Housing .DTA: Tiny Growth

Picture first:

From the Cash-Shiller/S&P/ CoreLogic (and whoever else is in on it) report:

MONTH-OVER-MONTH
Before seasonal adjustment, the National Index posted a month-over-month increase of 0.1% in September. The 10-City Composite did not post any gains and the 20-City Composite posted a 0.1% increase for the month. After seasonal adjustment, the National Index recorded a 0.4% month-over month increase in September. The 10-City Composite posted a 0.2% increase and the 20-City Composite posted a 0.4% increase. In September, 12 of 20 cities reported increases before seasonal adjustment while 17 of 20 cities reported increases after seasonal adjustment.
ANALYSIS
“September’s report for the U.S. housing market is reassuring,” says Craig J. Lazzara, Managing Director and Global Head of Index Investment Strategy at S&P Dow Jones Indices. “The national composite index rose 3.2% relative to year-ago levels, with smaller increases in our 10- and 20-city composites. Of the 20 cities in the composite, only one (San Francisco) saw a year-over-year price decline in September.
“After a long period of decelerating price increases, it’s notable that in September both the national and 20-city composite indices rose at a higher rate than in August, while the 10-city index’s September rise matched its August performance. It is, of course, too soon to say whether this month marks an end to the deceleration or is merely a pause in the longer-term trend.
“At a regional level, Phoenix retains the top spot for the fourth consecutive month with September’s 6.0% year-over-year gain. The Southeast region was also strong, as Charlotte, Tampa, and Atlanta all rose at greater than a 4.0% clip.

My consigliere notes what seems to be happening is prices are about caught up to the equilibrium point betrween what people can afford.  Where things will get interesting is when rates have to go up at some point and then housing prices will begin to cycle down.

But not today, Josephine.

Airspace

Panic as a plane got into the area near the White House and jets were scrambled.

Someone – we betcha – didn’t remember to go through their SIFRA checklist – that’s the Special Flight Rules Area which is about a 30-miles diameter around the WH.  Yes, I am SIFRA qual’ed…not that it does much good without an airplane…but T’ain’t likely a big deal…

21 thoughts on “Housing .DTA: Tiny Growth”

  1. On Dummy Loads:

    To all who commented on the “Prepping: Creative Recycling 101” article about repurposing a strip heater into a ham radio dummy load I say thank you.

    You comments provided me the education on the topic that will lead to success. At this point I favor using a non-inductive type of resistor mounted in the case of the strip heater. This type of setup appears to provide a more stable thermal environment unlike the cantenna which will heat up and continue to heat as the radio is in transmit mode. This could be a problem if much work is to be done. The strip heater case also provides a Faraday cage effect which will block out going signals. A must during testing!

    This will happen next year and I will give an update on the project.

    Thanks again!

    • You know, the simple “300 W” MFJ dummy load can be used for like 5 seconds at 1 KW – there is a derating power and time chart on it. Cheap solution for an occasional key down test.

      Or, simply use 15 meters when the band is closed..

  2. all a bit crazy right here .. only one thing .. buy cheap sell high.. short everything maintain discipline .. there are nobody left of old world economic principles .. 25 years a gold bull .. im out of that .. weird salesman and story tellers everywhere.. just short easy, but is very hard to maintain conviction.. this is the only site I enjoy browseing .. thank yoi

  3. In many urban places, it is still less expensive to own a house than to rent an apartment with the same number of bedrooms. Mortgage rates are as low as they will ever get so those who can buy homes are buying them. Those who can refinance their mortgages are doing so and I suspect appraisals are getting inflated to juice the payouts. But what happens when this plays out and there is nobody left who can buy? The housing prices have to come down to keep the real estate machine operating. This will put pressure on landlords who have mortgages to pay to find ways to keep people in the apartments. Will the free market create high mobility career paths? Or a super-streamlined mortgage process that expedites ownership turnover? Will mortgaging and leasing merge? It should get interesting…

    • Where people are caught is with the extra expenses.
      The housing expense is lower..
      Around here . 1200.00 gets you a 3 br. Townhouse with garage. What’s added though is heat, water sewer, trash, cable, wifi, you have access to swimming pool and weight room sauna and for family get togethers a community room..
      To get the low interest rates at least at my bank you have to have an income level to qualify for the low income home mortgage. For bottom feedersyou get a short term loan with a balloon..then you re-write the loan at the end of the five year period.. my interest rate at its highest was 18 percent.. right now its 6…what is good about my financial institution is. No penalties if you pay extra and interest is charged daily not ahead..so.. split payments will knock a third of the loan off then find out what goes towards the loan..usually it’s like five bucks at first. So besides splitting it in half toss a 25 dollar bill at the principle you just made a five month payment..
      I paid off two homes that way. You do the same with your other debts to..highest interest first when that’s paid off toss the extra payment on the next one down..
      House payment depends on what your mortgage is do they take care of taxes etc.
      For us 900.00 a month home insurance we pay just shy 500.00 a month 250.00 on auto insurance trash is 40.00 water sewer 150.00 give or take .and it will be going up.. taxes just shy 200.00 a month cable and internet it was just shy 300 but I renegotiated it to 220.00 a month cell phones another hundred groceries for a household of 5 350.00 per person that’s 3.50 a meal and three snacks at 1.00 give or take.. car payment another 300.00 a month ..
      As you can already see rental insurance is 20.00 to 75.00 high your ahead cash wise to sign a lease for the townhouse..what you loose is the freedom to make changes and privacy..
      When you buy a home you can alter whatever you want.

      • Alter whatever you want? Maybe, but watch the insurance(if any) and local gossip people. Regulators want to regulate, even if they have no idea why.

        If you’re stuck with PMI for any reason, it can be worth getting a HELOC IF you’re sufficiently disciplined, the HELOC has the right terms, and you are able to prepay your primary and force cancellation of the PMI requirement. This takes a spreadsheet and real work to figure out. I do know someone that made it work favorably. It’s also an invitation to the undisciplined to max the HELOC and gain some worthless debt.

      • “it can be worth getting a HELOC ”

        Absolutely.. My problem with the HELOC is this.. when I was a young man… a really young man.. the price of silver took a spike.. I ran a photo lab.. my boss seen the stock market as the way to get rich.. so.. He gambled on it and after he gambled on it.. the reagan recession started.. what he didn’t tell everyone was to cover his bets on the market.. he wasn’t paying premiums on health insurance.. health insurance was deregulated and the price was starting to hedge up.. he was juggling peter to pay paul…
        In the meantime while we weren’t covered.. the kid was climbing a tree.. fell a good sixty feet bouncing from branch to branch impaling himself on a branch.. the branch went in through his lung and heart.. he was rushed into the hospital where he had to get specialized surgery to fix it.. they had to flight for life in a surgical team from several states away.. the bill… just under a half million dollars at the time…
        I made shy three dollars an hour.. and discovered we didn’t have any health insurance to cover any of it….
        I couldn’t buy a roll of toilet paper with credit .I eventually had to claim bankruptcy.. (that to is a complete whole life experience to..because we didn’t have the money to hire an attorney). it destroyed being able to get a personal line of credit.. even now I cannot get a personal line of credit.. when I built my first house.. the loan officer was a college kid.. after I explained the whole situation to him..he took a chance on me.. and has been the only loan officer that will loan me any funds.. the bank.. they do great risk loans.. and with a low income ratio.. you rarely meet the requirements for those give away loans..

        It was a rough road.. and it has been a challenging journey though the catfish life.. I do know the bottom of the pond.. I count my blessings to.. everytime I really needed help.. there was a hand to help me up… so I have no complaints.. I have paid off two homes.. I had to build them myself to save money.. but hey.. what good is a book on how to do something if you don’t use it.. kind of like the snappy tool you buy then store to never see it again. LOL…

  4. How novel would it be to have a workplace with perks like a 401(k) plan and a home (not necessarily a house) to raise your family? Bet that’s never been done before!

      • One of the prime employers here.. noticed that single parents had more days missed .. after checking he realized..daycare wont watch a sick child . He put in a sick child daycare..no Cost..child bussing regular daycare.. if he did good you did good.. xmas bonus.. one year he and his wife had gotten a large screen tv..enjoyed it so much all the employees got one. For xmas one year the company did so good that he took everyone and their family on a two week company paid cruise..there was other things to.
        The company my father worked for .. the CEO from New York periodically would check the warehouses around the world.. I met him at five..on my birthday he gave me a case of product ..my choice .. I met him again unloading a trailer he took his jacket off and worked beside me unloading it..years later I was sacking groceries he was checking how his company products were displayed seen me..again shocking the store managers by taking his coat off again and sacking groceries right beside me as he inquired about my parents fiftieth wedding anniversary and how all my siblings were doing..
        He too took care of those that retired while he was the CEO..my mother never paid more than 20 cents for her pharmaceuticals and her yearly out of pocket expenses was 200.00 ..no cost to them for that coverage. My father was a delivery boy..the lowest position in the company.
        Companies like those still exist..those two changed after they were passed on..before you couldn’t get a job there..now anyone can..turn over matches those of a lot of the companies..that is one thing that impressed me about DJT and his companies. He has that loyalty the lowest paid feels they can talk to him and he will listen and act on it.
        To find one of those companies all you have to look for is the ones that never hire..always visit with employees..they all have a hangout spot listen and get a handle on management.. the rule of thumb I tell my kids is talk to the employees before your interview.. find out what the turn over rate is.. thirty percent and lower..average depending on how m as ny seasonal positions there are.. anything above that theres usually problems in management and you have to make the decision whether you play the game and keep looking if theres a fifty percent and above run unless your despirate for a paycheck..

    • It would be quite wonderful if a company could provide a home, but generally only a woman can do that! A man can provide a house, but not a home.

      The best a company can provide is a residence.

    • Facebook, Google, Apple, Salesforce.com and more have pledged billions of dollars to create affordable housing for their employees and for the teachers, firefighters and first responders that service the Area. Facebook has already funded huge apartment complexes steps from its sprawling campus.

      And to answer the others…PMI is only for homeowners that have less than 20% down for a home or re-finance with less than a 80% equity stake. There are ways around it…though…I Many mortgage Broker’s have 80/10/10 products without PMI. That 10% down with a wrap around 10% second mortgage leaving a 80% loan to pay off. You can still get those in the 3.5-3.75% rate depending on credit score and financial strength.

      And home insurance…Most most/Hazard insurance costs are around $90 a month or around $1,100 a year and that is for a home worth in the millions. That’s in California. My rates are $89 a month. What state do you live in where that cost is so high? The only rates that are that high are those with flood insurance…And you have to live in a FEMA flood zone for that to happen.

      You may be able to get into a home in a flood zone or area prone to severe weather cheaply, but at what cost for protection? And that insurance protection…Are you sure it’s reliable? Ask the victims in past hurricanes and fires.

      It’s best long term to pay more up front and avoid the risks…The chances for home appreciation are increased exponentially and the worries eliminated..

      • “Facebook, Google, Apple, Salesforce.com and more have pledged billions of dollars to create affordable housing for their employees and for the teachers, firefighters and first responders that service the Area. ”

        About time they did something to keep the kids from having to shizt on the sidewalks.. it has to be depressing to make an income that would be considered top of the line in most areas only to not be able to put food on the table or a place to put the table

        they do that in Japan to.. the factory below and the apartments above…

      • “And home insurance…Most most/Hazard insurance costs are around $90 a month or around $1,100 a year and that is for a home worth in the millions. That’s in California. My rates are $89 a month.”

        I haven’t a clue and I can guarantee you my home isn’t worth millions…. I can tell you I hate insurance companies to..In a way I am lucky to.. I just had my insurance lowered by changing companies I have one child that sells insurance and had it switched from the company that I had been with for over thirty years.. and was able to save almost two hundred a month and they went with the cheapest they could find….
        Then it could be the area… prices and policies offered in some area’s of the country are not available in other area’s of the country.. same way with health insurance.. they upped the policy for my wife almost two hundred a month we pay way over fifty percent of our income on health insurance, all while there hasn’t been any increase in income.. most of the local companies went part time employees.. and most have not given employee wage increases..( for the bottom tier of employees). and the deductible is 7500 and you have to stay with their physicians.. but then employers don’t offer health insurance here for the bottom tier of workers.. only management are given the good benefits.. or retirement funds those to only go to the management end of things…. instead on the benefit list they show your contribution to social security.. and medicare..

      • “We spend over $1,000 for our “little doublewide” in the woods.”

        Dam Grorge…Now I want to cry… I almost fainted when you said what your taxes were to..

        Since then i have been trying to convince the wife that we need to jump off the titanic and move.. I’ve considered canada or we here the others have moved..like Expat…great living reasonable healthcare (and better healthcare than here ) the three bedroom townhouse is looking mighty nice..we are insurance poor..
        Figured it out and we will pay around a quarter million before the wife can get medicare. But have to have the insurance just in case..( she had one minor stroke years ago.. the odds are great that there could be a recurrence. ( as a note about Obamacare though.. she wouldn’t be able to get any insurance at all if it hadn’t been passed.) They just have the right to charge what they want.
        Each year the budget gets harder to do..
        Personally I cant tell you why it hasn’t imploded yet..

      • States with a history of large scale wind, water, and fire damage have far higher home insurance than other states with more forgiving weather. Flood insurance is a separate policy. I”m not sure what sort of earthquake coverage is available. The rate G_____ is paying is quite low for Texas. The combined property and insurance G____ is paying is a third to a quarter what homeowners with modest homes pay closer in to town.

        • I think people forget that Texas (while home for almost 20-years now) has it ALL (including no state income taxes) that list includes:
          * Floods
          * Hurricanes
          * Forest fires
          * Meth-heads
          * and deep-pocket (almost heat-seeking) lawyers…

          Balancing this off? Big homestead exemptions and protections for homesteads in bankruptcies.
          Oh, and where else could be live on 30-acres loaded with 100-foot high pines?

Comments are closed.