Peak Housing

[Crewleader]

October 2, 2014

by Mark Hanson

1) “Peak Housing”: The “Return to Normal”

The take-away from last month’s housing data was that “the market was returning to normal”, which despite the persevering weakness, was viewed as a “great thing”. This overly-simplistic and flawed assumption was made, as the all-cash cohort demand dramatically cooled and distressed supply and sales plunged YoY.

What people are suffering from is a lack of a medium-term memory, as what’s happening today happened in 2007/08; “Peak Housing”.


Back in 2007, the speculators (every ma and pa in America) driven by exotic credit stimulus without a “mortgage loan house price governor” — that drove prices over years of tremendous incremental and pulled-forward latitudinous demand — went away over a short period of time leaving the heavy lifting to weak, end-user fundamentals.

Today the unorthodox, new-era buy to rent/flip speculators driven by Fed stimulus without a “mortgage loan house price governor” — that drove prices through years of tremendous incremental and pulled-forward narrow demand — are going away quickly leaving the heavy lifting to weak, end-user fundamentals.

It was the stimulus-driven, unorthodox “things” that drove the “V” bottom in demand and prices yet again, not coincidentally from exactly the time in 2011 that Twist was first announced and yields plunged. Moreover, a rush of incremental and pulled forward end-user demand caused by the nuclear monetary policy that followed, forced end-users to chase spec-vestors. Before you knew it, spec-vestors and end-users were tripping all over themselves piled 30 deep bidding on houses. Prices surged, as the “mortgage loan house price governor” was removed just like from 2003 to 2007.

Although 2003-07 and 2011-13 were basically the same in nature, a big difference is that this stimulus-cycle was much greater in stimulus input over a shorter period of time than from 2003 to 2007. If stimulus “hangovers” are proportional to the amount of stimulus that preceded them, then this one could be a doozy.

http://mhanson.com/archives/1674