Is The Housing Market About To Turn?

I know it is fashionable to be bearish on housing, but are things about to pivot and turn? Put these two items together:

1) The Housing Affordability Index reached 141.1 in the most recent release. This was the highest in at least six years. As one blogger noted, this will move even higher next month due to a drop in fixed mortgage rates to the current 5.75%.

2) The U.S. Treasury is considering a plan to drive mortgage rates down to as low as 4.5%. They would accomplish this by purchasing mortgage-backed securities from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Would low housing prices and a generational low in mortgage rates prove too tempting to home buyers and cause a mini boom in housing and begin to clear inventory?

Disclosure - I am long the XHB and ITB.

Quote of the Day - Centex Corp. (CTX)

Quote of the day comes from the Centex Corp. (CTX) conference call that was held on July 30, 2008.

"Conditions in the housing market worsened in the quarter and we don't see any improvements in market conditions for remainder of this fiscal year. Foreclosures are arising dramatically in most markets, employment growth is slowing. Mortgage rates are on the rise and we're seeing stricter mortgage qualification requirements for home buyers. Energy costs have increased substantially for our subcontractors, suppliers and customers."

Timothy Eller - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Centex Corp.

A Look Inside The Housing Crisis

The Cleveland Federal Reserve just posted a series of maps on its web site detailing the impact of the Housing Crisis on Cleveland, which is one of the hardest hit cities out there.

Chart 1 shows that an astounding number of loans are in REO status. Three zip codes encompassing East Cleveland, Cleveland and Cuyahoga Heights have anywhere from 3.3% to 8% of loans in this status. I guess the Cleveland Fed couldn't find a color darker than red to give us more granularity than that.



Map 2 shows the number of homes in foreclosure:



Again the same zip codes and up to 15% in foreclosure or bankruptcy.

The last map shows the number of speculators in the market:



Anywhere from 27-40% of the homes in these zip codes are owned by speculators.

The scary thing is that this data is as of January, so it is probably worse than the charts show.

You can look at the original publications here at the Cleveland Fed.

Scary Chart of the Day - January 14, 2008

I saw this chart over the weekend courtesy of the people at Calculated Risk. It shows the number of estimated homeowners with no equity given different scenarios of home price declines in 2008.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

I was on vacation in Florida last week and saw the following sign in front of a half finished development.



I almost pulled off the road causing an accident when I saw the 2 for 1 special sign. It's hard to believe that new houses are being discounted 50% off list from a year ago.

Robert Toll on the Sub Prime Bailout

A few excerpts from the Toll Brothers fourth quarter conference call held last week courtesy of Seeking Alpha

Robert Toll had some interesting comments on the new plan announced by the Federal Government.

Comments on Sub Prime Loan Plan

"With respect to what do I think about the most recent announcements, to be a wise guy, not much. There is no such thing as a sub-prime loan. There’s a sub-prime borrower; that is a borrower who hasn’t got the credit, the respect for his credit in the marketplace that’s equal to what you would consider to be necessary, which we call now prime. A little misnomer in the use of the words."

"What I understand has been offered to the congress to consider and pass is a break for sub-prime. So if you’ve got -- sub-prime borrowers, so that if you are not credit worthy, we’ll give you five years at your present rate but the next door neighbor, who decided he liked the teaser mortgage and went for four for the first six months and six for the next six months and then according to an index with a differential, he would be pushed to eight and then to 10, he’s stuck because he had prime rating."

"I think what would have made more sense, if I were running the zoo, is I would have said we are going to stop teasers, not just sub-prime but for everyone at a rate and pick a number. If we think a -- we’ve done it in the past. The rates used to be regulated in this country up to the elimination of Regulation Q. I think that was in the ‘70s when disintermediation took place."

"I think it wouldn’t be a great feat for us to say that for the next two years, we are going to cap the rates for teaser mortgages at 8%, or 8.5%, which has been approximately the 40-year average rate that we’ve lived with."

Toll Brothers Conference Call

A few excerpts from the Toll Brothers fourth quarter conference call held yesterday courtesy of Seeking Alpha

Interesting that he said that 1974 was a rougher downturn than the current one.

Comments on Current Conditions

"By many measures, fiscal 2007 was the most challenging of the 40 years that Toll Brothers has been in business. 1974 was perhaps rougher, but the difficult times only lasted one year."

"Since going public in 1986, we’ve just reported our first quarterly loss this fourth quarter after 85 consecutive profitable quarters. The loss was driven by $315 million of non-cash pretax inventory related impairments and related write-downs."

"The creation of projections is difficult at any time. In the current climate, it’s particularly difficult to provide guidance for fiscal 2008, given the numerous uncertainties related to items such as sales paces, sales prices, mortgage markets, cancellations, market direction, and the potential for and size of future impairments. As a result, we will not provide earning guidance at this time."

Are We There Yet For Homebuilders - An Update?

In September we blogged about the dangers of using stated book value as a buy signal when evaluating Homebuilders for purchase. The original post is here at this link:

Are We There Yet for Homebuilders - Part II?

My advice was not to believe the book values being used in quarterly balance sheets.

"do not use price to book yet as a buy signal. Book value is in flux and will continue to go down quarter after quarter. The safest thing to do is take the latest quarters book value and write off 30% and then slap a .75 multiple on it and then buy them there."

Well, it seems that a 30% haircut is not enough. Lennar Corp filed an 8-K disclosing that it sold some of its lot and land inventory at a haircut of 55% off the book value that Lennar thought it was worth just eight weeks ago.

The full filing can be read here at the SEC site.

The relevant quote is:

"As of September 30, 2007, the acquired properties had a net book value of approximately $1.3 billion and the sales price was $525 million."

Highly Recommended

I just found a blog that is probably one of the best I have seen on Homebuilders and the related mess that is going on in that area. It is written by Reggie Middleton and is located here:

Reggie Middleton's Boom, Bust & Bling Blog

He brings a lot of insight into an area that is usually full of hyperbole. I would recommend subscribing to his feed.

Things We Are Glad We Said but Wish We Had Listened To

California's Housing Market: How Much ‘Froth’ Is Out There?

A conference held in October 2005 sponsored by the Milken Institute.

"Angelo Mozilo of Countrywide Financial Corporation predicts that the market will slow and even decrease by a couple percentage points “so that incomes can catch up with the price of homes.” His concern reflects the historic low affordability level that prices many potential buyers out of the market unless they resort to creative financing, which is inherently riskier."

"With new-loan originations now being comprised of 60 percent adjustable-rate mortgages and 40 percent fixed-rate mortgages, Mozilo concedes that his company “may be selling products to individuals who can’t manage risk.”

Things We Wish We Never Said

California's Housing Market: How Much ‘Froth’ Is Out There?

A conference held in October 2005 sponsored by the Milken Institute.

"Although the market is cooling off, the demand for housing is real, and we will continue to see modest single-digit gains below 6 percent, he said."

-Emile Haddad, President, Western Region, Lennar Corporation

Are We There Yet for Homebuilders? - Part VI

Since I mentioned the California unemployment rate as it relates to Housing in my last post, I figured I would post it here. The chart is from Economagic, a great resource for economic data.




As you can see the unemployment rate has started to tick up, but it is nothing compared to the last downturn.

Are We There Yet for Homebuilders? - Part V

One fact that argues for investing now in Homebuilders is the strength of the general economy currently as compared to economic conditions back in 1989 to 1991. The chart below from Economagic shows the decline in non farm payrolls during the last great Housing crisis. The revision this morning to non farm payrolls for August from a previously reported loss of jobs to a gain, is more evidence of general economic strength. I seem to remember back in the early 1990's California had an unemployment rate around 9%.



Just think how bad things would be for Housing if another 2 million Americans lost their jobs.

Homeownership Rate

One of the symbols of the recent Housing Boom was the increase in the Homeownership rate to above trend levels. Some debated the cause of this increase. A recent study by Matthew Chambers, Carlos Garriga, and Don E. Schlagenhauf entitled "Accounting for Changes in the Homeownership Rate," published as a working paper in September 2007 by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, concluded that the main reason for this increase was the growth of exotic mortgage products, and not demographic reasons.

A copy of the study is here.

"We find that the long-run importance of the introduction of new mortgage products for the aggregate homeownership rate ranges from 56 percent to 70 percent. Demographic factors account for between 16 percent and 31 percent of the change."


What does all this mean? If this study holds up under peer review, it would argue for a more prolonged housing downturn for two reasons - this demand will not be coming back anytime soon, and houses purchased by this group will swell inventories.

Are We There Yet for Homebuilders? - Part IV

Another issue to grapple with when buying the Homebuilders is the number of new home sales relative to previous peaks. As you can see in the chart below, if you declare a bottom for housing at the current level, one of the assumptions that you are incorporating into your analysis is that you are comfortable with the fact that the number of new home sales will trough above the peak of the last cycle.

New Home Sales Monthly (January 1963 - August 2007)




This is an important decision because during the last three cycles, new home sales never went above a 900,000 annual rate. During this cycle, they went much higher and peaked at an annual rate of 1.389 million in July 2005. If this extra demand was real demand, due to higher population growth or a more affluent population buying second homes, then this is fine. If it is speculator demand, then we are in big trouble.

So it remains to be proven whether the trough of this cycle should be above or near the peak of the last three when referencing new home sales. Months supply of new homes solves this problem in some ways since it transforms the data into time. If that is the case then we may not be at the trough yet as months of inventory peaked at much higher levels at the troughs of previous down cycles. (9.4 in January 1991, and 11.6 in January 1980.)

Housing Conference

I just got an e-mail on an interesting conference coming up in December. I am hoping that it will be webcast. It is the 2007 National Housing Forum to be held at the National Press Club on December 3. Here is the agenda.

OTS National Housing Forum

Lennar Stock Last Cycle

One problem with Wall Street is a lack of institutional memory. It seems that no one even remembers the last big downturn in housing that occurred in the late 1980's and early 1990's. I am posting a series of charts of different Homebuilders from that era. The first up is Lennar.

Two things are clear from this chart. First, this is not the first time that Homebuilders have gone down 75%, and second if you time this right on the upside, these stocks will be the buy of a lifetime.

It's hard to see in the chart but the stock looks like it bottomed out in October 1990 at around $0.55. This is down from the peak of about $2.05 in early 1987. Also, you will notice in the chart that there was a false rally after the crash of 1987. If you bought Lennar after the crash in October 1987 at $0.78 you saw your investment almost double in two years, before the stock fell to its true trough in October 1990. It would be interesting to see when the book value of Lennar stabilized in this downturn. Unfortunately, the SEC web site only goes back on line to 1994.

What a Tool

I just listened to an interview with this tool who doesn't think there was a housing bubble. He uses the word correction. He also repeats the canard that home prices have never declined since World War II.

Mouthpiece for Housing Industry

Scary Chart of the Day

From a presentation at a conference yesterday in New York City.

The Final Straw

Is it possible that the previously untouchable Manhattan Real Estate market is about to be breached? Hovanian cut its prices on condos in West New York by 20%. Now those of you who don't know New York well may think that West New York is way out in the boonies near the Erie Canal and Niagara Falls, but it is not.

It is right across the Hudson River from the Big Apple, and if you look out the window of the condo you bought that just went down in price by twenty percent, you can see the glittering skyline of the unbreachable New York City market where you better damn well pay what they are asking and be glad to pay it.

New York City is the castle "keep" of Real Estate in the United States, so to speak, and this may be the residual effect of the Hedge Fund melt down the last two months as those bonuses become a trickle.

Struggling Hovnanian Offers Deep Discounts in Weekend Sales Blitz


NEWARK, N.J. (AP) -- Hovnanian Enterprises Inc., struggling like other home builders, is offering six-figure discounts on some of its properties this weekend as it attempts to draw interest in a slumping market. The sales blitz involves dropping prices by more 20 percent on some of its prime real estate. The largest discounts are on the most expensive homes, including a 3-bedroom condominium by the Hudson River in West New York, which has been reduced $240,000, or 22 percent, to $862,000 this weekend.


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