by Calculated Risk on 12/25/2009 05:00:00 PM

A holiday tradition - from Tanta's 2007 Post: A Very Nerdy Christmas (see her post for an explanation of the origins of the Mortgage Pig™)

With the new rules for Fannie and Fredde, maybe it should be "Is that a Pig? No, it's Fannie Mae!"

Click on Pig for larger image in new window.

Happy Holidays to all! CR

by Calculated Risk on 12/25/2009 11:59:00 AM

A few economic posts from this week:

Commentary and housing overview: Residential Investment: Moving Sideways

Treasury Uncaps Fannie and Freddie: TREASURY ISSUES UPDATE ON STATUS OF SUPPORT FOR HOUSING PROGRAMS

From Bloomberg: U.S. Commercial Real Estate Index Falls 1.5%

Existing Home Sales up Sharply in November

New Home Sales Decrease Sharply in November

November PCE and Saving Rate

From the Yosemite Association, a live web cam view of Half Dome in Yosemite. Happy Holidays to all!

by Calculated Risk on 12/25/2009 08:59:00 AM

Peter Cetera (formerly of the band "Chicago") and his daughter Claire perform Blue Christmas in 2008 with Sasha.

Sasha hasn't competed since the World Championships in March 2006, but she will be making a comeback at the U.S. Championships on Jan 21st (short) and Jan 23rd (long) in Spokane.

by Calculated Risk on 12/24/2009 10:10:00 PM

From HotelNewsNow.com: STR reports US performance for week ending 19 December

In year-over-year measurements, the industry’s occupancy declined 0.5 percent to end the week at 42.6 percent. Average daily rate dropped 5.2 percent to finish the week at US$87.98. Revenue per available room for the week decreased 5.6 percent to finish the period at US$37.47. The 0.5-percent occupancy decrease was the best full-week performance of the year for that metric. The 5.2-percent ADR drop was the third best full-week performance of the year behind two consecutive weeks in January. The 5.6-percent fall in RevPAR was the best full-week performance of the year.

A major snow storm on the East Coast and easier year-over-year comparisons helped buoy the numbers.

Click on graph for larger image in new window.

This graph shows the occupancy rate by week for each of the last four years (2006 through 2009 labeled by start of month).

Note: Some of the holidays don't line up - especially at the end of the year.

Data Source: Smith Travel Research, Courtesy of HotelNewsNow.com (Note: They have a free daily email too for hotel news)

As I've been mentioning, there is now growing evidence that the hotel industry has stabilized at this low occupancy rate, although room rates will still be under pressure because this is the lowest occupancy rate (annual) since the Great Depression.

The end of the year can be a little confusing because of the holidays, and the next key week will be mid-to-late January to see if business travel is picking up in 2010.

by Calculated Risk on 12/24/2009 06:52:00 PM

From NY Fed economists Andrew Haughwout, Richard Peach, and Joseph Tracy: The Homeownership Gap

The authors argue that the official homeownership rate from the Census Bureau is overstated in the sense that owners with significant negative equity act more like renters. The authors further argue that the official homeownership rate will probably follow the homeownership gap to lower levels.

Click on graph for larger image in new window.

The homeownership rate was 67.6% in Q3 2009, about the same level as Q2 2000.

Note: graph starts at 60% to better show the change.

The second graph shows the author's calculations of the homeownership gap (closer to 63%). This is a rough estimate, but does suggest the homeownership rate might fall significantly.

From the conclusions:

The current severe house price cycle, combined with borrowers who had little or no equity at origination of their mortgages, has led to a dramatic rise in homeowners with negative equity and, therefore, a large gap between the measured and effective homeownership rates. In some of the worst hit metropolitan areas, effective homeownership rates are 25 to 45 percentage points below the measured rate. This situation is likely to put downward pressure on future homeownership rates, and has potentially important implications for the maintenance of the housing stock, the stability of neighborhoods, and future household saving behavior.

A significant increase in the saving rate will hold down the growth of household consumption. And a falling homeownership rate has significant implications for homebuilders and construction employment.

From a post I wrote a few months ago: The Impact of the Declining Homeownership Rate

[The] increase in the homeownership rate, from 1995 through 2005, meant the homebuilders had the wind to their backs. Instead of 800K of new owner demand per year (plus replacement of demolished units, and second home buying), the homebuilders saw an additional 500K of new owner demand during the period 1995 to 2005. This doesn't include the extra demand from speculative buying. Some of this demand was satisfied by condo conversions and owner built units, but the builders definitely benefited from the increase in homeownership rate.

Looking ahead, if the homeownership rate stays steady, the demand for net additional homeowner occupied units would fall back to 800K or so per year (assuming steady population growth and persons per household). However the homeownership rate is declining, and this is now a headwind for the builders.

It appears the rate is declining at about 0.5% per year. This means the net demand for owner occupied units would be 833K minus about 500K per year or about 333K per year - about 25% of the net demand for owner occupied units for the period 1995 to 2005. (Not including replacing demolished units and 2nd home buying).

Although we can't compare this number directly to new home sales (because of 2nd home buying, replacement of demolished units, and other factors) this does suggest new home sales will probably remain at a low level until the homeownership rate stops declining.

If the Fed economists are correct, this has significant implications for construction employment and household construction, in addition to public policy.

Note: the authors provide some estimates of the "homeownership gap" for a few key cities: Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Phoenix and Miami.

by Calculated Risk on 12/24/2009 03:14:00 PM

From the WSJ: U.S. Uncaps Support for Fannie, Freddie

The Treasury said it would provide capital as needed to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac over the next three years, in a move aimed at soothing investors' concerns about the government's continued support of the mortgage giants.

Treasury also will suspend its purchases of the companies' mortgage-backed securities ...

Under the new terms announced Thursday, the cap on Treasury's support would increase according to how much each firm loses in a quarter, beginning the first quarter of next year and through 2012. The cap in place at the end of 2012 would apply thereafter.

A press release before the holiday ... I was wondering what would come out today.

Update: Here is the press release: TREASURY ISSUES UPDATE ON STATUS OF SUPPORT FOR HOUSING PROGRAMS (ht Steelhead)

by Calculated Risk on 12/24/2009 01:15:00 PM

Here is an interesting story in the Denver Post by Bill Johnson: Credit-card squeeze stirs elderly couple's anger

Lawrence Rickman ... is 81 now, seven years his wife's senior. They have had a Bank of America credit card for 20 years. They never once in all that time ... missed a payment.

Rickman slides his December bill across the table, with instructions to read it. ... Look at the interest rate, he says.

Sixteen-point-nine percent, it reads.

"I was paying 5.9 percent, which is what I have paid for years," he says. "I always paid them $500 a month without complaint. Now, they want $1,074 this month. I can't pay it. I won't pay it."
...
"When I got this month's bill," Lawrence Rickman recalls, "I got on the line and told them they were getting out of hand on this interest rate, that I wanted to negotiate."

The conversation, he says, went something like this:

"Lower my rate, or I'll file bankruptcy," he told them.

"But sir, if you do, it will destroy your credit rating."

"So what? I'm almost 82 years old ..."

The interest rate increase is outrageous, but also notice that Mr. Rickman was apparently not paying off his credit card balance every month. I suspect he has been running a fairly large balance compared to his income (only Social Security at this time according to the article), and just making the minimum payment on his credit card. Although the 5.9% interest rate was somewhat reasonable, it is still far more than Rickman could earn on any conservative investment.

Credit cards are great if the holder pays off the balance every month - or if the holder infrequently needs to spread an unexpected bill over a few months. But routinely running large credit card balances is hazardous to the holder's financial health. IMO there is something inherently wrong with a business that encourages customers to make bad financial decisions. (I'll get off my soapbox ...)

by Calculated Risk on 12/24/2009 10:09:00 AM

I linked to this in early November ...

From Greg Gordon at McClatchy Newspapers: How Goldman secretly bet on the U.S. housing crash

And now from the NY Times: Banks Bundled Bad Debt, Bet Against It and Won

by Calculated Risk on 12/24/2009 08:30:00 AM

The DOL reports on weekly unemployment insurance claims:

In the week ending Dec. 19, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 452,000, a decrease of 28,000 from the previous week's unrevised figure of 480,000. The 4-week moving average was 465,250, a decrease of 2,750 from the previous week's revised average of 468,000.
...
The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending Dec. 12 was 5,076,000, a decrease of 127,000 from the preceding week's revised level of 5,203,000.

Click on graph for larger image in new window.

This graph shows the 4-week moving average of weekly claims since 1971.

The four-week average of weekly unemployment claims decreased this week by 2,750 to 465,250. This is the lowest level since September 2008.

Although falling, the level of the 4 week average is still high, suggesting continuing job losses.

by Calculated Risk on 12/23/2009 10:02:00 PM

It was a busy day ...

New Home Sales Decrease Sharply in November . This is the new home sales report and graphs.

Ratio of Existing to New Home Sales at Record High

Residential Investment: Moving Sideways. This is a summary - with commentary and graphs - of most of the recent housing news: New home sales, housing starts, builder confidence, MBA purchase index, house prices and residential investment.

Also Treasury has extended the trial modification programs for HAMP until the end of January ...

And a non-housing related post:

November PCE and Saving Rate

Best to all