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US Housing Bubble II: Euphoria And Other Shenanigans
Wolf Richter
The good old days are back. Those days during the last housing bubble when money grew on trees: home prices jumped 10.9% year over year, according to the S&P Case-Shiller 20-city Home Price Index, based on data through March 2013. On a monthly basis, the index rose 1.2%. Prices are now back to 2003 levels. The usual suspects: Phoenix soared 22.5% year over year, San Francisco 22.2%, Las Vegas 20.6%. You canât lose money in real estate. Iâm already hearing it again.
Flipping houses is back in vogue. People are jabbering about it on their cellphones while crossing streets without looking. Entire articles have been written about it, backed with reasonable-looking numbers, such as RealtyTracâs â25 Markets Where Flipping Homes is Most Profitable.â The top three? Orlando, Las Vegas, and Phoenix. Visions of 2005!
The smart money is once again running national radio ads on how-to-flip-houses shenanigans. Pull out your credit card, call that 800-number, and get rich quick. On NPR, an âeconomistâ said this morning that the housing market was âon fire.â Thatâs the sort of hard âdataâ that puts real gloss on NPRâs perspicacious coverage of the US economy. And everybody fingers the âtightâ inventory â as hundreds of thousands of vacant and for-sale homes have evaporated, and as bidding wars are breaking out over whatâs left. Or so it seems.
But vacant homes donât evaporate. Private-equity funds have poured tens of billions into gobbling up vacant single-family homes in specific markets. And now some of them are planning IPOs as a way of dumping this stuff into funds that unsuspecting worker bees hold in their 401(k)s. Itâs called an exit, and they have to do it before it blows up in their faces. Meanwhile, theyâre hoping to rent out at least some of these vacant homes on their books, but vacancy rates of single-family homes are sky-high in these markets, with the stock of vacant homes having simply been moved from the for-sale list to the for-rent list where it languishes unnoticed by the gurus. Thatâs what free and unlimited money will do. Iâve hammered on this theme before.... Housing Bubble II: But This Time Itâs Different.
Euphoria even shows up in the numbers. The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index rose in May to 76.2 up from 69.0 in April, the highest level since February 2008. Not everyone was euphoric. Which was why the index hasnât hit the stratosphere yet. But those among the respondents who benefitted from the Fedâs money-printing binge and the bubbles it engendered in corporate bonds, farmland, housing, the stock markets, even junk bonds... they felt flush; and just like in 2006 or 2007, when âMerger Mondayâ had become a day of the week, they felt wise for having made smart decisions. Forgotten were the fiscal cliff â whatever that had been â the payroll-tax hike, and the sequester. For the lucky ones, these inconveniences were drowned out by euphoria.
The Walmart crowd wasnât so lucky, however, and if it hadnât been for their presence, the index would have been soaring. So there were some hiccups: only 10.8% of the respondents thought that jobs were âplentifulâ; while dismal, and a reminder of reality, it was up from an even more dismal 9.7% in April.
Everybody loves bubbles. People either donât remember the wealth destruction and wealth transfers that took place when the last bubble blew up, or they think they, but not others, can get out in time, whether itâs through an IPO, a quick stock sale, or a real estate transaction. Governments love bubbles because they generate a flood of tax revenues â and even California is having illusions of a surplus. Central banks, and specifically the Fed, create bubbles and then deny their existence until afterwards when they bail out their cronies that hadnât been able to get out in time â while others are left holding the bag. Itâs an amazing show, with fireworks, suspense, dramatic plot twists, and a rousing score. And we get to watch it over and over again.
US Housing Bubble II: Euphoria And Other Shenanigans
Wolf Richter
The good old days are back. Those days during the last housing bubble when money grew on trees: home prices jumped 10.9% year over year, according to the S&P Case-Shiller 20-city Home Price Index, based on data through March 2013. On a monthly basis, the index rose 1.2%. Prices are now back to 2003 levels. The usual suspects: Phoenix soared 22.5% year over year, San Francisco 22.2%, Las Vegas 20.6%. You canât lose money in real estate. Iâm already hearing it again.
Flipping houses is back in vogue. People are jabbering about it on their cellphones while crossing streets without looking. Entire articles have been written about it, backed with reasonable-looking numbers, such as RealtyTracâs â25 Markets Where Flipping Homes is Most Profitable.â The top three? Orlando, Las Vegas, and Phoenix. Visions of 2005!
The smart money is once again running national radio ads on how-to-flip-houses shenanigans. Pull out your credit card, call that 800-number, and get rich quick. On NPR, an âeconomistâ said this morning that the housing market was âon fire.â Thatâs the sort of hard âdataâ that puts real gloss on NPRâs perspicacious coverage of the US economy. And everybody fingers the âtightâ inventory â as hundreds of thousands of vacant and for-sale homes have evaporated, and as bidding wars are breaking out over whatâs left. Or so it seems.
But vacant homes donât evaporate. Private-equity funds have poured tens of billions into gobbling up vacant single-family homes in specific markets. And now some of them are planning IPOs as a way of dumping this stuff into funds that unsuspecting worker bees hold in their 401(k)s. Itâs called an exit, and they have to do it before it blows up in their faces. Meanwhile, theyâre hoping to rent out at least some of these vacant homes on their books, but vacancy rates of single-family homes are sky-high in these markets, with the stock of vacant homes having simply been moved from the for-sale list to the for-rent list where it languishes unnoticed by the gurus. Thatâs what free and unlimited money will do. Iâve hammered on this theme before.... Housing Bubble II: But This Time Itâs Different.
Euphoria even shows up in the numbers. The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index rose in May to 76.2 up from 69.0 in April, the highest level since February 2008. Not everyone was euphoric. Which was why the index hasnât hit the stratosphere yet. But those among the respondents who benefitted from the Fedâs money-printing binge and the bubbles it engendered in corporate bonds, farmland, housing, the stock markets, even junk bonds... they felt flush; and just like in 2006 or 2007, when âMerger Mondayâ had become a day of the week, they felt wise for having made smart decisions. Forgotten were the fiscal cliff â whatever that had been â the payroll-tax hike, and the sequester. For the lucky ones, these inconveniences were drowned out by euphoria.
The Walmart crowd wasnât so lucky, however, and if it hadnât been for their presence, the index would have been soaring. So there were some hiccups: only 10.8% of the respondents thought that jobs were âplentifulâ; while dismal, and a reminder of reality, it was up from an even more dismal 9.7% in April.
Everybody loves bubbles. People either donât remember the wealth destruction and wealth transfers that took place when the last bubble blew up, or they think they, but not others, can get out in time, whether itâs through an IPO, a quick stock sale, or a real estate transaction. Governments love bubbles because they generate a flood of tax revenues â and even California is having illusions of a surplus. Central banks, and specifically the Fed, create bubbles and then deny their existence until afterwards when they bail out their cronies that hadnât been able to get out in time â while others are left holding the bag. Itâs an amazing show, with fireworks, suspense, dramatic plot twists, and a rousing score. And we get to watch it over and over again.
I'm now having some second thoughts.