Peak Housing Prices.

Meh. You’re fighting the last war, dude. The time to scream “peak housing” and “houses will crash” was in 2006-2007. At the time, housing was treated as a growth asset, there was plenty of new construction, turnover of existing homes was high, lots of rate-sensitive leverage in the system due to ARMs etc and finally rate of home ownership was high. At the moment, RE is the only true inflation protected asset, rents are high as fuck, supply is limited, most mortgages are fixed rate, turnover is small and there is pent up demand from millennials.

Some WFH real estate will get softer because of RTO, though these areas are probably already down. Broadly, it’s gonna be about employment - if we see high unemployment, we gonna see housing softer.

My point is - I’ll take the other side of your bet. Given that both HPI and CS index have volatility of roughly 7% annualized, my bet would be “is hosing index for July 2025 more that 14% (ie “crash”) lower than level for July 2024?”
What happens to home prices in a recession? I didn't say they were going to crash... I said they topped. For now. With or without a recession in 2025.
 
If the housing price is dropping, why do you need to dump your house and then move? You can just easily scoop up a 2nd home?
That's a valid point, if you only have 1 house, but if you have rentals, and you feel like lightening your load, now would be the time to put them on the market. Take the gains and lose the headaches.
 
What happens to home prices in a recession?
Aside from the housing-led recession of 2007-2009, recessions rarely have much influence on the housing prices. In 2007-2009 recession, HPI index fell about 20%.

I didn't say they were going to crash... I said they topped. For now. With or without a recession in 2025.
Oh, OK. My impression was that "sell your house now" is only smart if you expect a crash (or need to sell regardless), given the transaction costs of 5%
 
Peak housing? They've come sound close to 50-100k since the pre rate hike. Granted we were coming off a hot market. The housing market if it was going to crash would have crashed within 15 months of the first rate hike. Not at the pivot point. If you don't buy a house now, you're probably going to pay more for it next year. What most people on the sidelines will start to realize is they can get a variable rate now as the rate drops over the next few years.

But it's an election year so I guess your housing market has been propped up.

That is totally horseshit.

We've had glut in the inventory because of the years of peeps who did not want to sell, because of the new mortgage prices they'd have to incur under the inflationary high-rates.

That is now reversing. In 12 months, the first-time buyer market is going to be hot hot hot.
 
That is totally horseshit.

We've had glut in the inventory because of the years of peeps who did not want to sell, because of the new mortgage prices they'd have to incur under the inflationary high-rates.

That is now reversing. In 12 months, the first-time buyer market is going to be hot hot hot.

Isn't that what I just said? The market's going to heat up.
 
Figuring out and beating the stock market is challenging... but figuring out the real world...
We're at peak housing folks. You can mark this post.

Another market I like to watch - airplane ads and the airpark mansions that go with them - has seen a change over the past two years.

High end heirloom classics are getting put up for sale, and marked down several times. You would never see this in the past until the owner was deceased.

Same with high end project planes. Typically they are never sold until finished.

Lots of cropduster pilots retiring and selling awesome stuff at a discount.

Many more listings in general of higher end stuff, like everyone is getting too old to medically qualify for flying any more.

There was also a huge wave of blue state refugees right after the covid lockdowns, moving to Texas, Tennessee, the Carolinas, Florida, etc. that has mostly stopped about a year ago. Now the unsold houses / hangars in these states are getting marked down.

Mansions getting marked down, taken off market, relisted, taken off market.

And of course, California stuff not moving for ANY reason! No one wants to come here, but that's why I love it. The cops are among the nicest I've ever seen. Basically the opposite of Oregon, Washington, etc.

It sure "feels" like the wave of relocations after covid is coming to an end.
 
As always, I am stating it before the main stream financial media figures it out.

Those July NAR numbers, with falling 30 year fixed rates and rising inventory.... one doesn't need to go to Wharton to figure it out.

The headline news starting soon, and extending across the next 8 months will read:

"The average cost of buying a home drops for a **?**--- (3rd, 4rth, 5th)--- consecutive month in a row. "

If you wanna move.... and you need to dump your house.... do it now... we are at peak housing.
~vz




Vz housing will continue to go up but at a slower rate. I have a ton of stats on this I won't bore you. Consider 5% a year to be near what we will get. It will be a slowdown but no big fall can happen with so few homes on the market.

Only the very hottest real estate markets will take a considerable hit Austin, Jackson Hole, etc The rest of us will just glide slightly up.

Still very much a sellers market.

Home prices will average low- to mid-single-digit annual appreciation over the next five years. This rate of appreciation is consistent with the long-term average of home prices increasing by a rate that hovers a percentage point above the inflation rate.
 
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