What I'm Reading Mission Accomplished? With the housing market running white hot for a year, calls are growing for the Federal Reserve to start tapering its $40 billion/month purchase of mortgage-backed securities. Given the current environment - both fixed income and housing - there is a heated debate as to what...
June 23rd – Out of Harm’s Way
What I'm Reading Sticker Shock: Non-transitory inflation could provide some benefit to owners of existing buildings that would help offset more expensive debt. Higher input prices for construction could, in theory, limit supply growth in every real estate sector, even as demand grows, which would help support the recovery in...
June 18th – Pile Up
What I'm Reading Pile Up: SKW Funding and Bain Capital have formed a JV targeting $1.3 billion of acquisitions and loan originations on troubled assets over the next several years. The money targeting distress keeps pouring in despite a lack of actual distress. Consider this yet another reminder that fundraising...
June 16th – Called It
What I'm Reading Called It: About a year ago, there was a lot of handwringing over what would happen to the millions of homeowners in forbearance once accommodations expired. I pointed out (on the old blog) that we wouldn't see any meaningful distressed sales because borrowers were equity rich. Instead,...
June 14th – Churn
What I'm Reading On the Move: Most multifamily management companies set retention goals for the properties that they manage of 50% or higher. However, the majority are falling far short of this goal according to a new manager survey from manager software platform Zego. The most interesting part? C projects,...
May 19th – Center of Gravity
What I'm Reading Center of Gravity: While the Biden tax plan roiled markets over the past few weeks, corporate executives and lobbyists and lobbyists are confident that centrist Democrats in both the Senate and House will ultimately kill almost all of the proposed increases. Politico Burn Out: Mortgage demand has...
May 13th – Running on Empty
What I'm Reading Running on Empty: Construction of entry level homes has been trailing off since the mid-1970s. In the early 1980s, the percentage of new homes constructed below 1,400 sf was roughly 40%. Today it sits below 10%. The combination of low supply and high demand in the space...
April 16th – Backlog
What I'm Reading Backlog: During COVID, many US courts stopped functioning for months before adopting new technologies to move cases through, albeit more slowly than before. At the same time, cases including landlord-tenant disputes, foreclosures, contract disputes, tax appeals, partnership settlements have been piling up. Experts fear that once courts...
April 6th – Take My Money
What I'm Reading Bidding War: Yield-chasing investors are snapping up single family homes, competing with homebuyers and driving up prices. The wave of institutional capital hitting this space is massive and has created an environment where prices are rising much quicker than incomes, prompting JBREC to issue a report concluding...
April 5th – Chugging Along
What I'm Reading Chugging Along: The Zillow-Case Shiller Housing Price Forecast showed a 12% YoY increase in February, up from 11.2% in January, with the authors of the forecast commenting that there appears to be "no end in sight." At some point, I have to imagine that rising mortgage rates...