New Geography

Category: housing

  • A Housing Boom, but for Whom?

    By Susanne Trimbath and Juan Montoya

    We just passed an era when the “American Dream” of home ownership was diminished as the growth of home prices outpaced income. From 2001 through 2006, home prices grew at an annual average of 6.85%, more than three times the growth rate for income.

    This divergence between income and housing costs has turned out to be a disaster, particularly for buyers at the lower end of the spectrum. In contrast, affluent buyers – those making over $120,000 – the bubble may still have been a boom, even if not quite as large as many had hoped for.

    For middle and working class people, the pressure on affordability was offset by historically low mortgage interest rates which fell from over 11 percent around the time of the 1987 Stock Market Crash to 6 percent in 2002. Yet if stable interest rates were beneficial to overall affordability, the artificially low interest rates promoted by the Federal Reserve may have created instability. By allowing people to increase their purchasing power to an extraordinary level, low mortgage interest rates fueled a rapid escalation in housing prices.

    Now that prices are falling quicker than incomes, there should be a surge in new buyers. Since 1975, whenever the ratio of mortgage payments to income falls, home sales usually rise. The correlation coefficient indicates that for every 1% improvement in affordability there is a 2% increase in home sales. But now, something is wrong. In 2007, for every 1% improvement in affordability, home sales fell by 2%.

    Part of the problem is that prices still are simply too high. Even as recently as August 2008, the median home price was still historically high in comparison to median income – about 4 times. It takes lower rates than in the past for a family with the median income to afford the median priced house. This means that homes are less affordable today than they were 6 years ago.

    The last time that home sales fell as they became more affordable was in the 1990s at a time known as a “credit crunch.” At that time, the ratio of home prices to income was actually lower – 3.8 times in September 1990 compared to 4.3 in September 2008. The difference was that between 1990 and 1992 mortgage interest rates averaged a hefty 9.26%. In the last 3 years, the average was 6.14% and while the words “credit crisis” bled in headlines around the world, the regular mortgage interest rate barely budged.

    What we are clearly witnessing is a fundamental slow-down in the gains towards homeownership. Of course, most of the gains in homeownership in the US were made in the 20 years after World War II: owner-occupied housing went from 43% in 1940 to 62% in 1960. In the 40 years that followed ownership crept up a bit, from 62% to 68%.

    Boom, yes. But for Whom?

    One disturbing aspect of this slow-down has been its effects by class. Overall, ownership has gained only among households making $120,000 or more; for all other groups the ratio of owners to renters is lower today than it was in 1999. (About 80% of American households have income less than $100,000 per year. For Hispanics and African Americans, the number is closer to 90%.)

    There have been some exceptions, particularly among minorities targeted by national policy: expanding home ownership opportunities for minorities was a fundamental aim of President Bush’s housing policy. In the early years of this decade Hispanics enjoyed a net 2.6 percentage point gain in home ownership. In the next four years, while most Americans were seeing a decrease in home ownership, the Hispanic population continued to see gains. Although African Americans initially gained more than Whites in home ownership, they gave back more of those gains in the housing collapse

    The great irony is that exactly those programs aimed at improving affordability may have been responsible for this recent decline. We first wrote about Housing Affordability in 2002. One of our concerns then proved to be true: buyers would focus on “can I afford this home” instead of “what is this home worth.” Although there were some gains in overall home ownership rates in the US during the early part of the boom, about 40 percent of that was given back during the last four years as home prices surged out of reach.

     

    Rate

    Change in Rate

    Location

    2008 Q2

    1999-2004

    2004-2008

    1999 – 2008

    US

    68.1

    2.2

    -0.9

    1.3

    Northeast

    65.3

    1.9

    0.3

    2.2

    Midwest

    71.7

    2.1

    -2.1

    0.0

    South

    70.2

    1.8

    -0.7

    1.1

    West

    63.0

    3.3

    -1.2

    2.1

    City

    53.4

    2.7

    0.3

    3.0

    Suburb

    75.5

    2.1

    -0.2

    1.9

    Non-metro*

    74.9

    0.9

    -1.4

    -0.5

    White

    75.2

    2.8

    -0.8

    2.0

    Black

    48.4

    3.0

    -1.3

    1.7

    Other**

    60.2

    5.5

    0.6

    6.1

    Multi

    56.4

    NA

    -4.0

    NA

    Hispanic

    49.6

    2.6

    1.5

    4.1

    Table based on historical data from US Housing Market Conditions, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Policy Development and Research,
    *Non-metro includes all areas outside metropolitan statistical areas (non-urban). Note from Census.gov: For Census 2000, the Census Bureau classifies as “urban” all territory, population, and housing units located within an urbanized area (UA) or an urban cluster (UC). It delineates UA and UC boundaries to encompass densely settled territory, which consists of: core census block groups or blocks that have a population density of at least 1,000 people per square mile and surrounding census blocks that have an overall density of at least 500 people per square mile.
    **”Other” includes “Asian”, which reports household incomes about 20% to 30% higher than the Racial/Ethnic category “All” regardless of income level category.

    The areas with the biggest losses in home ownership rates in the 2004-2008 period were outside the cities, particularly in the Midwest which encompasses Missouri, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Minnesota and the Dakotas (west north central) plus Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Ohio (east north central). Of the geographic segments, non-metropolitan Americans gained the least in home ownership in the 1999-2004 housing boom; and only the Midwest geographic segment gave back more.

    What about the future? The Obama-Biden Agenda Plan on Urban Policy mentions housing nine times, including a headline on “Housing” with plans for making the mortgage interest tax deduction available to all homeowners (it currently requires itemization) and an increase in the supply of affordable housing throughout Metropolitan Regions. The former should help middle-class households; the latter will help lower-income households. This is not a continuation of the Bush Administration policy which relied on stimulating the demand for housing by providing mechanisms to bring households into the market. The data shows that low income households barely kept even on ownership (versus renting) under this policy, middle-class households suffered tremendous losses and only the wealthy, those making more than $120,000 in income, had a gain in home ownership.

    The last President ignored our advice in 2002: “A more balanced effort to stimulate supply would equilibrate the potential adverse affect on prices” from over stimulating demand. Let’s hope this new President gets the balance right.

    Dr. Trimbath is a former manager of depository trust and clearing corporations in San Francisco and New York. She is co-author of Beyond Junk Bonds: Expanding High Yield Markets (Oxford University Press, 2003), a review of the post-Drexel world of non-investment grade bond markets. Dr. Trimbath is also co-editor of and a contributor to The Savings and Loan Crisis: Lessons from a Regulatory Failure (Kluwer Academic Press, 2004)

    Mr. Montoya obtained his MBA from Babson College (Wellesley, MA) and is a former research analyst at the Milken Institute (Santa Monica, CA) where he coauthored Housing Affordability in Three Dimensions with Dr. Trimbath. He currently works in the foodservice industry.

  • The Housing Bubble and the Boomer Generation

    Much of the commentary on the current economic crisis has focused on symptoms. Sub-prime mortgages, credit default swaps and the loosening of financial regulations are not the root cause of the financial crisis. They are symptoms of what has recently become a surprisingly widespread belief that individuals, families and even entire nations could live indefinitely beyond their means.

    The crisis has reminded everyone that, in the end, market fundamentals like supply and demand still matter and that ignoring traditional virtues like thrift and long-term planning can lead to grief. But what does this have to do with boomers?

    Ultimately, this economic crisis shines some light on some of the most important yet unresolved and paradoxical aspects of American culture as it developed in the wake of the economic, social and political upheavals of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

    Children coming of age in the 1950s and 1960s were born into families that, on average, enjoyed the greatest material prosperity and the best housing the world had ever known. The security offered by an enormously expanded and comfortable middle class allowed these children to crusade on behalf of various causes. Those who called themselves “progressive” pushed to expand individual civil rights, sometimes at the expense of what others perceived as community rights or duties, but at the same time they were often deeply suspicious of capitalism and markets and for this reason pushed to restrict the rights of private property owners in order to expand on their own notions of community rights.

    The result was, on the one hand, a massive effort to empower racial and ethnic minorities, women, gay people and many others. This aspect of the revolutions of the 1960s era has always been highly controversial, with conservatives fighting the “reforms” every step of the way. On the other hand, starting about 1970, there was an explosion in regulations on the use of land including tighter zoning and building codes, regulations governing environmental matters, historic preservation and land conservation, growth and building caps and growth management schemes. It became harder to build at the urban edge because of the environmental rules and efforts to limit “sprawl.” It also became harder to build at the center because of substantial down-zoning and other regulations to “preserve neighborhood character,” particularly in affluent neighborhoods. This aspect of the 1960s progressive agenda has led to grumbling about NIMBYism but has otherwise generated surprisingly little negative commentary.

    Nevertheless, this movement has created one of the most paradoxical legacies of the 1960s as programs justified in the language and logic of “rights,” have turned into bulwarks for the status quo and a mechanism to transfer wealth from younger families of modest income to more affluent older families.

    In the 1950s and 1960s developers in America built a huge amount of housing, primarily on cheap land at the suburban edge of almost every city in the country. This housing was remarkably inexpensive and, together with liberal financing terms, allowed millions of Americans to enter into the ranks of home ownership and the middle class. It provided the underpinnings for the enormous wealth of the boomer generation.

    Starting in the 1970s, though, particularly in some of the most desirable markets in the country, the same people who most benefited from the developments of the early postwar years turned against those development practices. They advocated regulations for many things that most people, then as now, would agree were desirable – conserving scenic areas and wetlands, protecting coastlines and animal habitats and preserving open space, historic buildings and neighborhood character.

    Yet the net effect of all of these regulations was to limit severely the supply of land for urban uses. Even more important, existing homeowners, what I have elsewhere called the “Incumbents’ Club,” created a political system that allowed them to dictate how much growth and what kind of growth would be permitted in their cities.

    This shift of decision-making about development from private developers and individual property owners to public planning bodies, almost always controlled by homeowners, was hailed by many observers as a triumph of democratic process. The community rather than the developers, so this line of thinking went, would henceforth dictate the growth of the community. The problem with this equation was that it failed to consider who was speaking for the community and whose voices were not heard or to calculate the costs and benefits of these policies.

    For existing homeowners in affluent communities like Boulder Colorado, or Nantucket Island or San Francisco, this regulatory rush turned existing land ownership into pure gold. By limiting the supply of land for development and driving up the costs of development where the land was available, it pushed up the perceived value of all houses, including their own.

    Take the case of the Bay Area, where land prices were on par with urban areas elsewhere in the country up until 1970. Then, as the area pioneered in land use regulations of every kind, house prices started a steep climb. Where the rule of thumb had long been that the average American family in any given urban market would expect to pay about three times its annual salary for an average house, by the early years of the 21st century it had reached the point where that average house in the Bay Area would be the equivalent of ten, eleven or even twelve years of the average family’s income. At the same time, however, in lightly regulated urban areas, even extremely dynamic ones like those of Atlanta, Houston or Phoenix, house prices registered no comparable rise against incomes.

    Nor was this all. There was at the same time an increasing movement around the country to push the cost of what had been considered public goods, like new roads, street lights, sidewalks and sewers, even parks and schools, onto the developers who then passed these costs on to the eventual buyers. As a result, existing owners who enjoyed infrastructure paid for by previous generations no longer had to pay for the infrastructure of their children’s and grandchildren’s generation.

    Finally, this elaborate edifice of protection of the interests of existing landowners was capped by a series of tax revolts starting in the 1970s, particularly Proposition 13 in California. This made it possible for members of the incumbent’s club to enjoy the benefits of rapidly escalating house prices without paying a corresponding share of the property taxes that financed most municipal services.

    These land use regulations and real estate tax policies have made possible, at least in certain highly regulated markets, one of the greatest transfers of wealth in American history. The primary beneficiaries have been existing landowners including a very large percentage of affluent boomers. The ones who have paid have been less affluent renters, younger people and all future generations of prospective homeowners.

    The existing homeowner in the Bay Area could watch the value of his house soar from a few hundred thousand dollars up into the millions without lifting a finger. Meanwhile the dramatic rise in land prices, because it has not been accompanied by a corresponding increase in salaries, has devastated the prospects of young couples, many of whom were forced to either leave the area or obliged to take on huge mortgage debt just to afford an entry level house. These same people are now bearing the brunt of the steep decline in housing prices and the wave of foreclosures washing over the country.

    One of the most remarkable things about this enormous transfer of wealth has been how little most people were aware that it was happening or what caused it. A few people – notably Bernard J. Frieden in his book The Environmental Hustle from 1979 – had sounded the alarm. More recently Wendell Cox and Hugh Pavletich at Demographia.com have made a similar case using substantial data from cities in the English speaking world. Although all of these observers have been dismissed as free market enthusiasts, more mainstream commentators – like Edward Glaeser of Harvard and Joseph Gyourko of the University of Pennsylvania – have embraced this theme. Even the noted liberal economist Paul Krugman has joined the chorus, comparing the moderate land prices in the “flatlands,” meaning lightly regulated places like Texas, with the extremely high prices in the “zoned zone” or places like heavily regulated coastal California.

    This leads us to the great challenge we face now keeping families in their homes. The sad truth is that in areas where housing prices have vastly outstripped incomes there may no easy way to do this. In many markets either housing prices will need to fall quite a bit further or income will have to rise substantially, and there is little likelihood – particularly with this weak economy – of the latter happening any time in the near future.

    One good thing that might come out of the current crisis, though, is a recognition that regulations, however well-intentioned, can come at a price, sometimes a high one, for some parts of society. I doubt very much that the boomer generation ever intended to create the current housing bubble or enrich itself at the expense of less affluent families and generations to come. This was the unanticipated consequence of a genuine desire to create a better life for everyone by individuals who, probably inevitably, defined the good life as the kind of life they themselves wanted. In many ways they succeeded all too well. We can only hope this downturn will at least open up a new chapter in the discussion of the bittersweet story of a generation that set out to remake the world.

    Robert Bruegmann is a professor of Art History, Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His most recent book, Sprawl: A Compact History, published by the University of Chicago Press in 2005, has generated a great deal of discussion worldwide.

  • California’s Inland Empire: Is There Hope in the Heart of Darkness?

    Few areas in America have experienced a more dramatic change in fortunes as extreme as Southern California’s Inland Empire. From 1990-2008, the Inland Empire (Riverside & San Bernardino counties) has been California’s strongest job generator creating 20.1% of its employment growth. The area also consistently ranked among the nation’s fastest growing large metropolitan areas. However in 2008, the mortgage debacle has sent this area, which had not seen year-over-year job losses in over four decades, into a steep downturn. Understanding what happened and how to put the region back on its historical growth path offers an important public policy perspective not only for the Inland Empire but for other once fast-growing metropolitan areas.

    The Economic Problem. The California Employment Development Department (EDD) reported an Inland Empire loss of 17,900 jobs from August 2007-2008. The bulk of this was directly tied to the housing meltdown. Within shrinking sectors, the loss was 32,600 with 82% (26,800) tied to the demise of residential construction. This included construction losses (-16,000); non-vehicle manufacturing (mostly building materials: -5,600), non-vehicle retail sectors (mostly furniture or home supplies: -3,200); and financial groups like escrow, title, insurance and real estate (-2,000). By September 2008, unemployment was 9.1%, the highest in 49 metropolitan areas with over 1,000,000 people.’


    Note: EDD’s report is an underestimate as more accurate U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data show the area began 2008 with job losses 61.7% higher than EDD’s estimates.

    Housing Market Creates A Recession. Some history is necessary to understand how the housing sector got into trouble and set off the inland recession. The last housing downturn ended in 1996. Analysts agree that from 1997-2003, California’s many building restrictions prevented housing supply from matching demand by families needing homes. Prices rose to chase away excess potential buyers:

    • Seasonally adjusted homes sales rose from 13,227 quarterly units in early 1997 to 25,328 by late 2003, an annual rate of 10.1%.

    • In this period, median price increased from $105,643 to $246,807, an annual rate of 12.9%.

    Starting in 2004, speculators began wanting to capitalize on these 12.9% gains by buying and flipping homes. Simultaneously, foreigners awash in dollars from U.S. trade imbalances started flooding investment markets with cash looking for “safe” returns. A belief that home prices never fall led to the development of variable rate mortgages with extremely low “teaser” rates and loose underwriting standards, plus AAA rated mortgage backed securities based on them. The low rates financed the speculators and convinced many families to buy over-priced homes or borrow newly found “equity.” Thus:

    • Median home prices increased even more aggressively from $246,807 in late 2003 to a $404,611 peak in third quarter 2006, up at a 19.7% compound rate.

    • Seasonally adjusted sales increased from 25,328 in late 2003 to a peak of 29,670 in fourth quarter 2005, up a modest 2.29% compound rate.

    • However, by first quarter 2006, volume began declining as affordability reached just 18% and even speculators no longer saw much upside.

    • By the price peak in third quarter 2006, seasonally adjusted sales were down 27.6% to 21,478 units.

      Once the fall in demand became evident, median prices started down. The descent began slowly. However, by mid-2007, with the myth of ever-rising prices debunked:

      • Housing demand plunged.

      • Housing supply took-off as sub-prime mortgages began resetting from teaser to market rates with investors and homeowners trying to sell homes they could no longer afford.

      • Price declines thus accelerated causing ever more homeowners to be upside-down on their homes.

      • Unable to sell, many houses entered foreclosure and were aggressively marketed by the lenders, further accelerating price declines.

      By 2008, the market began changing:

      • Supply, with 60% of inland activity from foreclosures, continued to overwhelm demand with prices falling to a median of $237,784 by third quarter, equal to the mid-2003 level.

      • Demand hit a trough in late 2007 at 11,398 units. By third quarter 2008, lower prices caused it to rebound to 18,453, up 61.9%, equal to volume in 2001.

      • Demand rose as inland housing affordability reached 50% (assuming 3% down, 6.19% mortgages, 1% taxes, $800 property insurance, 0.5% FHA insurance, payments 35% of income).

      Crucially, by third quarter 2008, home construction all but halted as price competition from foreclosures caused developers to lose money on every unit built -even with land treated as free. Hence, the steep downturn and a 9.1% inland unemployment rate. In the short run, conditions will worsen as office construction stops once existing projects are completed. Already, the loss of tenants in fields like escrow and finance has pushed vacancies from 7.0% to 19.9%.

      The Routes Out? With the Inland Empire’s construction sector shutting down, economic hardship has spread far beyond those whose terrible decisions created the crisis. This is also is true in numerous markets, particularly in Arizona, Florida and Nevada.

      Until national action reduces the rising flow of foreclosures into the supply side of the nation’s housing market, supply will continually overwhelm demand sending prices downward. Residential construction will not return until markets see fewer foreclosures and prices move to higher levels. Two strategies are available:

      • Mortgage servicers can lengthen the term of mortgages and reduce rates. allowing families to afford staying in homes. However, given the principal owed, they will not be able to move until prices return to recent highs. Many are thus walking away.

      • Servicers can reduce the principal owed, allowing families to refinance and both remain in their homes and have equity in them.

      Modern housing finance has generally barred the second and more effective strategy. When banks originate mortgages, they typically sell them to Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac or investment houses to get their money back and make more loans. They are paid to service loans they no longer hold. Meanwhile, secondary mortgage holders often formed them into groups and then sell “mortgage backed securities” (MBS) worldwide. Both the originating bank and those creating MBS’s signed contracts barred them from harming investors. Unless a servicer owns 100% of a mortgage or MBS, they cannot lower mortgage principals.

      Unless national policy can convince secondary mortgage holders and/or MBS investors to allow the principal owed them to be reduced, the foreclosure crisis and residential construction depression will persist … prolonging the recession. The state attorneys general, Congress, some major banks and the FDIC have tried to lure mortgage investors to allow this or to buy them out. The results have been very mixed. The idea of allowing bankruptcy judges to lower principals has been offered as a club to force this result. Yet this raises fear of long term damage to international belief in the consistency of U.S. contract law.

      Finally, at the local level, officials could favorably impact construction costs through the developer impact fees imposed on new homes. These are justified by the need to build the infrastructure required by population increases. Inland Empire fees are $40,000 to $50,000 per home. An analysis shows that at today’s low prices, a fee holiday of 80% by local agencies and 40% by schools would put the industry profitably back return to work. The re-imposition of fees could be tied to an index like median existing home prices.

      So far, the reaction of local decision makers has been that this is legally, programmatically and politically impossible. Their traditional worry is not having the money to build the infrastructure needed as new homes cause population growth. However, for construction dependent economies like the Inland Empire, the choice appears to be temporarily foregoing such funding, or finding a broader source of infrastructure financing. Otherwise, they must face the reality of a multi-year deep recession with double digit unemployment.

      John Husing, Phd. is president of Economics & Politics, Inc. based in Redlands, CA

  • Surprise! For Fiscally Responsible, Housing Remains Good as Gold

    Back in 2002, I compared housing to gold. The surge in home buying in the 2000s looked like the 1970s rush to buy gold. Like the current times, the 1970s were a time of great economic uncertainty, followed by the rapid inflation of prices in the 1980s. Regardless of the actual return on investment, many people bought gold as a hedge against financial and economic turmoil. When Americans bought houses in the 2000s, they believed homes would provide some of that same protection, in addition to being a place to live.

    Today it is fashionable to believe that this shift to housing was a tremendous mistake. Yet our research suggests that, if done responsibly, investments in real estate have continued – even amidst the severe bubble in certain locales – to serve as a decent hedge against hard times. Real estate may have taken a dive, but, over time, the market has remained even further under water. The reality is that the percentage of regular (conventional and prime) mortgages past due and 90 days past due were higher in 1984 to 1989 (average 0.59%) than they were in 2007 (0.49%). The fact that foreclosures in regular mortgages spiked upward in 2007 and 2008 may have more to do with the Failure of Financial Innovation than with the behavior of homeowners. (Notice that the past due rate is historically much higher than foreclosure rate and they are now merging; and that regular mortgage interest rates remain at historically low levels.)

    Let’s look at the record. Since the turn of the 21st century, the net worth of Americans grew six times faster than disposable income. Initially this was more the result of the increase in the value of financial assets than real estate. However, while financial assets dipped in value in 2002, real estate did not, hence the perception that houses could be a better “investment” than stocks and bonds. Real estate values continued to grow at a rate more than twice as fast as income. Last year the value of financial assets dropped 2.9%, but real estate assets dropped by only 1.4%.

    The relationship between real estate shares and stock values has changed direction and become more volatile. From 1945 through 1980, the DJIA moved with household investment in real estate and then in the opposite direction through about 2002. In 2003, 2004 and 2005, DJIA and household real estate moved in the same direction. Now, it seems to be shifting again, ironically again in favor of real estate.

    The stock market was never the “safe” investment. You could have invested in about 400 shares of General Motors stock at $83 a share in 2000; it closed at $3 today (with an analyst’s target price of $0). Or you could have made a down payment on a $315,000 condo in Santa Monica; and sold it this year for $680,000. When capital and productivity are again allowed to surge, we can expect the housing market to rebound first and more strongly than the stock market. Right now even amidst the perilous economic news, we believe the turn back to real estate is just beginning, although the effects probably won’t be fully felt till 2010. We see evidence of potential buyers sitting on the sidelines. There was already a surge in homes sales this summer as some buyers must have judged prices to have adjusted sufficiently in some regions.

    So then the question is: did the New Gold strategy work? Has homeownership shielded Americans from economic uncertainty? We think the answer is – surprisingly – “yes”. As financial markets have become increasingly volatile, regular Americans were able to access the value of their homes. The aggregate value of mortgages increased from 44.4 percent of household real estate values in 2002 to 53.8 percent at the end of the first quarter of 2008. Note that this is not merely a result of falling real estate values. Aggregate real estate holdings increased in every year except for the last one.

    When real estate values slowed down, mortgage values slowed down even more. And, obviously, it isn’t because the bank reduced the value of the mortgage! It can only be because homeowners continued paying on existing balances.

    Before the “subprime crisis”, household real estate values grew at an increasing rate – from 9.9% in 2003 to 11.8% in 2004. But the growth of mortgages slowed from 14.1% in 2003 to 13.9% in 2004 and to 13.1% in 2005 when the growth of household real estate remained constant. What was happening here? I think millions of responsible American households were paying into equity. And when things got tough in 2007, some of them dipped into that equity. Not to remodel the kitchen or to buy a boat; but to expand their small business or start their kids in college. These homeowners are “the rest of us who have been prudent and responsible” as Roger Randall called them in a Letter to the Editor of USA Today (November 11, 2008). Mr. Randall asks the question: “Where can the prudent sign up for rewards?” The answer is: Anyone who protected their credit score over the last 8 years can still get a “no-doc” mortgage and bank credit for their small business. When a mortgage broker I know lamented that he couldn’t write a mortgage for anyone with a credit score under 600, I asked: “If someone has a credit score of 585, should they be buying a house?” Of course, the answer is “no.”

    Sure, you can deride this activity as Americans “treating their homes like piggy banks.” But the reality is that millions of Americans planned it this way. With a fiscally responsible approach to homeownership and financing, they have been and will continue to be able to insulate themselves from the worst of economic times. Good as Gold!

    Susanne Trimbath, Ph.D. is CEO and Chief Economist of STP Advisory Services. Dr. Trimbath’s credits include appearances on national television and radio programs. Dr. Trimbath is a Technical Advisor to the California Economic Strategy Panel and Associate Professor of Finance and Business Economics at USC’s Marshall School of Business. Dr. Trimbath was formerly Senior Research Economist at the Milken Institute and Senior Advisor on the Russian capital markets project for KPMG.

  • Root Causes of the Financial Crisis: A Primer

    It is not yet clear whether we stand at the start of a long fiscal crisis or one that will pass relatively quickly, like most other post-World War II recessions. The full extent will only become obvious in the years to come. But if we want to avoid future deep financial meltdowns of this or even greater magnitude, we must address the root causes.

    In my estimation two critical and related factors created the current crisis. First, profligate lending which allowed many people to buy overpriced properties that they could not, in reality, afford. Second, the existence of excessive land use regulation which helped drive prices up in many of the most impacted markets.

    Profligate lending all by itself would not likely have produced the financial crisis. It took a toxic connection with excessive land-use regulation. In some metropolitan markets, land use restrictions, such as urban growth boundaries, building moratoria and large areas made off-limits to development propelled house prices to unprecedented levels, leading to severely higher mortgage exposures. On the other hand, where land regulation was not so severe, in the traditionally regulated markets, such as in Texas, Georgia and much of the US Midwest and South there were only modest increases in relative house prices. If the increase in mortgage exposures around the country had been on the order of those sustained in traditionally regulated markets, the financial losses would have been far less. Here is a primer on the process:

    1. The International Financial Crisis Started with Losses in the US Housing Market: There is general agreement that the US housing bubble was the proximate cause for the most severe financial crisis (in the US) since the Great Depression. This crisis has spread to other parts of the world, if for no other reason than the huge size of the American economy.
    2. Root Cause #1 (Macro-Economic): Profligate Lending Led to Losses: Profligate lending, a macro-economic factor, occurred throughout all markets in the United States. The greater availability of mortgage funding predictably led to greater demand for housing, as people who could not have previously qualified for credit received loans (“subprime” borrowers) and others qualified for loans far larger than they could have secured in the past (“prime” borrowers). When over-stretched, subprime and prime borrowers were unable to make their mortgage payments, the delinquency and foreclosure rates could not be absorbed by the lenders (and those which held or bought the “toxic” paper). This undermined the mortgage market, leading to the failures of firms like Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers and the virtual failures of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. In this era of interconnected markets, this unprecedented reversal reverberated around the world.
    3. Root Cause #2 (Micro-Economic): Excessive Land Use Regulation Exacerbated Losses: Profligate lending increased the demand for housing. This demand, however, produced far different results in different metropolitan areas, depending in large part upon the micro-economic factor of land use regulation. In some metropolitan markets, land use restrictions propelled prices and led to severely higher mortgage exposures. On the other hand, where land regulation was not so severe, in the traditionally regulated markets, there were only modest increases in relative house prices. If the increase in mortgage exposures around the country had been on the order of those sustained in traditionally regulated markets, the financial losses would have been far less. This “two-Americas” nature of the housing bubble was noted by Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman more than three years ago. Krugman noted that the US housing bubble was concentrated in areas with stronger land use regulation. Indeed, the housing bubble is by no means pervasive. Krugman and others have identified the single identifiable difference. The bubble – the largest relative housing price increases – occurred in metropolitan markets that have strong restrictions on land use (called “smart growth,” “urban consolidation,” or “compact city” policy). Metropolitan markets that have the more liberal and traditional land use regulation experienced little relative increase in housing prices. Unlike the more strongly regulated markets, the traditionally regulated markets permitted a normal supply response to the higher market demand created by the profligate lending. This disparate price performance is evidence of a well established principle of economics in operation – that shortages and rationing lead to higher prices.

      Among the 50 metropolitan areas with more than 1,000,000 population, 25 have significant land use restrictions and 25 are more liberally regulated. The markets with liberal land use regulation were generally able to absorb from the excess of profligate lending at historic price norms (Median Multiple, or median house price divided by median household income, of 3.0 or less), while those with restrictive land use regulation were not.

      Moreover, the demand was greater in the more liberal markets, not the restrictive markets. Since 2000, population growth has been at least four times as high in the traditional metropolitan markets as in the more regulated markets. The ultimate examples are liberally regulated Atlanta, Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston, the fastest growing metropolitan areas in the developed world with more than 5,000,000 population, where prices have remained within historic norms. Indeed, the more restrictive markets have seen a huge outflow of residents to the markets with traditional land use regulation (see: http://www.demographia.com/db-haffmigra.pdf).

    4. Toxic Mortgages are Concentrated Where there is Excessive Land Use Regulation: The overwhelming share of the excess increase in US house prices and mortgage exposures relative to incomes has occurred in the restrictive land use markets. Our analysis of Federal Reserve and US Bureau of the Census data shows that these over-regulated markets accounted for upwards of 80% of “overhang” of an estimated $5.3 billion in overinflated mortgages.
    5. Without Smart Growth, World Financial Losses Would Have Been Far Less: If supply markets had not been constrained by excessive land use regulation, the financial crisis would have been far less severe. Instead of a more than $5 Trillion housing bubble, a more likely scenario would have been at most a $0.5 Trillion housing bubble. Mortgage losses would have been at least that much less, something now defunct investors and the market probably could have handled.

      While the current financial crisis would not have occurred without the profligate lending that became pervasive in the United States, land use rationing policies of smart growth clearly intensified the problem and turned what may have been a relatively minor downturn into a global financial meltdown.

    Never Again: All of the analyst talk about whether we are “slipping into a recession” misses the point. For those whose retirement accounts have been wiped out, or stock in financial companies has been made worthless, those who have lost their jobs and homes, this might as well be another Great Depression. These people now have little prospect of restoring their former standard of living. Then there is the much larger number of people whose lives are more indirectly impacted – the many households and people toward the lower end of the economic ladder who have far less hope of achieving upward mobility.

    All of this leads to the bottom line. It is crucial that smart growth’s toxic land rationing policies be dismantled as quickly as possible. Otherwise, there could be further smart growth economic crises ahead, or, perhaps even worse, a further freezing of economic opportunity for future generations.

    Wendell Cox is a Visiting Professor, Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers, Paris and the author of “War on the Dream: How Anti-Sprawl Policy Threatens the Quality of Life”

  • Beyond The Bailout: What’s Next in the Housing Market?

    The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (we’ll call it the “Bail Out”) was signed into law on October 3rd. This, combined with the new reality in capital markets and current economic conditions, will result in some major shifts in the outlook for housing over the next few years. It is always possible that the federal government will try to do even more to fix what will be an agonizing housing problem over the next few years, but seems unlikely even Bernake, Paulson or their appointed successors will be able to change the basic story line.

    The Credit Market
    Let’s set up the dynamics. The era of easy credit, especially in terms of mortgages and home equity lines, is over. The 2002 through early 2006 period will turn out to be an aberration in history. During that period, about all a person needed to do to qualify for a mortgage was to be healthy. For the foreseeable future, we will see the return of such requirements as a down payment and the ability to repay your loan based on income, along with a good credit history, that will allow a person to qualify. The tighter credit and the slow down of the economy already is making it difficult for all but the best borrowers to get mortgage loans. Thus, the housing market will remain under significant pressure and the excess supply will be absorbed only slowly.

    The Consumer
    Consumers have accumulated far too much debt; they don’t have much in the way of traditional savings; are faced with job declines and declines in hours worked and are also facing a reverse wealth affect (i.e. people tend to spend more when they feel richer and less when they feel poorer). In the 1990s, consumers felt wealthier because the stock market did very well. Studies of the wealth effect indicate that people spend about five cents out of every dollar of increased net worth from stock and housing price appreciation over about a three to five year period of time. In the early part of this decade, not only were housing prices rising rapidly, but, almost unbelievably (in retrospect), easy credit allowed people to use their house as a credit card. The result was a boom in retail spending and home buying. In fact, the rate of homeownership in the U.S. went from a long term average of about 65% in 2002, to a high of nearly 69% in 2006. The percentage of people who bought homes, as a percent of total households, reached a record level.

    Supply and Demand
    Today, there are roughly two million more homes for sale in the nation than normal (4.3 million new and resale listings versus the long-term average of 2.3 million homes for sale). In addition, foreclosures are skyrocketing and are likely to stay high for quite some time. Many recent buyers simply were not financially ready for home ownership’s financial realities. Basic demand has diminished significantly as the number of prospects who can qualify has declined. Put all of these things together and you will have a period where not only will there be fewer homes purchased, but there will be high levels of foreclosures, a decline back to the normalized level of homeownership. There will be fewer people moving (i.e. if you can’t sell your house in California, Michigan or Pennsylvania, you are not moving to Arizona). What this implies is that the demographic demand for housing will be lower than normal over the next few years until the excess supply is absorbed.

    How long will this take? Analysis suggests that it is two to four years away nationally and longer in the bubble states: Arizona, California, Florida and Nevada. All this suggests that as the homeownership rate comes down, more people will be moving to apartments, people will “double up” or move back home. As a result much of the housing demand will be absorbed by foreclosures and the excess existing housing inventory, mitigating the need for significant new housing in the near term.

    If you add this all up, this also means slower growth in what were normally rapid growing areas (like Phoenix) where a full recovery could take four to five years for housing. As the home-ownership – including condos – rate moves back to its long term trends there will be a shift back to apartments.

    Overall, there will be fewer single family homes demanded, more apartments demanded, and the homes that are demanded will be more affordable. The most affordable areas will continue to be at the edge of town. In addition, given how difficult it has been to get the entitlements necessary for new apartment construction in areas like Phoenix over the past several years along with the number of condos that are being converted back to multi-family rentals, rents are likely to increase past 2009 or 2010 as the excess supply of rental single family homes, condos and apartments are absorbed.

    Overall homeownership will still be the American dream, but that dream will not again be something people think about until housing prices stop declining and start recovering. It’s going to be a tough ride, particularly in Sunbelt ‘boomtowns’ like Phoenix.

    Elliott D. Pollack is Chief Executive Officer of Elliott D. Pollack and Company in Scottsdale, Arizona, an economic and real estate consulting firm established in 1987, which provides a broad range of services, specializing in Arizona economics and real estate.

  • Campaign Money and the House Bailout Vote

    The late Jesse Unruh, longtime speaker of the California Assembly, was a giant of a man, both in accomplishment and girth. But he will be forever remembered for having said that “Money is the mother’s milk of politics”.

    Never truer words were said. We got a good glimpse of that in the recent vote on the Paulson-Pelosi Wall Street bailout. A quick survey conducted by the Berkeley, California based Maplight.Org showed that members of Congress in both parties who supported the bailout received 54% more money from the financial service industry than those who voted against it.

    The differential among Democrats was even wider — those who backed the bailout received almost twice as much from Wall Street than those who opposed the measure. A regional analysis conducted by the New York Times showed another interesting pattern, with opposition to the measure strongest in the heartland states, Texas and other places where the housing bubble was less inflated.

    Clearly constituents in these areas reached some of their representatives with complaints. As for those who went the other way, well, somewhere in heaven, California’s “Big Daddy” is wearing a sly, knowing smile.

  • Altars to Marble Kitchen Counters: Churches Converting to Condos

    In Boston, 65 parishes have been shuttered since 2004 and 30 have been sold – some to developers. And now, these former neighborhood institutions are becoming something truly unholy – high-priced condominiums. This article in the Boston Globe chronicles the trend. But hey, at least the priests are offering their blessings to these buildings’ new uses at the developer’s behest.