Category: Mortgage

Last week marked the beginning of Chinese New Year, the year of the Monkey. Fitting, considering last week’s financial markets around the globe were filled with “monkey business.” It seems everywhere you turn lately there are crazy things happening. The Dow Jones is down several thousand points from recent highs, suggesting we may be entering a “bear” market. Gas prices are as low as they’ve been in nearly 15 years, leading many to think economic growth is slowing. And several central banks around the world are charging negative interest rates (imagine being charged interest to keep your money in the bank!?!).

Despite the monkey business everywhere else, our local real estate market appears to be quite normal. We are seeing similar vital statistics this winter compared to recent years. Sacramento area home prices are up 10.7% over the last year. And low interest rates combined with rising rent prices are keeping demand high for real estate.

But will the world’s monkey business eventually seep into our local markets? Will we remain insulated from the worlds’ woes? Or be dragged down with them?

In short, I believe the recent economic turmoil will only fuel our real estate market, not hinder it. We should see the similar dynamics seen in recent years (low inventory, high demand, low interest rates) but I think they’ll be further intensified in 2016! Here are my reasons for a strong year ahead for Sacramento real estate:

Money will flow to what’s “real”
With money fleeing the stock market, it has to go somewhere. Fear is abundant in the markets (check out this cool “Fear & Greed” index tool), and money runs to safety when it smells fear. I believe it will find its way to real assets, like precious metals (gold prices are up 10% in just the last month!) and real estate.

Millennials will “get real”
It is widely documented that the millennial generation (those born roughly between the early 1980s and early 2000s) has deferred home ownership more than their predecessors. The reasons vary (they have more school debt, prefer to live in higher-priced urban areas, don’t want to be “tied down” with a mortgage, etc.) but sooner or later they’ll see the light to become homeowners. In Sacramento, the validity for homeownership is becoming quite clear.

In recent years, Sacramento has become a magnet for Millennials. This article cites everything from the dining scene to recreation to coffee as reasons why younger folks flock to the River City (excuse the language used in the article). Furthermore, rent prices have been skyrocketing in Sacramento. This article from Sacramento News & Review states we are the third hottest rental market in the country, only behind Portland and San Francisco, with average rent prices climbing 10.6% in a single year. With rents rising and no clear sign of significant new construction on the way (more on this in a moment), many who are renting should be considering home ownership, which will further spur real estate demand and prices upward.

New home construction will continue to lag
New home and apartment construction has not kept up with demand in Sacramento. Developers site high costs and red tape; others are concerned of the over-building that occurred a decade ago and don’t want to repeat history. Nevertheless, only Detroit had fewer new construction starts last year than Sacramento.
Let that last sentence sink in for a minute; the only city with slower new construction activity in the entire county is a city that lost 25% of its population from 2000-2010. Detroit is not building because they don’t need new housing units; 1 in 4 people up and left during the Great Recession! Sacramento, in contrast, GREW 25% in population during the same decade, and until we begin building new housing we will continue to see home prices and rents soar, both in urban and suburban areas.

Mortgages will remain cheap and accessible
With gas below $2 a gallon and other world banks charging negative interest rates, its clear that no one should be concerned with inflation here in the US. Inflation is Public Enemy #1 to fixed interest rates such as mortgages, so with no inflationary threat mortgage rates will remain low.
How low? In a word…ridonkulously low (well, in sort-of a word)! With low rates (30-year fixed rates below 4% and 15-year rates near 3%) and, in turn, low mortgage payments, this will only further instigate millennials and other home renters to become home owners. Furthermore, underwriting guidelines are loosening and new loan products are emerging (more on this next month in a separate post). This makes financing accessible to more home buyers, thus allowing demand to grow ever more.

To re-cap, I’m incredibly optimistic for the 2016 real estate market.  Compared to my “rosy” forecast from 2015 (which turned out to be quite accurate, I might add), this year’s is just plain flushed! I expect strong price appreciation (10%+ for Sacramento), coupled with high volume (lots of buying and selling), and fueled by very affordable and available financing. Until new home construction is firing on all cylinders and inflation becomes a concern, the outlook for our local real estate market will remain bright.

As always, thanks for reading Matts Memos!

As usual, I’m a little tardy in posting my annual market forecast.  I assume everyone else’s Januarys are as hectic as mine, so its likely you wouldn’t even read it if I were to send this out at the turn of the New Year.  By more happenstance than design, my annual forecast release in early February has worked out over the years, as more readers view it over any other MattsMemos.com post during the year.  I’m honored you find entertainment, and perhaps a little insight, from this annual tradition.

2014 Year In Review

Before I get ahead of myself, let us review 2014’s forecast and see how my predictions stacked up to what truly transpired.  In short, I forecasted we would see stabling home prices due to a healthy balance of supply and demand of traditional buyers & sellers.  I can’t help but brag for a moment that this was the exact script for last year’s market.  Sacramento homes appreciated less than 5% (Folsom was less than 2%), and the market maintained between 1.8-2.7 months of inventory (this is a balanced level).  Short sales and REO sales accounted for less than 15% of Sacramento area sales.  All of these signs clearly indicate a return to normalcy for our real estate market.

My accurate aim stops abruptly, however, when you peek at last year’s interest rate forecast.  With The Fed easing and ultimately exiting their campaign of buying mortgages (known as “quantitative easing”), I anticipated 30-year fixed rates would steadily climb through the year and end up around 5%.  In actuality, rates somehow defied logic and plummeted back down well below 4% towards the end of 2014.  There are a number of factors that led to this, but the main cause was the falling price of oil.  When oil costs less, so does everything else as it costs less to produce and transport goods.  With little to no threat of rising costs of goods, interest rates on mortgages tend to slip lower as investors are not worried about inflation.

2015 Market Forecast

There is much “writing on the wall” that makes me very excited for 2015’s real estate market.  Compared to the meager demand of buyers seen in 2014, I anticipate many more first-time & “boomerang” (folks who lost a home to short sale or foreclosure who are now looking to purchase again) home buyers entering the market.  Why?  Rent prices are skyrocketing everywhere, thus making it less financially attractive to rent versus own.  Also, lending guidelines are becoming more favorable for folks with small down payments.  For example, FHA financing (which allows down payments of as little as 3.5%) slashed monthly mortgage insurance rates by more than 35% last month.  When combining this drop with the overall decline in interest rates, homes have instantly become more affordable for most buyers.

With more first-time & boomerang buyers on the scene, entry level home prices will appreciate more rapidly than other segments of the market, but the tepid pace of entry level home sales will have a positive ripple-effect on larger homes as more folks look to move-up.  I boldly predict we will see more homes sold this year in the Sacramento area than we have in over 5 years.

As always, interest rates will be a big wild card.  It always seems an unpredictable global, political, or financial event causes rates to swing in the opposite direction conventional wisdom suggests.  Will 2015 play out the same way?  Perhaps, but given the low cost of oil (which keeps rates low) and the sputtering pace of the stock market (if stock market does poorly then rates tend to fall) I would be incredibly surprised to see rates increase more than ½% from their current marks.  30-year rates are below 4% presently and 15-year rates are inching towards 3%.

All in all, the real estate market looks rosy.  Perhaps that’s due to the shade of my glasses, but the combination of hungry buyers, willing & able traditional sellers, and accommodative interest rates and lending guidelines make it hard to believe 2015 will be a poor year for the market. As always, I’m thrilled to have a front row seat while it plays out, and I’m honored to have your trust to help navigate your real estate affairs.

Its that time again…time for my annual market forecast.  I like to consider March as the turn of the Real Estate year, as many folks begin to think about their real estate affairs this time of year.

Forecasting, to be honest, is just as much about reviewing the past as it is about predicting the future.  How can you know where you’re going if you don’t know where you’ve been?  With that said, its always a scary (albeit entertaining!) exercise for me to review last year’s forecast with what actually took place.

In short, 2013 was a two-faced trip around the sun for the Sacramento real estate market.  From January to June, I couldn’t have been more accurate with my projection of “steady price increases for sellers and challenging times for buyers”.  The market was ON FIRE with average home prices rising 21%, interest rates hitting rock bottom lows, and the number of homes for sale at the lowest point in over a decade.  However, after The Fed meeting on May 22^nd that quickly raised interest rates, the real estate market hit the brakes and my forecast accuracy fell off the tracks.  In the second half of the year, Sacramento home prices only increased 4%, and the number of homes for sale (known as “inventory”) nearly doubled. 

In hindsight, this second-half slow-down was healthy for the real estate market.  Things had become out of balance and the rally unsustainable.  Now looking forward to 2014, the big question will be are we going to see a resurgence in home prices as Spring nears or will it continue on its plodding pace?

My prediction is we’ll see stable 2014 home prices as both inventory and sold homes increase to remain mostly in balance with one another.  Despite the sharp increase in inventory in recent months, its still low at a level not seen since 2005 (see below).  More sellers will look to sell in 2014 as life events dictate homeowners to move.  Similarly, more buyers will look to buy in 2014 as folks re-enter the market after a prior short-sale or foreclosure.

In short, we should see a traditional market with a healthy balance between traditional buyers and sellers.  Short-sales and REOs will account for fewer than 15% of the market, real estate speculators will gravitate away from California, 30-year fixed rates will hover around 5%, and transactions will be dominated by repeat buyers.  In fact, I couldn’t agree more with Trulia’s Chief Economist who coined 2014 as “The Year of the Repeat Home Buyer.”  The Blue Waters Group is uniquely equipped to help clients buy, sell, and finance all at the same time.  Moving up or down can be an anxious experience, but our clients find having a single, trusted team handling all facets of their multiple transactions makes for a smoother, confident, and successful transaction.

Even a “normal” market requires just as much know-how, expertise, and calm nerves as any other market we’ve seen over the years.  If you or someone you know is considering a real estate transaction this year, I look forward to the opportunity to share my knowledge and experience.