09/22/2024
RESIDENTIAL REAL ESTATE
"An interest rate sensitive sector is housing and homebuilding. The low end of the market has seen price
declines, while luxury home prices are still rising to record highs. The one thing in favor of luxury
homeowners wanting to sell is that there is so little inventory.
According to Redfin, there are approximately 101 million homes in the US. An incredible 24 million
are held as investments. About 98% of those are owned by individuals. Those are the people who will
default in a recession.
Property taxes, insurance, and maintenance will be much higher than the rental income.
There is also a relatively new industry: corporate home investments that buy homes to rent them out
such as Invitation Homes (INVH). We believe they will be a potential disaster in a serious recession.
As people lose their jobs in retail, restaurants, and other sectors that are in trouble, they often get
jobs showing houses. Currently a record number of realtors have entered the market. That is
always a sign of a big market top. Most cannot get a job anywhere else, so they show houses saying,
“here is the closet, and this is the pantry, and this is the kitchen.”
On a $10 million house, the commission may be a huge $500,000, which would be split with the entities
involved. Commission rates are the same as 50 years ago when home prices were 75% less. So, they
now get 4 times more income for the same work. A recent court decision has lowered that somewhat.
**These are the things we see near a monumental top. Of course, it doesn’t mean a plunge will occur next
week or next month. These things take time to unravel. Real estate is all about location, and whether a
mortgage is required. Luxury home buyers usually don’t require a mortgage.
However, the 2-day chart of the ITB Home Construction Index has broken out to a new all-time high.
This could be the “last hurrah” rally. The chart looks dangerous. It looks like a potential “false” breakout
that should reverse.
Instead of the rally since July being caused by good fundamentals such as supply/demand, we believe it
is just a play on interest rates. This makes it easy for HFT outfits to move the sector higher pretending
it’s because of interest rates.
Prepared for Chris Hinova"
Reprinted from Bert Dohmen's Wellington Letter