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All Encompassing Mortgage and Real Estate Thread


UTPhil2006

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Having been around Texas real estate for over thirty years and being in it as an investor and real estate agent, there is something not quite adding up in regards to the rapid increase in home prices and now rents. 
 
As explained earlier, Austin should be seeing significant pressure because of the rapid increase in people migrating to the area combined with a lack of available home inventory.
However, almost every major metro area is seeing similar strong upward pressures. The inflation concerns have definitely caused investors to go pay much more for hard assets, but at the end of the day, occupancy rates in apartment and home rental properties are what ultimately drives the price up or down, and here is where something doesn’t smell right. 
Many metro areas don’t have the population pressure Austin and Dallas have and yet rents are moving up rapidly there too. Yes there has been some supply constraints in new builds, but the sudden rapid upward price movements is unusual for what is a chronic problem.
My Multifamily real estate partner believes that all of the government actions of the last two years that have prohibited apartment owners from evicting tenants has created an artificial supply scarcity. They can’t get people out who aren’t paying. That is slowly coming to an end and evictions will be now happening with regularity soon.  Once that supply is available, it will be interesting to see what happens to rent prices. Similarly, I saw house price pressure drop precipitously for a few months before resuming again this last few months  
I believe we may see extremely volatile prices in the next 12-24 months  
 

I work in multifamily - in general, collections help up remarkably well over the pandemic. The federal eviction ban is long gone and they’re back to prepandemic rates in a lot of areas.

There’s some court backlog and some jurisdictions are still trying to avert evictions, so it’s not out of the question that there could still be some limited impacts as those things get worked out, but at this point it’s safe to say the feared eviction tidal wave didn’t really materialize. I would be very surprised if there’s any significant, broad impact on refresh rates from evictions stemming from the pandemic.
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Again though, why so much more demand now versus 2019? Population growth has been historically low during COVID. Are there that many more households being formed?
I get it in a place like Austin that's seeing a huge influx of people. But seems like rents are rising everywhere from small towns to highly desirable cities.

It’s a multifaceted answer, short answer I’d say, like a lot of things, the pandemic had an accelerating impact on trends that were already there; in no particular order:

The people in the socioeconomic position to buy a home were largely not impacted by the pandemic. In fact, many got raises and/or cut discretionary spending, and padded savings. The home buying timeline accelerated for a non trivial chunk of the population during COVID.

Demographic timing; largest generational bloc is millennials, mostly ~25-40 at this point. Plenty on the older end getting into position to buy later than previous generations because their early careers coincided with 2008-2010 and/or help back by student debt. Many on the younger end forming households later than historically normal because they lived with parents or roommates. This bloc is now in the housing market largely in full force.

Meanwhile, gen Z is just starting to come of age and enter the non student housing rental market. They are entering faster than buyers are exiting.

Rock bottom interest rates during the pandemic allowing for cheap financing, bidding wars for those with means, and pricing out those that don’t have them.

Migration of HCOL workers turbocharged by remote work. It doesn’t take a huge number to really distort the market in many places in this country where new housing essentially hasn’t been built in the past decade. People don’t often grasp just how much of the population of this country is concentrated in large, HCOL metro areas, and a lot of these folks were untethered during COVID while being able to bring their salaries with them.

Boomers aging in place. We don’t do multi generational housing in this country and there are a lot of older folks sitting in homes big enough for a family that are either still willing and able to remain in their home and keep up with it, and/or simply can’t afford anything else out there at this point.

A lot of that would seem to impact the home buying market but not so much the rental market at face value, but when you’ve got folks being forced to stay in the rental market that puts a ton of upward pressure on price.
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44 minutes ago, gmr548 said:


Property taxes are not a driving force on rising apartment rents. On a large multifamily building they’re often not even the largest opex line item. Rents are going up because the demand for housing is such that people will pay it.

Smaller landlords that have a single rental house or a couple units or something, sure, bigger part of the equation. Though demand for rental SFH is also through the roof. Large apartment buildings? Not even close to enough to drive the kind of increases we’ve seen.

Yeah- I was talking about houses mainly. I have no idea what the main carrying costs on large scale apartment complexes are. 

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What’s a larger op expense for a Tx apartment complex than ptax? 100k per unit assessed value is about 2600 annually per unit, and that’s on some low b/c class

Payroll is probably the item that most commonly exceeds taxes. It might even do so more often than not, honestly not sure, but it’s certainly common. R&M, insurance, and even utilities - depending on cost structure - can as well.
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Question for the random internet real estate moguls…if you owned a home that’s seen an astronomical increase in value since you bought it 7 years ago, would you sell it and take your money off the table.*

*in this hypothetical you are NOT living in the States and don’t envision doing so for several years at a minimum, so aren’t facing buying/renting back into the market.

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9 minutes ago, DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt said:

Question for the random internet real estate moguls…if you owned a home that’s seen an astronomical increase in value since you bought it 7 years ago, would you sell it and take your money off the table.*

*in this hypothetical you are NOT living in the States and don’t envision doing so for several years at a minimum, so aren’t facing buying/renting back into the market.

worth mentioning, it’s currently cash flowing $1600/mo as a long term rental…but again, that just doesn’t feel sustainable to me.

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7 minutes ago, CooterBrown said:

If you cash out and put that money in an index fund, will pulling 7% a year net you more than $1600/mo?

according to my math*:

sell price: $1.2MM

note: $440K

taxes on sale: $85,500

net: $674,500

annual return at 7%: $47,215

*i was told there would be no math, someone check my numbers.

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2 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

I think owning a rental home is awesome. I wouldn’t own a rental home if I lived out of country from it and didn’t plan on returning anytime soon at all. 

that's where i'm at...wife on the other hand...we've only ever struck gold on real estate, so she can't imagine a scenario where a house loses value. the house is in a place that is entirely dependent upon billionaires spending lots of money. something they don't do when the market crashes. i just know that house isn't actually worth what the market is willing to pay right now, and can not fathom a scenario where it actually goes up meaningfully from here.

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3 minutes ago, GottaB said:

I wouldn’t sell any property 64 meters above sea level. Millions of people are going to need somewhere to live when Houston, New Orleans and the entire state of Florida are under water.

i have concerns about fresh water where the house is...if the west continues drought conditions, the water scene in the mountains is going to get scary.

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17 minutes ago, DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt said:

according to my math*:

sell price: $1.2MM

note: $440K

taxes on sale: $85,500

net: $674,500

annual return at 7%: $47,215

*i was told there would be no math, someone check my numbers.

That more than doubles your cash flow.  Now, if you don't really need that cash flow and it can be reinvested it makes  even more sense to go ahead and do it. 

I'd personally do it but you have to realize you may never be able to buy into that same market again if it's as hot as it is today. On the other hand, at 50K a year, you can take some pretty nice vacations to make you feel better about that decision.

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5 minutes ago, CooterBrown said:

That more than doubles your cash flow.  Now, if you don't really need that cash flow and it can be reinvested it makes  even more sense to go ahead and do it. 

I'd personally do it but you have to realize you may never be able to buy into that same market again if it's as hot as it is today. On the other hand, at 50K a year, you can take some pretty nice vacations to make you feel better about that decision.

yeah we'd be effectively priced out of that market absent a big correction. there's no way i'd consider purchasing again in that market if prices sustain themselves.

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It's not just the cash flow, though.  It's the buydown of the principal, too, along with expected appreciation.

Real estate isn't the most common way historically to build wealth for no reason.

Based on what you've provided, I wouldn't sell it, but I can understand the rationale.  We're going through the same calculus on our home in Austin right now.  Youngest kid will enter college this summer -- do we REALLY need all this space?  Wouldn't it be nice to live near a beach?  I can work remotely, I do now, for all intents and purposes.  Still, it's hard to pull the trigger when real estate is still climbing at the rate it is.  Another 20% in value will pay for a pretty big downturn, historically speaking.

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3 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

It's not just the cash flow, though.  It's the buydown of the principal, too, along with expected appreciation.

Real estate isn't the most common way historically to build wealth for no reason.

Based on what you've provided, I wouldn't sell it, but I can understand the rationale.  We're going through the same calculus on our home in Austin right now.  Youngest kid will enter college this summer -- do we REALLY need all this space?  Wouldn't it be nice to live near a beach?  I can work remotely, I do now, for all intents and purposes.  Still, it's hard to pull the trigger when real estate is still climbing at the rate it is.  Another 20% in value will pay for a pretty big downturn, historically speaking.

You are in austin and all the fundamentals are strong, probably even in an economic downturn. If he’s in a niche in the mountains he could be exposed to a bubble that neither you nor I think you are likely exposed to so his mileage may vary from yours, but yeah absolutely concur 100% with the first part of the post. 

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5 hours ago, DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt said:

Yes. Mountain town Colorado. Some place close to where the women instinctively flock like the salmon of Capistrano.

So that’s not exactly the definition of cash flow. How much are your capex and repair costs?  When you say note, are you including prop taxes and insurance?  Maybe you have great tenants and low maintenance and that is your cash flow, but I’m betting it is actually lower than that. 
 

From my point, as an investment, if I’m buying a 440k property (your note), I’m going to want close to 6600/month.  If you want to build wealth through RE I think you’d be money ahead selling and looking for multiple 2-4plex mf that you can use your $670k as down payment.  Maybe mix in a SF home or 2 in an area you expect to appreciate. 
 

You live far away and aren’t returning for a while, at best. I’d sell. There are other mountains, right 😃

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7 hours ago, DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt said:

Question for the random internet real estate moguls…if you owned a home that’s seen an astronomical increase in value since you bought it 7 years ago, would you sell it and take your money off the table.*

*in this hypothetical you are NOT living in the States and don’t envision doing so for several years at a minimum, so aren’t facing buying/renting back into the market.

Important question:  have you lived in the home as your primary residence 2 of the last 5 years?

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8 hours ago, DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt said:

Question for the random internet real estate moguls…if you owned a home that’s seen an astronomical increase in value since you bought it 7 years ago, would you sell it and take your money off the table.*

*in this hypothetical you are NOT living in the States and don’t envision doing so for several years at a minimum, so aren’t facing buying/renting back into the market.

Do you need the money for something else?  If the answer is yes, then do it.  If not, then why?  

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32 minutes ago, Gil Bang said:

Important question:  have you lived in the home as your primary residence 2 of the last 5 years?

Yes. I recall I'm basically on the clock in terms of selling it without taking as big of a haircut on taxes or something to that effect, correct?

 

19 minutes ago, Chewbacca said:

Do you need the money for something else?  If the answer is yes, then do it.  If not, then why?  

I don't. I'm just convinced it's not actually worth what someone is willing to pay for it today, and that we're in a massive bubble that's going to pop and the house might not see this type of valuation for another 15 years. I hear lots of folks in real estate say it's simply an issue of supply and demand...i tend to think we just injected trillions of free money into an already inflated economy and now we're sitting on a massive bubble and it's going to pop.

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6 minutes ago, DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt said:

Yes. I recall I'm basically on the clock in terms of selling it without taking as big of a haircut on taxes or something to that effect, correct?

 

I don't. I'm just convinced it's not actually worth what someone is willing to pay for it today, and that we're in a massive bubble that's going to pop and the house might not see this type of valuation for another 15 years. I hear lots of folks in real estate say it's simply an issue of supply and demand...i tend to think we just injected trillions of free money into an already inflated economy and now we're sitting on a massive bubble and it's going to pop.

Gil is correct on the tax treatment of gains if you're within the '2 in last 5' range.

 

Knowing where you are and knowing what's going on in mountain towns right now, there will likely be a correction in the future if past cycles repeat themselves (second homes are usually the first to go in a downturn).  COVID has changed all that, at least temporarily.  With people being able to live anywhere they want because of WFH (hence you living in Mexico), many of them have chosen the mountains and relocated.  Will it be permanent or temporary?  That's the piece I don't have my hands around.  I don't think my place in the mountains is worth 3x what I paid for it, but that's what I could sell it for.

 

You're not going to go broke taking a profit, but will you regret selling when you're ready to come back?  Only you can answer that.  

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Mortgages backed securities up a paltry 18 basis points right now. That was 40 at the kick off to the day so they’ve given back half of the charge. We are still down some 20 or 25 points in the MBS market since Monday morning. 50 basis points is typically 1/8 of a point. 
In layman’s terms interest rates have gotten about 0.05% worse this week, when we saw real fighting war shake out in Europe. That’s bad. We’d have expected shooting war to make market conditions better (interest rate wise) so far… not so much. It’s obviously hurt the stock market- barely helped MBS, and pushed yields on bonds only slightly lower. So, no silver lining in this thing unless you were long on commodities like natural gas and oil. 
 

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On 2/23/2022 at 3:04 PM, Gil Bang said:

you never go broke taking a profit..

 

And the 2 of 5 rule gives a tax exemption of $500,000 for married couple filing jointly

Right, but it's $500,000 over acquisition costs, correct?

So, he's not paying taxes on paying down the principal of the note, even if the cash to seller is over $500K. He's only paying taxes on the sale price (minus costs of sale) over acquisition price that exceed $500K. If he acquired the house for less than $700K he would have to pay 15% taxes on the amount over $500K. 

I'm not a tax guru, but I've sold real estate a few times, so I could be wrong on this, but that was my recollection of how it worked.

With that said, if he was depreciating the home because it's a rental, that will be recaptured (which I've dealt with) on taxes of the year of sale. 

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3 hours ago, hornian said:

Right, but it's $500,000 over acquisition costs, correct?

So, he's not paying taxes on paying down the principal of the note, even if the cash to seller is over $500K. He's only paying taxes on the sale price (minus costs of sale) over acquisition price that exceed $500K. If he acquired the house for less than $700K he would have to pay 15% taxes on the amount over $500K. 

I'm not a tax guru, but I've sold real estate a few times, so I could be wrong on this, but that was my recollection of how it worked.

With that said, if he was depreciating the home because it's a rental, that will be recaptured (which I've dealt with) on taxes of the year of sale. 

You are correct sir. If the sales price is over 500k the title company is going to 1099 you as a matter of course- but you get to take out what you’ve got in the house. 

Edited by Wulaw Horn
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So, here is the chart that I post on Monday mornings every week or two.  Standard disclaimer- this isn't a guarantee of rates, this is the national average, this isn't necessarily what you'd be looking for, blah blah blah.  Also, this is from Friday night- we are 39 basis points better this morning- which can relate to about 1/8 of a point (typically 50 basis points ='s 1/8 of a point in rate).  We are .09 points higher than last I posted on 2/14/2022- maybe this is going to represent a peak? Here you go:

30-YR. CONFORMING

4.188% +0.007

30-YR. JUMBO

3.883% -0.081

30-YR. FHA

4.255% +0.026

30-YR. VA

3.913% +0.037

30-YR. USDA

4.096% -0.035

15-YR. CONFORMING

3.343% -0.037

 

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So, mortgage backed securities down 80 basis points.  That puts us pretty much dead ass level with where we were last Monday before the Russians went in.  Read the tea leaves wrong on that. Everything positive that happened in the MBS markets for interest rates the last couple days just disappeared in one morning.  

Good times, good times. 

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It’s shit like that which makes me distrust the market.  
 

My read is the largest market participants convinced themselves over a two day period that the war would result in the Fed making a longer commitment of support.  One rebuff of that and all that hope erased.  

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1 minute ago, LCHorn said:

It’s shit like that which makes me distrust the market.  
 

My read is the largest market participants convinced themselves over a two day period that the war would result in the Fed making a longer commitment of support.  One rebuff of that and all that hope erased.  

Maybe?  My take is that the fed got more dovish on inflation and that spooked the markets- looking at a 25 basis point or 0 basis point bump as opposed to 25 for sure and maybe 50 basis points.  Oil up 10% has also got to keep fears of inflation spiked.  As I type this we are down 86 bips.  Trying to hit that magical 100 bip loss that always makes me want to stick my head in an oven.  

I've got one deal I'm floating that's a refinance. I think I'm just going to submit it and see what shakes out.  I still think that it's more likely than not that we see retreat in the stock market and strength in the bond/mbs market as this thing keeps going, but who knows.  

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Chart from this morning that represents where we ended the day yesterday.  Tomorrow I will repost the chart from today when that's out.  

 

30-YR. CONFORMING

3.980% -0.114

30-YR. JUMBO

3.769% +0.014

30-YR. FHA

4.043% -0.071

30-YR. VA

3.651% -0.119

30-YR. USDA

3.991% -0.019

15-YR. CONFORMING

3.192% -0.059
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Average from the day yesterday.  Not fun, not as bad as I thought lock wise- 105 basis points- which we lost- would usually equate to 1/4 of a point.  We didn't get there until the afternoon so I'd expect another bump up tomorrow when I see that chart.

 

30-YR. CONFORMING

4.085% +0.105

30-YR. JUMBO

3.767% -0.002

30-YR. FHA

4.189% +0.146

30-YR. VA

3.809% +0.158

30-YR. USDA

4.015% +0.024

15-YR. CONFORMING

3.247% +0.055
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Not that it's not nice to have the information, but it would be extra nice if y'all didn't use industry shorthand when discussing these moves.  "30 down Monday and Tuesday" makes me think you're talking about a 30-year note, but "16 up Wednesday" makes me think you were talking about 30 "points" (normalized, I guess), maybe on MBS?

People here mostly care about mortgage rates.  If you could explicitly clarify that would be great.  That said, thanks again for the info.

Bill Lumbergh - Wikipedia

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10 year up 16 basis points Wednesday (bad), 10 year down 30 basis points Monday and Tuesday (good)..

Here's the link to the Yahoo 10 year ^TNX - https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/^TNX?p=^TNX

Hard to give exact rate increase and decreases because Jumbos don't move as much, some lenders hold on to those decreases to increase their yield, some lenders have better rates than others depending on the product so it's easier to give a generic this is what the market is doing as a whole.

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15 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

Not that it's not nice to have the information, but it would be extra nice if y'all didn't use industry shorthand when discussing these moves.  "30 down Monday and Tuesday" makes me think you're talking about a 30-year note, but "16 up Wednesday" makes me think you were talking about 30 "points" (normalized, I guess), maybe on MBS?

People here mostly care about mortgage rates.  If you could explicitly clarify that would be great.  That said, thanks again for the info.

Bill Lumbergh - Wikipedia

So, whenever I talk about stuff I'm talking strictly about mortgage backed securities (or MBS for shorthand). This is what causes lenders to set their interest rates the way they do- the MBS market. It's not easy to find, and I get minute by minute updates b/c it's the best for knowing what rates are going to do, and that's why when I share it's always in MBS. It costs a couple thousand dollars a year for the real time data and analysis from the guys I use, so that's why I post it b/c it's at the cutting edge but not accessible to the normal consumer.  When MBS market is good (I.E. "up 30 basis points) that's good for interest rates and it means interest rates are going down.  When the MBS market is doing bad (i.e. down 30 basis points) it means bad things for interest rates (I.E. they are going up). 

Typically- 100 basis points means 1/4 of a point in rate- so when the MBS market loses 105 basis points it means that interest rates should have gotten 1/4 of a percent higher- which is just a huge move in 1 day (we haven't seen the move we saw yesterday since 2020 at the outset of the COVID pandemic scrumblefuck where markets were totally and completely unhinged- before that you might go years without seeing a 100 basis point move in 1 day). 

I always quote the days action in MBS b/c it's more precise and it's the actual input that moves interest rates.

 

Now, some people quote the 10 year treasury because as a general rule mortgage rates follow the 10 year treasury bond.  When that goes down (i.e. Phil talking about the 10 year going from 2.0 - 1.65 in the space of a couple days) interest rates tend to go down.  When that goes up interest rates tend to go up.  This is a relationship that holds firm 95 out of 100 times I'd say?  Maybe 90 out of 100.  So, because the 10 year treasury is published everywhere, and people know where to find it, and it almost always tracks interest rates a lot of guys talk in 10 year treasury terms, figuring that's what most people know.


As a final explanation the charts I post are the actual interest rates locked for the previous day, published by Optimal Blue, the #1 software pricing engine in the game.  That's American average.  So that has the term of the loan (15 or 30) the type of loan (conforming, jumbo, VA, FHA) and the average interest rate locked across America the previous day.

 

Hope all that makes sense.  As I said, I always talk in MBS when I talk bips but I will try to remember to write that out. 

Edited by Wulaw Horn
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2 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

Excellent, thanks for the clarification.  It was confusing because the screenshots did seem related to mortgage rates but I felt like you were talking MBS in the text.

That's exactly what I was doing. Daily text is always MBS talk.  It's the most refined thing you would track on a daily basis. Screen shot is actual average interest rates across America that I usually only post on Monday's, unless something screwy happens, I know it's happening, and I want to demonstrate it b/c the market is making a huge move then I might post a "this is yesterday, this is today". 

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Do y'all know how commercial rates are faring? I have land in downtown SA and I'm exploring doing a smallish multi-family project on it (60 to 80 units). I'm just in the info gathering stage at this point so I haven't spoken with any lenders yet. I'm going to look into SBA lending to see if my project may be eligible. 

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