that long would risk destabilizing inflation expectations and lead to an unwanted increase in inflation. In fact, some are interpreting the FOMC’s statement that we will keep accommodation in place for a considerable time after the recovery strengthens as an indication that the Fed is focused on trying to lower the unemployment rate and is willing to tolerate higher inflation to do so. This is another risk to the hard-won credibility the institution has built up over many years, which, if lost, will undermine economic stability.

Some of my colleagues on the FOMC have advocated giving quantitative triggers or thresholds for the level of unemployment and inflation to explain the economic conditions that would lead the Fed to consider a change in policy stance. For example, the Fed might indicate that extraordinary accommodation would remain in place if unemployment were above, say, X percent, so long as its outlook for medium-run inflation was not higher than, say, Y percent.

I believe that policy should be state-contingent and systematic, and that the FOMC should strive to explain its policy reaction function — how it expects to change policy as economic conditions change. A Taylor rule is one such reaction function, but research indicates that other simple rules are good guides to policy even when the true model of the economy is uncertain. These rules involve policy responding aggressively to deviations of inflation from its target and also responding to deviations of output from some concept of its potential. In addition, the rules tend to involve some smoothing of the policy rate over time rather than sharp jumps in rates. Using such robust rules as guides to policy is, in my view, the appropriate way to communicate policy guidance. As a result, as many of you know, I have never been an advocate of calendar-date forward guidance. I thought it was a mistake when we implemented that language, and it remains a nettlesome communication problem.

But while the unemployment-inflation thresholds do move away from calendar-date guidance and toward economic conditions, they fall short of a reaction function that I would like to see, since they say nothing about how monetary policy will change after such levels are reached. Will the FOMC tighten quickly? Or slowly? How will the Committee decide? In addition, the unemployment rate is not the only factor to consider in judging the state of labor markets. Indeed, it fell two-tenths of a percentage point in August, yet few think that represented improved labor market conditions. The reduction stemmed from a decrease in the participation rate rather than an increase in employment. In addition, I am not convinced that the inflation trigger would prove to be much of a constraint. While the unemployment trigger is based on the current value, the inflation trigger is based on the outlook for inflation, and if monetary policy is being set appropriately, this outlook should be consistent with price stability. Thus, I believe that using thresholds or triggers could easily put us behind the curve, if we have a tendency to underestimate future inflation.

Finally, I also opposed September’s decision to purchase additional mortgage-backed securities. In general, central banks should refrain from preferential support for one sector or industry over another. Those types of credit-allocation decisions rightfully belong to the fiscal authorities, not the central bank. Engaging in such actions endangers our independence and the effectiveness of monetary policy.
…

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Homebuilder Blues: NAHB/Wells Fargo Home Builder Ratings September 2012

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Best Of: Curbed SF Flickr Pool

× Like us and you'll find top breaking news in your Facebook newsfeed. Sign up for our daily email newsletter and get top stories and breaking news delivered to your inbox. Wednesday, September 26, 2012, by Sally Kuchar

Twice daily Curbed checks in with the Curbed SF Flickr group so that we can feature photography of our city for our AM and PM Linkage. Lately we've noticed an abundance of amazing shots, and we didn't want them to get overlooked by not making it onto the site.

Click any photographer's name to be taken to their flickr page.

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Lawsuit Against Gun Club: Celebration for the Pacific Rod and...

× Like us and you'll find top breaking news in your Facebook newsfeed. Sign up for our daily email newsletter and get top stories and breaking news delivered to your inbox. Wednesday, September 26, 2012, by Alex Bevk

? Back to top

? Previous: Lounging and Reading at Pac Heights' Clay Street Mini Park

? Next: Pacific Heights Manse Seeks Victorian Enthusiast and $5.5M

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[Three Cents Worth NY #188] Manhattan Rent v. Buy v. Location v. Size

Posted by Jonathan J. Miller -Wednesday, May 2, 2012, 1:20 PM
1 Comment

It’s time to share my Three Cents Worth on Curbed NY, at the intersection of neighborhood and real estate in the capitol of the world. And I’m simply here to take measurements.

Read today’s 3CW post on Curbed New York:

Since we are in some sort of rent versus buy gray zone right now, I thought I’d create a “gray” matrix showing the market share differences in location and apartment size based on the buy and rental market in Manhattan. This is not a rent versus buy analysis but rather a comparison between two distinctly different markets…

[click to expand to humungous version]

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[NYT Business Day Live] Luxury Real Estate As Art?

Posted by Jonathan Miller - Saturday, September 1, 2012, 6:00 AM

[click to play]

I enjoyed the interview of James B. Stewart and Alexei Barrionuevo by Louise Story (best last name a reporter could ever have), on the topic of luxury real estate in the New York Times Business Day Live video series. Mr. Stewart (author of Den of Thieves – one of my favorite books of all time) penned “The Market for Real Estate Masterpieces” exploring the idea of high end real estate as art based on Alexei’s high end housing market coverage of the past year, including the $100M listing (including the upset interior designer), the $88M sale and the >$90M contract among others.

Here was my take on the “Art as Real Estate” angle in Mr. Stewart’s column:

“When people refer to their real estate as art, they’re really trying to say it’s unique, that it can’t be replicated.”

He said he’s seen the phenomenon not just in New York, but also Miami, London, Los Angeles and other markets where investors “are looking for safety in a world of turmoil and uncertainty.”

But, he said, “they’re confusing price with art. You’d think that titans of industry would be very individualistic about their acquisitions, but at the very top, there’s a herd mentality. You get one or two very large transactions that grab headlines and then it’s like a light switch goes off. In New York, this happened in the second half of 2010, and since then it’s been very intense. The size of what’s happening is unprecedented. How long can this go on? You see this kind of behavior and you have to wonder.”

New York Times Business Day Live August 31,2012 [New York Times]
Common Sense: The Market for Real Estate Masterpieces [New York Times]
Reaching for $100M [New York Times]
Other Luxury Real Estate articles by Alexei Barrionuevo [New York Times]

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Will Fed's Mortgage Buying Juice the Housing Recovery?

Home prices are stabilizing, and new construction is bouncing back, but apparently the U.S. Federal Reserve isn't buying a bullish housing recovery. 

Its announcement Thursday that it would buy up to $40 billion in agency mortgage-backed securities every month, with no clear finish line, says loud and clear that the Fed thinks housing needs more stimulus. (Read More: Fed Pulls Trigger, to Buy Mortgages in Effort to Lower Rates.)

Mortgage rates are already hovering near record lows, but mortgage applications, especially to purchase a home, have been weak. So many have refinanced already at low rates, and so many more are unable to refinance because of lack of home equity or high fees. 

As for home buying, the real growth in that area this year has been among investors on the low end, largely using all cash.

Supplies of foreclosed properties have been shrinking dramatically, as those investors swarm auctions and bid on bulk deals. (Read More: How Investors Are Skewing Home Price Recovery.)

The hot and still heating rental market offers potentially more rewards than the volatile stock market.

In turn, all that activity on the distressed end is pushing up home prices. While overall foreclosure activity is falling, we could see volumes of bank-owned properties for sale rising over the next few months, as banks look to take advantage of rising demand and prices.

We are already seeing spikes in foreclosures activity in states where these cases had been backed up in the courts.

“Bucking the national trend, deferred foreclosure activity boiled over in several states in August,” said Daren Blomquist, vice president of RealtyTrac. “In judicial states such as Florida, Illinois, New Jersey and New York, this was a continuation of a trend we’ve been seeing for several months now. The increases in Florida and Illinois pushed foreclosure rates in those states to the two highest in the country — supplanting the non-judicial states of Arizona, California, Georgia and Nevada. Previous to August, the nation’s top two state foreclosure rates have been from those four non-judicial states every month since December 2010."

As more of these properties come to market, investors will likely prevail, despite many potential owner occupants looking to get in on good deals. Again, this is because investors have the cash advantage. Even low mortgage rates won't help some potential buyers, because Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are still increasing guarantee fees, which push rates higher. They could, however, mitigate some of the fee hikes.

"For everyday homeowners, QE3 should work to suppress mortgage rates at a time when they're artificially increasing. QE3 will offset the majority of the FHFA's new g-fees, and will help keep FHA loans affordable despite rising mortgage insurance premiums," argued Dan Green of Waterstone Mortgage.

But there is also plenty of uncertainty about the future of mortgage financing, depending on the outcome of the November election, not to mention action the current administration is taking to shrink Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. (Read More: 'Wind Down' of Fannie, Freddie: 'Positive for Housing'?)

"One new wrinkle is the recent announcement that Fannie and Freddie will be required to shrink their own retained MBS portfolios faster than expected," noted Guy Cecala of Inside Mortgage Finance. "This could slightly dilute the impact of the Fed's action since its increased purchases may be offset by less GSE purchases."

To see the low interest rates are not the housing cure-all, one need look no further than weekly mortgage applications numbers, which have been lackluster of late to say the least. The one benefit could be in the refinance segment of the market, especially as there is a new push to broaden the administration's current refinance program for underwater borrowers. More refinances mean more money in consumers' pockets. Unfortunately the Democrat-led effort is unlikely to make its way into reality, given the rising Republican opposition as election day nears.

No question more and more Americans will be turning to the housing market this fall, as home ownership is now cheaper than renting in all of the 100 largest U.S. markets, "by a wide margin," according to a new report from Trulia.com. (Read More: As Housing Recovers, Will Apartment Boom End?)

What remains to be seen is how many potential buyers will be able to take advantage of these low rates, given the still tight lending standards that rule today's market.

—By CNBC's Diana Olick

Questions?  Comments?  document.write("");document.write("RealtyCheck"+"@"+"cnbc.com");document.write('');And follow me on Twitter @Diana_Olick

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Envisioning Employment: Employment Situation August 2012

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[Global Safe Haven] 2Q 2012 Manhattan Sales Report

Posted by Jonathan Miller - Tuesday, July 3, 2012, 11:41 AM

We published our report on Manhattan market sales for 2Q 2012 this morning.   I’ve been writing them for Douglas Elliman since 1994.

Here’s a my take:

Macro (for Context)

-Credit remains historically tight.
-Inventory remains tight – a national phenomenon.
-It has been reported that NYC has regained all jobs lost during the recession – the US has regained only about 40%.
-Foreign buyers continue to create demand at elevated levels – Manhattan seen as a “global safe haven for real estate” during this era of economic instability.
-Manhattan remains one of the best housing markets in the US.

Key Points

-Housing prices continues to remain stable – 2 of 3 indicators show small YOY declines due to strength in entry-level sales.
-Listing inventory fell 13.5% from last year – low inventory will be one of the biggest challenges facing the market over the next year. Although sales continue to be strong, working off excess inventory, low levels are also occurring because some sellers don’t have enough equity to trade up, even if they are not underwater.
-Sales the same as last year but co-ops and condos behaved very differently. Coops up 10.9% (jump in entry-level sales, first time buyers. Condos slipped 11.8% largely due to decline in supply. Condo inventory down 36% in two years.
-3rd consecutive quarter with the market share of entry-level (studio and 1-bedroom) sales above 50% of all Manhattan sales. Sharp drop in mortgage rates and rising rents keeps market share high.
-Luxury market prices continue to bounce up and down each quarter but at a high level, but inventory down 8.2% year over year.
-New development market share holds steady at 16.4% – been in the 14% to 21% range for since late 2009.

Here’s an excerpt from the report:

…For the past several years and through the second quarter, the overall Manhattan housing market has shown price and sales stability, holding its position as one of the better performing housing markets in the US. The combination of mortgage rates declining to record lows and rents rising as a result of tight credit and rising employment has fueled a surge in entry-level buyers over the past nine months. The market share for new development activity has remained consistent, as much of the former shadow inventory created during the recent housing boom has been absorbed. Economic uncertainty abroad and the weak US dollar brought more foreign buyers looking for an investment safe haven, resulting in a higher frequency of high-end “trophy” transactions…

Here are the latest charts on the Manhattan housing market and custom data tables.

Here’s the press coverage for the report today.

The Elliman Report: 2Q 2012 Manhattan Sales [Miller Samuel]
The Elliman Report: 2Q 2012 Manhattan Sales [Prudential Douglas Elliman]

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Extended Unemployment: Initial, Continued and Extended Unemployment Claims September 20 2012

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S&P/Case-Shiller: July 2012

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Bloomberg Manhattan Luxury Housing Market Charts

Posted by Jonathan Miller - Thursday, August 9, 2012, 12:02 AM

A few years ago Bloomberg set indices for the Manhattan Luxury Housing market based on our data seen by their terminal subscribers. Kind of cool.

These charts show the reset when the credit crunch began circa 2007-2009. On a ppsf basis (top chart), the luxury market seems to have begun climbing again at the same trajectory that was seen pre-Lehman bankruptcy.

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On The Margin: Total Unemployment August 2012

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Nove Townhouse Sells at a Discount: It was in July of this...

× Like us and you'll find top breaking news in your Facebook newsfeed. Sign up for our daily email newsletter and get top stories and breaking news delivered to your inbox. Monday, September 24, 2012, by Sally Kuchar

It was in July of this year that one of Noe Valley's Nove townhouses landed on the market asking $1,495,000. The 3-bed, 2.5-bath, 2,190 sq. ft. townhouse in the 9-unit LEED Platinum luxury development is a hot piece of contemporary real estate tail, so it was surprising to learn that it sold late Friday for $1,450,000, or $45,000 under asking. With its sustainability pedigree and location, we assumed it go for well above asking. [Redfin/Curbed SF]

155 Ames Street, San Francisco, cA

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