Given the smoothing and heavy lag in the Case-Shiller data, it’s hard to find a causal relationship between prices and mortgage rates, but with rates remaining above 7%, it seems hard to believe prices can continue their advance…

…but home prices are still tightly correlated with Fed Reserves which have slowed down…

…and a peak in the rate of price growth appears clear across all metros…

How is Powell going to cut rates when home prices are still rising near 7% per year?

Realtor.com, a company operated by News Corp. subsidiary Move Inc., determines the monthly expense of home ownership by aggregating the median listing prices of studio, one-bedroom and two-bedroom residences in a given market, with weighting based on listing volumes. This calculation assumes an eight percent down payment on the home and a mortgage rate of 6.78 percent, including taxes, insurance and homeowner association fees. (Related: Mortgage rates surge to 20-year high, causing massive drop in home sales.)

Based on the method used, the rent-buy disparity is most pronounced in the Austin-Round Rock-Georgetown metro area in Texas, where the median rent registers at $1,530, substantially lower than the $3,695 monthly outlay for home ownership in February. In other words, buying a home in this metro is 142 percent more expensive than renting. Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue and Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler metros follow suit, where rent is $2,422 and $1,528 more economical per month than purchasing a home, respectively.

Meanwhile, in the New York-Newark-Jersey City metro area, the median rent stands at $2,852, significantly undercutting the $4,995 monthly expenditure associated with buying a home.

In turn, the February monthly rent report from Realtor.com reveals that renting is far more convenient than buying a house.

“With rents continuing to fall and the cost of buying a home remaining high, renting a home is now a more cost-effective option in all major U.S. markets,” said Danielle Hale, chief economist at Realtor.com.

Zillow: Monthly mortgage payment for a typical American home have nearly doubled since January 2020

Renting in 90 percent of these metros was already more economical a year ago. However, as home prices and mortgage rates continue to increase, the percentage rises to 100 percent. This marks the first time such a scenario has occurred since Realtor.com began tracking in 2021.

A recent report from real estate giant Zillow supports the findings of Realtor.com.

According to the Zillow report, the monthly mortgage payment for a typical American home has nearly doubled since January 2020, skyrocketing by a staggering 96 percent in just four years. The report reveals that an average buyer now faces a monthly payment of nearly $2,200, assuming a 10 percent down payment on a house.

This figure far exceeds the previously accepted benchmark of 30 percent of median income, once considered the threshold for “affordable” housing in America. Moreover, the situation is made worse by the fact that 30-year fixed-rate mortgages have surged to around seven percent.

Orphe Divounguy, a senior economist at Zillow, stated that “home shoppers now need to earn $106,000 to afford the median home in the United States,” compared to the $59,000 salary required in 2020. To date, home buyers need 80 percent more income to purchase a home.

Visit HousingBomb.com for more stories on the real estate market. Watch this video reporting on the rise in mortgage delinquencies and business defaults.

This video is from the Mike Martins Channel on Brighteon.com.

More related stories:

• BAD NEWS for home buyers: U.S. house mortgage rates SKYROCKET to HIGHEST level in two decades.
• U.S. mortgage rate surges to highest level in over two decades.
• Interest rate for 30-year fixed mortgage rises to 8.45% – the highest it has been since 2000.
• The cost of a monthly mortgage payment for a typical U.S. home has NEARLY DOUBLED in just four years.
• California’s homeless construct two-mile-long vehicle encampment in San Francisco’s North Bay region.

Sources include:

• MarketWatch.com
• TheCenterSquare.com
• MSN.com
• Marketplace.org
• Brighteon.com

Median incomes have only risen by 23% over the same period, leaving many people unable to enter the housing market. In 2020, a household earning $59,000 per year could afford a typical home priced at $240,815. At that time, this income level was below the US median income of $66,000, meaning more than half of American households had sufficient funds to buy a home without overextending their budgets.

Today, those shopping for a home need to earn $106,000 annually to afford a median-priced home at $342,941. This is $47,000 more than they needed to earn in 2020 to afford a home and well above the current average income of $81,000.

A recent Zillow analysis has shown how difficult it has become to break into homeownership as the cost of purchasing a home has outpaced income growth, pushing hopeful buyers out of the market. In fact, only a handful of major metropolitan areas were found to be affordable at the median income. Zillow defines affordability as spending no more than 30% of your income after offering a 10% down payment.

Monthly mortgage payments have nearly doubled over the past four years, with today’s typical buyer facing a monthly payment that is 96% higher compared to 2020 levels. This equates to an average payment of $2,200 per month with a 10% down payment.

The main factors behind this increase are the significant rise in home values and mortgage rates. Mortgage rates have gone up from around 3.5% in early 2020 to between 6.5% and 7% so far this year. Limited housing supply has also contributed to the issue.

In 2023, buyers needed an income of $97,000 to afford a typical home, up from $86,000 in 2022. This was $22,000 above last year’s median household income of $75,000.

“The income needed to comfortably afford a typical home is now six figures,” said Orphe Divounguy, chief economist at Zillow. “It’s a big increase that’s due to a combination of higher prices, mortgage rates, and limited supply.”

Neither mortgage rates nor home prices are expected to ease anytime soon, with economists from Fannie Mae predicting rates to drop to 6% by the end of the year and Zillow forecasting home prices to increase by 0.9% over 2024 to an average of $349,611.

Younger buyers are also facing challenges, as the pressure of affordability has delayed their entry into homeownership. It now takes 8.5 years for a household making the median income to save enough for a 10% down payment, a year longer than it would have in 2020. The average age of first-time homebuyers has also risen from 31 to 36 in the past five years.

To overcome these hurdles, buyers are turning to strategies such as “house hacking” and seeking financial assistance from friends and family. In 2023, 21% of those who purchased reported getting financial help from friends or family, according to Zillow.

In conclusion, the affordability of homes has significantly decreased in recent years, with the income required to purchase a home outpacing wage growth. This has resulted in many prospective buyers being priced out of the market and forced to employ creative strategies to afford a home.

Article generated from corporate media reports.

Since January 2020 when the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) “pandemic” was first launched, the average monthly mortgage payment has nearly doubled, increasing by 96 percent in just four years. Back then, a typical buyer paid just under $1,100 a month for a mortgage with 10 percent down – today, that average has ballooned to $2,200 a month, which is well above the 30 percent of median income that was once thought to constitute an “affordable” housing cost in America.

The average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage is around seven percent, and despite promises that rates will soon go down, it does not appear that this will realistically happen anytime soon unless the country wants to see massive hyperinflation.

What are today’s young people supposed to do? Not much other than slave away in vain while those with all the assets continue adding to their stockpiles. Welcome to third-world America, compliments of Wall Street and the private central banking cartel known as the Federal Reserve.

America is done

Whenever the system finds itself in a financial bind, the powers that be typically flood the market with more cash. This creates an inflationary trend that benefits Wall Street but not Main Street, the latter being the bread and butter of what makes up a true economy.

The economy of America today is fake in that it is mostly just paper “money” circulating around that creates an illusion of value and wealth. When you pull back the curtain, you find that many Americans are up to their eyeballs in debt, and even corporate America is seeing major delinquencies at an ever-increasing rate.

Try as they might to keep the stock market propped up and always-climbing, in today’s climate primarily with just one big stock, Nvidia, the truth is that the emperor has no clothes. The American empire is dying, which is why the war drums are beating louder and louder all around the world.

To even be able to afford just a modestly-priced, average-sized home in America today, one must make at least $106,000 per year. Back in 2020, that figure was just $59,000 per year.

And how about fast food? The overrated burger chain Five Guys now charges more than $20 for a meager burger, fries and drink. This, despite continued claims from Washington that things are looking on the up and up.

February 2024 marked the worst February for layoffs since Challenger, Gray & Christmas first started keeping records. This is a sign that the labor market is deteriorating as well amid rising inflation and interest rates.

Challenger, Gray & Christmas found that companies planned a whopping 84,638 job cuts in February, a three percent increase from the month prior and a nine percent increase from the same time last year.

“It marked the highest layoff total for the month of February in data going back to 2009,” one report explains.

It turns out that even college-degreed young people with strong drive and motivation are unable to find any kind of viable position to start a life. This as rent prices soar, leaving them jobless, homeless and ultimately hopeless.

What does the next generation of Americans have to look forward to? Not much. Poverty, joblessness, homelessness, and apparently bug-eating are the only thing on the menu for them. So much for being the land of opportunity.

The American economy is running on fumes. Find out more at Collapse.news.

Sources for this article include:

• ActivistPost.com
• NaturalNews.com

Squatters are ruining entire neighborhoods in Atlanta and police response to evict is so slow, some homeowners have resorted to paying nuisances to leave.

Brazen squatters even opened an illegal strip club on a property they had taken over — one of the 1,200 homes which has been squatted in the city, according to the National Rental Home Council (NRHC) trade group.

“I’d be terrified in Atlanta to lease out one of my properties,” Matt Urbanski, who manages a local home-cleaning company, told Bloomberg.

There is no way in the world that I would want to own a rental property in that city.

If you can believe it, there is even one company that has been running ads on social media offering to find a prime squatter home in Atlanta for you for a fee…

At first glance, it looks just like another real estate pro hustling to rent homes on social media.

But at 1 Time Payment Homes, the site makes it clear these are squatter homes and spells out just what that means in a pinned Insta story.

“The company’s owners will come out, so will the police. The police will tell you there’s nothing they can do about it — squatters rights,” our Channel 2 producer J.P. read off the Instagram account.

Recently, 1 Time Payment Homes has actually been running a “New Year’s special”.

$1,400 will get you the keys to a squatter home so that you can “stack money and turn ya life around”.

Whoever is behind 1 Time Payment Homes should be in prison.

But that is not how America works in 2024

Instead, I wouldn’t be surprised if someone gave those behind 1 Time Payment Homes some type of award. Of course it isn’t just in Atlanta where squatting has become such a widespread issue.

In the state of Washington, squatters have taken over an entire apartment complex and have turned it into a den of crime…

Squatters and crime are taking over a Fife apartment complex. Families and the people handling the property are both beyond frustrated.

The problems are at the Sherwood Park Apartments. Police say the situation also attracted a ton of criminal activity. Now officers regularly patrol the area because of all the problems.

Most of the units at the complex are covered in plywood.

“It’s bad,” said Angel, a resident at the apartments. “The cops are here 24/7. Every day, every night. I keep my kids inside. I don’t let them out.”

Thanks to the absurd laws in that state, it isn’t going to be easy to get those squatters out.

California also has ridiculous laws, and right now “a very sophisticated criminal ring of squatters” is making a ton of money from the Beverly Hills mansion that they have occupied…

A Beverly Hills mansion seized by the court from a fugitive surgeon behind California’s biggest insurance fraud scheme is now a wild party house taken over by squatters, who are profiting off of regular ragers that are driving neighbors nuts.

The Mediterranean estate at 1316 Beverly Grove, listed for $4.5 million has been occupied by “a very sophisticated criminal ring of squatters,” the home’s listing agent John A. Woodward IV tells Los Angeles magazine. The squatters, he believes, are earning upwards of $30,000 a month renting rooms and hosting huge house parties with $100 entry fees.

This sort of thing is happening all over the nation, but the worst problems are in blue states with laws that are very favorable for squatters.

Every single day, predatory squatters are scanning online listings in order to identify their next targets…

It’s also gotten easier for squatters to find homes to move into.

Online listings and virtual real estate agents can allow squatters to find vacant addresses and gain access by booking fake appointments.

Some people may not even know they are squatters as scam artists can set up fake listings for empty properties and fake lease agreements.

Once a squatter is in, it’s hard to get them out. It can take three months to get a court hearing for an eviction, and another three months to get a deputy or marshal to clear out the home.

What these squatters are doing is so wrong, but it is getting worse with each passing year.

Meanwhile, things just get harder and harder for people that are trying to do things the right way.  In recent years, many have seen rental prices skyrocket to absolutely insane levels…

Single mom Caitlyn Colbert watched as rent for her two-bedroom apartment doubled, then tripled and then quadrupled over a decade in Denver — from $750 to $3,374 last year.

Every month, like millions of Americans, Colbert juggled her costs. Pay rent or swim team fees for one of her three kids. Rent or school supplies. Rent or groceries. Colbert, a social worker who helps people stay financially afloat, would often arrive home to notices giving her 30 days to pay rent and a late fee or face eviction.

“Every month you just gotta budget and then you still fall short,” she said, adding what became a monthly refrain: “Well, this month at least we have $13 left.”

The worse that housing affordability becomes, the more people are going to be tempted to engage in squatting.

Of course this squatting crisis is just one of the ways that our society is descending into complete and utter lawlessness.

We wanted a society where anything goes, and now that is precisely what we have got.

If you need to leave your home for a while, you may want to lock it up very tight, because there are plenty of squatters that would love to invade while you are gone.

Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.

Other market metrics have recently dropped far more precipitously though. Sales volume, for instance, is down more than 24 percent since last year. Construction started on less than 120,000 private housing units in October, down from more than 150,000 in April, according to Census Bureau’s seasonally adjusted data (pdf). Prices of lumber, the most common residential construction material in America, dropped by nearly 70 percent since February and are now roughly at the early 2020 level.

The housing market has been pummeled by the Federal Reserve’s lifting of interest rates this year, which have boosted mortgage rates from less than 3 percent in September last year to more than 7 percent in early November. The rates have since eased to some 6.5 percent. This indicates that the market has yet to reach its bottom.

“We expect a drop of 15-to-20% over the next year, in order to restore the pre-Covid price-to-income ratio,” wrote Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at the Pantheon Macroeconomics in a note last week.

Fannie Mae’s Economic and Strategic Research (ESR) Group expects home prices to hit a low point in the second quarter of next year with a recovery the year after.

One major factor is that 80 percent of mortgage holders have locked in rates of at least two percent lower than the current rate which makes them unwilling to look for a new house, the ESR said in a recent forecast.

“The economy continues to slide toward a modest recession, which we anticipate will begin in the new year, with housing leading the slowdown,” said Doug Duncan, chief economist at Fannie Mae.

“Higher interest rates have ignited the typical reduction in residential fixed investment, which historically has led into either an economic slowdown or recession. From our perspective, the good news is that demographics remain favorable for housing, so the sector appears well-positioned to help lead the economy out of what we expect will be a brief recession.”

Dropping house prices are bad news for those who bought theirs during the record-high prices of the past few years. They can easily find their mortgages underwater unless they put enough cash down.

Meanwhile, prospective homebuyers still don’t have much to look forward to because even at lower asking prices, houses will remain expensive when the higher mortgage rate is factored in. One factor keeping a bottom under the market is low inventory, currently some 36 percent below the October 2019 level.

“It’s hard to imagine a significant drop in pricing. Inventory is just too low,” commented Jonathan Miller, president and chief executive of Miller Samuel appraiser, in a recent Bloomberg interview.

Article cross-posted from our premium news partners at The Epoch Times.

Meanwhile, the National Association of Home Builders’ Housing Market Index, a measure of homebuilder sentiment, fell again in July, coming in at 55 versus 67 in June. That is the seventh consecutive drop and the second-largest monthly decline in the index’s history, putting the result at the lowest reading since May 2020. The index is down sharply from recent highs of 84 in December 2021 and 90 in November 2020 (see first chart).

According to the report, “Builder confidence plunged in July as high inflation and increased interest rates stalled the housing market by dramatically slowing sales and buyer traffic.”  The report adds, “In another sign of a softening market, 13% of builders in the HMI survey reported reducing home prices in the past month to bolster sales and/or limit cancellations.”

All three components of the Housing Market Index fell again in July. The expected single-family sales index dropped to 50 from 61 in the prior month, the current single-family sales index was down to 64 from 76 in June, and the traffic of prospective buyers index sank again, hitting 37 from 48 in the prior month.

Sales of new single-family homes were down in three of the country’s four regions in June. Sales in the South, the largest by volume, fell 2.0 percent, while sales in the Northeast, the smallest region by volume, fell 5.3 percent, and sales in the West decreased 36.7 percent. Sales in the Midwest jumped 42.3 percent for the month. Over the last 12 months, sales were down across all four regions, led by a 37.9 percent fall in the Northeast, followed by a 32.9 percent drop in the West, a 22.1 percent decrease in the Midwest, and an 8.7 percent retreat in the South (see second chart).

The median sales price of a new single-family home was $402,400 (see third chart), down from $444,500 in May and a record high $457,000 in April (not seasonally adjusted). Meanwhile, 30-year fixed rate mortgages were 5.51 percent in late July, up sharply from a low of 2.65 percent in January 2021. The combination of high prices and rising mortgage rates is reducing affordability and squeezing some buyers out of the market.

The total inventory of new single-family homes for sale rose 2.2 percent to 457,000 in June, the highest since April 2008. That puts the months’ supply (inventory times 12 divided by the annual selling rate) at 9.3, up 10.7 percent from May, 60.3 percent above the year-ago level, and the highest since May 2010. The months’ supply is very high by historical comparison (see fourth chart). The high level of prices, elevated months’ supply, and surge in mortgage rates should weigh on housing activity in the coming months and quarters. However, the median time on the market for a new home remained very low in June, coming in at 2.5 months versus 2.7 in May.

Image by F. Muhammad from Pixabay. Article cross-posted from AIER.

According to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) seasonally adjusted index, mortgage applications to buy a home went down four percent for the week and were 18 percent lower than the same week in 2021. The report also included an adjustment for the July Fourth holiday.

House hunters may have been hesitating to purchase due to higher mortgage rates. However, the report noted that the rates held steady last week.

The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed mortgages with conforming loan balances ($647,200 or less) remained at 5.74 percent, with points decreasing to 0.59 from 0.65 (including the origination fee) for loans with a 20 percent down payment.

“Purchase applications for both conventional and government loans continue to be weaker due to the combination of much higher mortgage rates and the worsening economic outlook,” MBA economist Joel Kan said.

He added that after reaching a record $460,000 in March 2022, the average purchase loan size was $415,000 last week, pulled lower by the potential moderation of home-price growth and weaker purchase activity at the upper end of the market.

Due to higher interest rates, applications to refinance a home loan have been notably weaker. It raised two percent for the week but was 80 percent lower than the same week a year ago. At the same time last year, the average mortgage rate was 3.09 percent.

Realtor.com chief economist Danielle Hale said homebuyers shouldn’t expect mortgage rates to fall back to three percent any time soon.

“The Federal Reserve is trying to fend off inflation by raising interest rates and that move will keep mortgage rates high for the foreseeable future,” she said.

Consumers have faced a difficult market this year as home prices have been in the $500,000 range, mortgage rates are soaring and there has been stiff competition from high-income buyers. (Related: The Fed is destroying the home mortgage industry as rate hikes due to ‘Bidenflation’ lead to a 70 percent reduction in lending.)

Homeownership now a distant dream for most Americans

The ever-skyrocketing cost of house purchase has pushed middle-income Americans’ homeownership dream aside. Most of them stopped shopping and resorted to renting.

“The market is getting much more challenging for home shoppers – we’re seeing some of them just quit and put their plans on hold,” Hale said.

Aside from the skyrocketing mortgage price, another factor that may have contributed to this is the availability of houses for sale for middle-class citizens.

A recent analysis by the National Association of Realtors found that across America, about 250,000 houses are currently for sale that is considered affordable for households with between $75,000 and $100,000 in annual income. This is a marked decline from about 656,000 available homes before the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic started.

Also, it is no longer enough for a buyer to have a ready down payment and a pre-approved mortgage. Redfin, a reputable real estate firm, said about 30 percent of homes were bought with all-cash offers in 2021, up from about 25 percent in 2020. In cities such as West Palm Beach and Naples, more than 50 percent of purchases were all-cash deals.

Analysts also say that home ownership in the U.S “is a signifier of the upper class now.”

“Unfortunately, the middle-class dream of home ownership has been fading away,” said Redfin chief economist Daryl Fairweather.

Rubeela Farooqi, the chief economist at High-Frequency Economics, said in a report that the prices remain excessively high and are impacting affordability.

The significant impact of the pandemic has also reduced affordable housing options and the total supply of single-family homes. This means that renting is becoming a more favorable option for many people, National Rental Home Council said.

Watch the below video that talks about soaring mortgage rates that cut mortgage demand to less than half compared to last year.

This video is from the SecureLife channel on Brighteon.com.

More related stories:

• 30-year fixed mortgages surge above 6% for the first time since 2008 as market reacts to Fed rate hikes.
• Housing bubble about to burst? Mortgage applications crash to 22-year low as monthly payments skyrocket.
• Average monthly apartment rent surges to all-time high $2,000, real estate firm reveals.
• Average rent prices in the US surpass $2,000 amid inflation and rising mortgage interest rates.

Sources include:

• CNBC.com
• MBA.org
• CBSNews.com
• Brighteon.com
• NATURAL NEWS