Simply Unaffordable! Real Home Price Growth At 12% YoY, Real Wage Growth At -1.864% (Inflation Making Americans Suffer As Mortgage Rates Rise FAST)

Simply unaffordable!

President Biden met with Federal Reserve Chairman Powell to discuss how to control the inflation that is crushing the middle class and low-wage workers.

Here is a good example of why Biden is worried. There is a mid-term election on the horizon and people are angry and scared. Housing, generally the largest asset owned (or rented) by a household is simply unaffordable thanks, in part, to the over-stimulation of the economy by 1) The Federal Reserve in terms of money printing and 2) the Federal government in terms of fiscal stimulus in response to the Covid outbreak in March 2020.

In nominal terms, the gap between US home prices (Case-Shiller National Home Price Index YoY – US Average Hourly Earnings YoY) is near the all-time high.

Yes, home price growth exploded upwards when The Fed rapidly expanded their balance sheet in response to the Covid outbreak … and only now are considering shrinking the balance sheet.

In terms of house prices, CoreLogic has a nice chart depicted the odds of home prices dropping over the coming year. I circled Columbus Ohio because that is where I am moving (knock on wood).

And then we have the 30-year mortgage rate rising with The Fed’s expected tightening of monetary policy. That will certainly make housing even less affordable, unless house price growth cools dramatically.

You might as well face it, we’re addicted to gov.

Doctor, doctor (Yellen), we’ve got a bad case of UNAFFORDABLE HOUSING.

Step! 2-year Treasury Yield Rises +10.5 Basis Points On Fed Tightening, 10Y-2Y Yield Curve Flattens

Another 10 basis point jumps in Treasury yields, this time at the 2-year Treasury Note.

The 10Y-2Y Treasury slope just flattened to +26 BPS.

Another step in rising mortgage rates!

Washington DC is anything but Harmony Hall.

Heartaches By The Number! Under Biden, Mortgage Refi Applications Down -82.4%, Purchase Applications Down -7.5% And Mortgage Rates Up+80.7% (Fed FINALLY Begins Removing Stimulus!)

Heartaches By The Number … for American households and mortgage lenders as The Federal Reserve begins FINALLY removing monetary stimulus.

Mortgage applications decreased 2.3 percent from one week earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending May 27, 2022.

The Refinance Index decreased 5 percent from the previous week and was 75 percent lower than the same week one year ago.

The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index decreased 1 percent from one week earlier. The unadjusted Purchase Index decreased 2 percent compared with the previous week and was 14 percent lower than the same week one year ago.

Under Biden, mortgage refi applications are down -82.4%, purchase applications are down -7.5% and mortgage rates are up +80.7%.

Then we have this headline: “Fed Starts Experiment of Letting $8.9 Trillion Portfolio Shrink”

The Fed is capping monthly runoff at $47.5 billion — $30 billion for Treasuries and $17.5 billion for mortgage-backed securities — until September. Those thresholds will then double to a combined $95 billion. That compares to a peak of $50 billion a month when the Fed performed the exercise starting in 2017.

As expectation of Fed rate hikes increase, mortgage rates have soared like Tom Cruise’s Super Hornet aircraft from Top Gun: Maverick climbing over the steep mountain.

And mortgage rates are up a bit today.

Meanwhile, The Federal Reserve begins shrinking their balance sheet for the first time since Yellen and company started shrinking it under Trump.

Case Study: How The Fed’s Overstimulus Is Driving Columbus Ohio’s Home Prices To The Moon! (18.6% In Q1 2022 Versus 6.15% In Q4 2019 Pre-Covid)

Earlier today, we saw that the Case-Shiller National home price index in March rose to its fastest rate in history.

Columbus Ohio is not covered by Case-Shiller in their 20-city index, but the FHFA’s home price index does. And in Q1 2022, home prices grew at a 18.6% YoY clip.

Before Covid and the march of The Federal Reserve (and Biden’s anti-fossil fuel orders), home prices in Columbus Ohio were only growing at a 6.15% YoY rate. So, thanks to The Fed, home prices in Columbus are growing at nearly 3 times the pre-Covid rate.

Here is the CS national home price index.

Let’s see how Columbus home prices do with US Treasury yields starting to rise 10+ bps again.

Run For Cover! Banks Park Near Record Amount With Fed As Global Inflation Soars, Overnight Reverse Repo Operations Above $2 Trillion (Gasoline Prices Rise To Highest In History)

Run for cover!

Markets opened after a long (and expensive) Memorial Day weekend, with the 10-year Treasury yield up 8.1 basis points (to

Meanwhile, banks continue to park funds at The Federal Reserve in the form of reverse repos as global inflation soars.

And then we have US gasoline prices rising to the highest in history.

Its like banks know something that the rest of us don’t. Although we do know about the highest gasoline prices in history.

Fed Carrying $330B In Unrealized Losses On Its Assets As of Q1 (Purchasing Power Of US Dollar And M2 Money Velocity Collapsing Like Dying Star)

Yikes! One of the unmentioned costs of Fed monetary tightening is the one to US taxpayers.

Fed carrying $330B in unrealized losses on its assets according to Q1 financial statement. Which US tax payers are on the hook.

Adjusting for the appreciation in its assets the Fed had seen through the end of last year, the unrealized losses were an even larger $458 billion.

This makes the Ukrainian relief bill of $30 billion look like chump change. Although it is about the same amount as Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan which would about to $321 billion.

Nobody spends other peoples’ money like politicians and now The Federal Reserve. Who are also DC-based politicians.

And yes, the purchasing power of the US Dollar and M2 Money Velocity (GDP/M2) appear to be collapsing like a dying star.

Consumer Sentiment For Home Buying Falls To Lowest Point In History, Even Lower Than Housing Bubble Burst And Financial Crisis Of 2008 (Housing Too Expensive, Mortgage Rates Soaring, Inflation Roaring)

The numbers keep getting worse.

The University of Michigan Consumer Survey showed a decline in May to 58.4 (100 is baseline). Soaring inflation is a likely culprit.

But the truly horrible survey result is the UMich Buying Conditions for Houses, plunging to 45. The reason? Crazy, expensive house prices courtesy of The Federal Reserve and rising mortgages (also, courtesy of The Federal Reserve).

The buying conditions for houses is now the lowest in the history of the University of Michigan consumer survey. In fact, consumer sentiment for housing is far lower than during the awful housing bubble burst of 2008 and the subsequent financial crisis.

And the US economic surprise index has turned negative.

Here is Fed Chair Jerome Powell wielding his monetary bat called “Lucille.”

Morning Update: Bankrate’s 30Y Mortgage Rate Rises Slightly To 5.29% (Housing Rents UP 16.4% YoY, Gasoline UP 92% Under Biden, Food UP 60%)

US mortgage rates are up slightly this morning. Bankrate’s 30-year mortgage rate survey is up to 5.29%.

The Biden Scorecard is still a bleak one (for non-elitists). Regular gasoline is UP 92% under Biden, Diesel fuel is UP 110%, foodstuffs are up 60% under Biden, Zillow all-house rents are UP 16.4% YoY.

It hurts to be in the middle class under Biden.

US Q1 Real GDP Worse Than Expected -1.5% QoQ, Price Inflation Worse Than Expected 8.1% QoQ (At Least Personal Consumption Was Up 3.1%)

Today’s US Real GDP was worse than economists expected.

US Real GDP Annualized QoQ printed at -1.5%. And GDP prices QoQ printed at 8.1%, also higher than expected.

At least Personal Consumption printed higher than expected at 3.1%.

Import prices (goods) led the way at 20.9%. Part of Biden’s brilliant strategy of reducing domestic oil production and import expensive energy from overseas?

Consumers are spending more, but the personal savings rate is down to the lowest level since 2013 at 6.2% as consumers try to cope with inflation.

Simply Unaffordable! Why The US Mortgage Foreclosure Scare Was Just … A Scare (Fed Policies Drove Home Prices Into Outer Space Making Default Less Likely, But Crushing Affordability)

I remember this headline from CNBC from THU, OCT 14 2021: Foreclosures are surging now that Covid mortgage bailouts are ending, but they’re still at low levels.

But the foreclosure surge never materialized.

If we look at 90+ days late for mortgages (yellow line), we see that the surge in unemployment with the Covid outbreak and subsequent government shutdowns (red line) did not lead to a surge in mortgage foreclosures.

This situation is quite unlike 2008 when collapsing home prices and the subsequent surge in the unemployment rate led to a 90+ days late surge on mortgages (yellow line).

Difference between today and 2008? The Federal Reserve’s asset purchase (green line) surge happened twice AFTER the 2008 housing crash. Once in late 2008 through 2014, then a second, bigger surge in March 2020 after the Covid outbreak. One big difference is the surge in home prices, home price growth was 3.69% YoY in December 2019 and skyrocketed to 19.80% as of February 2022. This translates to a massive increase in homeowner equity, leading to a lower probability of default.

So, there you go. Powell and The Federal Reserve made housing unaffordable for millions of Americans, but The Fed did help thwart another mortgage default crisis. BUT we will see what happens with future rate hikes from The Fed.

Here is Attom’s US Foreclosure Starts chart. Yes, that is hardly a surge, although foreclosure starts did rise in Q1 2022.

So, The Fed has helped make housing simply unaffordable. Look at the growth of REAL home prices relative to REAL average hourly earnings.

The kids at The Fed aren’t too sharp when it comes to making housing affordable.