Housing Market Update: The Low-Hanging Fruit is Gone

“Investors Pile Into Housing, This Time as Landlords,” blares The Wall Street Journal headline.

Purchasing single-family residences to rent out used to be a simple mom and pop business. Investors could count on rents and prices marching in tandem at a steady 3% annual pace.

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Don’t Call it a Bubble…

I jumped on the housing market recovery back in 2011.

Homebuilders had been locked in purgatory for more than five years. They overbuilt (massive understatement there, I know) during boom times. When demand fell off a cliff, they were forced to sit around and lick their wounds.

So they waited. Some even strategically bought land at a deep discount. And when homebuilders looked to be bottoming in late 2011, I turned bullish. The decision sparked a lot of hate mail. There’s no new housing boom… The bottom’s going to fall out again… How could I be so stupid?

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Extending the Housing Bust Predictions

It says something about the growing irrelevance of print media that this cover of Time magazine, sitting on newsstands in late August, came to our attention only this week…

We can imagine the thought crossing the minds of at least a few readers: “Wow, maybe we really have hit bottom in housing.â€� You know, magazine covers as contrarian indicators – including the all-time classic…

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Are New Home Prices Rising? Nope, That’s Just Inflation.

I keep seeing things, scary things, terrifying things characterized as “for the first time ever,� like Tyler Durden of zerohedge.com writing that “As per the August 31 DTS statement, the US ended the month with a new all-time record of $13.45 trillion in debt, an increase of $210 billion from the beginning of the month (or $225 billion in public debt, net of intragovernmental holdings). With just 30 days left in fiscal year 2010, the US has added $1.54 trillion in the eleven months ended August 31, a monthly average increase of $140 billion. As a point of reference, the US has received $1.53 trillion in withheld income tax over the same period, confirming that the US continues to issue more than one dollar in debt for every dollar it receives via income tax revenue,� all of which are new records of one kind or another! Gaaaah! I am screaming in outrage and fear!

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US Real Estate Market Sits in the Waiting Room

Dead guys walking…

An article at the Zero Hedge website says Paul Krugman is either “an imbecile or a fraud.�

We wouldn’t go that far. He might be only mildly retarded…or the victim of higher education. He has learned so much about modern economic theory that there is no room left in his brain case for good, old common sense.

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Mortgage Applications Rise. Housing Market Still Suffering.

We had a fairly busy day on the desk yesterday as we were a few folks short; Kristin headed off to San Francisco to join Chuck at the Money Show and Ty is out in Seattle playing in an “old guys� soccer tournament. But luckily the currency markets seem to be on a late summer vacation with the dollar trading in a fairly tight range.

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“Fixing� the Housing Market

Sometime early next year, the Obama administration will propose how to revamp the US mortgage market. Next Tuesday, the White House will hold a “summit� on the issue.

It’s safe to guess that none of the invitees will suggest the government should simply get the heck out of the mortgage market…so this morning, we’re left to speculate which options are more likely to be tried, and to tease out the resulting investment implications.

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True Lack of Deleveraging in the Housing Market

Has there been significant deleveraging in the US housing market? Not really. Instead, with already $7 trillion in home equity lost, mortgages have come down only $270 billion. It’s a significant discrepancy that’s going to have to come into alignment somehow.

Jesse’s Café Américain explains:

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Mortgage Market Mayhem Continues in the Economic Downturn

Flip ’em on the way up…
Flop ’em on the way down…

Subsidize ’em on the way up…
Subsidize the subsidizer on the way down…

Bloomberg News:

Banks Face Short-Sale Fraud as Home ‘Flopping’ Rises

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The Housing Non-Recovery

Ed. Note: This is an excerpt from Whitney Tilson’s presentation to the Value Investing Congress in Pasadena, California on May 5, 2010. Whitney Tilson is the founder and Managing Partner of T2 Partners LLC and the Tilson Mutual Funds.

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