What Goes Up... (Eventually, Usually)
BETTING ON THE "ALMOST INEVITABLE"
Let me state categorically that [this] sequence is barely questionable, almost inevitable, 99% unavoidable, and in modern parlance - a "slam-dunk." -- Bill Gross, The Bond King, October 3, 2005A half-trillion dollars...That's what Bill Gross is responsible for.
Why is he entrusted with managing a half-trillion dollars?
It's simple... Bill Gross has delivered double-digit annual returns in bonds for over three decades. He's the best bond manager in the world. That's why they call him The Bond King. [...]So when Bill Gross comes out with a call that is "almost inevitable" and "99% unavoidable," as he did in his latest Investment Outlook, we have to take notice. [...]
Bill Gross is confident that a major change in the U.S. economy is just around the corner. What's "almost inevitable?" According to Bill Gross, it's 1) a housing bust followed by 2) a weakening U.S. economy. In his own words, he says:"Make no mistake about it, the froth in the U.S. housing market is about to lose its effervescence; the bubble is about to become less bubbly. If real housing prices decline in the U.S. in 2006 or 2007, a recession is nearly inevitable."
Bill outlines the sequence he sees. And then he backs it up with facts. It goes something like this:
1) FIRST, HOUSING PRICES FALL.
Home prices will fall because Alan Greenspan has been raising rates, specifically to cool the housing market.
It's just now starting to work, as holders of ARMs (adjustable-rate mortgages) have been painfully discovering. [...]According to Bill Gross, home prices will stop their rise when Greenspan's higher interest rates start to be a burden on first-time home buyers. Gross then expects banks to tighten their lending standards. At this point, speculators will finally "sniff the beginning of the end" of the housing boom, as Gross says, and that'll be it.
2) AFTER THE BOOM ENDS, PEOPLE WILL STOP TAKING EQUITY OUT OF THEIR HOMES, WHICH WILL CAUSE THE ECONOMY TO HEAD TOWARD A RECESSION.
Bill Gross calls it the "house ATM." As the values of people's homes have risen, people have refinanced or cashed out some of that home value in the form of home-equity loans. [...]
All that ends when the home-price boom ends. The "house ATM" runs dry. And that means no more big trips to Home Depot or Lowe's. No more new cars. And no more second home buying. Our "paper prosperity" - the increase in our wealth on paper - is gone. [...]
How can Bill call the top with such certainty? It isn't just a feeling... It's based on facts. One source of facts for Bill is a new 71-page study by the Federal Reserve. The Fed looked at real estate markets in 18 major countries over the last 35 years. The results were amazing...
Most people believe that "you can't go wrong in real estate." And that "real estate doesn't go down over long periods." [...]
While real estate rises over the long run, there are distinct periods where it falls. In short, based on the Fed study, right now we are right at the point where home prices should turn over and head downward again.The Fed found that housing booms peak, on average, four-to-six quarters after that country's Federal Reserve first starts to raise interest rates. Here in the States, the Fed has raised rates for five quarters now.
Based on history, we should be extremely close to the top.What happens after the peak in real estate prices? The Fed then hits us with a whopper:
"Subsequently [after the peak], real house prices fall for about five years, on average, and their previous run-up is largely reversed.
Wow.
Want another 'wow?' Across the 18 major countries... and across the 35 years of the study... the median real price fell over the five-year period after the peak was about 15%.Now that's nationwide... of course, some areas will fall much more than others. Again, keep in mind that, on
average, the "previous run-up is largely reversed." Ouch!
(If you'd like to see the study, you can here):www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/ifdp/2005/841/ifdp841.pdf PDF [...]
With the exception of the blip of a recession in 2001, we've had relatively good economic times for nearly 15 years now. But rainy days do come. We're making a bet that the rain will come some day. We can even see the storm clouds...
~ By Steve Sjuggerud (October 20, 2005) [All emph. add.]
During the Southern California real estate downturn of the 80s, after factoring in inflation, it took between 10 - 12 years for prices to rebound to pre-slump levels, depending on location.
However, I don't believe that mildly falling home prices will, by themselves, bring on an American recession, although they will cut a percentage point or two from nominal GNP growth.
But even there there's a silver lining: The current rate of economic growth has already absorbed the drag from high oil prices.
If the economy does slow a bit, oil prices should fall even further than they have over the past month, which will act as a mild stimulant, helping to bring about a "soft landing".
Plus, if the economy starts to slow markedly, the Fed will start cutting rates again, which they have leeway to do by virtue of the rate hikes that they've been making.
Really, this is a "Goldilocks" situation, by historic and global standards.
posted by Oroborous at 2:18 AM
11 Comments:
I scanned the Fed's study and it doesn't look like it'll be all that big a deal.
First, it looks like housing price peaks follow falling GDP growth. In other words, central banks raise their rates and tighten liquidity, then GDP growth begins to fall, and then the housing market experiences it's peak.
Second, from the data, the United States has one of the smaller bubbles relative to other developed countries and is mentioned several times as having relatively little exposure to secondary problems (for example, "[a]s a result of a well-developed market for residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS), originators of U.S. mortgage lending need not retain significant exposure to borrowers 25 or to the underlying collateral, and in practice less than one-third of U.S. mortgages are kept on the books of depository institutions").
Third, regarding potential falling housing prices, the study only "suggests that their downward correction ... could contribute to an economic downturn." Not the most stongly stated conclusion I've ever seen.
I think this may be a case of history always repeating itself - except when it doesn't.
I don't have anything to go on save impressions, but, with that caveat, I do have these observations:
1. There is no such thing as a national housing market. It is entirely possible, indeed, probable, that any markeet I buy into will fall while all others rise.
2. The dog that didn't bark: I bought my first house in 1986, thinking I'd scored a good mortgage deal at 9.5%. Thirty year mortgages now are just under six percent, and show no signs of increasing significantly.
3. SoCal housing prices are now stratospheric.
4. "Major changes" are not the result of a half dozen quarter point increases in interest rates.
5. This reminds me of the saying about the stock market: It has correctly predicted 12 out of the last three recessions.
Oroborous, you are forgetting that our economy has been largely buoyed by consumer spending fed by home equity extraction. The economic impact goes beyond the slowdown in construction and mortgge lending, but includes all consumer supported industries.
Bret:
With regards to the national economy, not catastrophic, but falling home prices in the hottest markets would be a substantial drag on continued economic growth.
Regardless of what the triggering event/trend is, it seems to me that at some near point, housing prices MUST revert back to the mean trend line, in places like SoCal, Miami, Boston, NYC, Las Vegas, Phoenix, etc.
Those areas have had HEAVY speculative pressure, as Skipper alludes to.
Skipper:
It seems probable to me that the last twenty years has been a "Golden Era" in inflation fighting.
Looking out over the next twenty years, one thing that can be counted on is that the U.S. gov't will be severely tested by the retirement of the Boomers, and IMO one response will be to allow or even promote a higher rate of inflation, to discount some of the U.S.' current liabilities.
Even in cases where benefit payments are supposed to be indexed to inflation, Congress can change those provisions at will.
Also, Europe and Asia are going to experience the same demographic/benefit/worker shortage problems that the U.S. does, only much worse.
They will ABSOLUTELY attempt to inflate away some of their problems, especially in places like the PRC, where their fiscal management bureaus operate in secrecy, and benefits are less-well protected.
Some of that activity will spill over to the U.S., since we trade with the world.
Duck:
It seems to me that you're overestimating the problem.
I wrote "mildly falling home prices will [...] cut a percentage point or two from nominal GNP growth", and next year 2% of GNP would be about $ 230 billion dollars.
Do you think that we'll take a hit in consumer spending of MORE than $ 200 billion ?
Oroborous,
You are equating the fall in consumer spending to the fall in home equity. Home equity doesn't actually have to fall to have an impact on consumer spending, it just has to stop growing. The "wealth effect" is an effect on attitudes. When people see their weatlth expanding, they overflow with confidence and spend money they haven't earned yet. When wealth doesn't expand, confidence wanes and they tighten their belts. It has a leveraging effect.
Also, the hit to spending goes beyond just the amount that consumers think they can afford to withdraw from equity. Jobs are tied to the equity driven spending. Home Depot will have fewer shoppers, so they'll cut back on staff. Truckers will have less product to ship, they'll cut back on drivers. So on and so on.
With higher rates, the incentives will shift from spending and borrowing to saving and debt reduction.
The big question that will decide how much an impact this will have on the economy is - what sector will take over for construction, lending and consumer spending? Technology? Resources? Energy? Where are the investments for tomorrows booms being made? Where industry has made investments, they've been mainly overseas. We're not investing in new energy capacity in the US, but relying more and more on imports. Tell me where the next boom will come from here in the US.
Oroborous wrote: "... housing prices MUST revert back to the mean trend line ... "
I suspect that the trend "line" will turn out to be an upward accelerating curve. As we produce more and more with less and less and become richer and richer, I think that eventually we'll spend nearly everything on real estate (they're not making any more) and longevity/health care. Given that GDP is perhaps also accerlating (at least according to the futurist Kurzweil), eventually houses that represent x percent of GDP will represent 5x percent of a much bigger GDP in the not too distant future.
Duck wrote: "The "wealth effect" is an effect on attitudes..."
Yes, but my understanding is that the wealth effect on attitudes is much more directly affected by liquid assets. In other words, getting your stock market statements monthly has much more impact than learning that housing prices in your neighborhood were stagnant when you weren't going to be moving anyway.
I actually think we're seeing a rolling bubble economy, where fortunately each bursting bubble isn't all that large and recovers before the next bubble bursts. The Biotech bubble followed by the Internet bubble, followed by mild housing bubbles in several markets. Our economy can easily weather each little bubble and keep on growing.
I'm with Oroborous that we're in serious goldilocks land. If the tax rate cuts aren't extended, that might possibly cause a deep recession, but short of that, everything looks pretty good to me.
I notice your starting to get spam comments. I suggest setting the "Show word verification for comments" setting which can be reached via the Settings->Comments tabs under blogger. Then everybody just has to read and type in a single word. No big deal. I use it on my blog and it's done a great job at limiting spam.
Duck:
You are equating the fall in consumer spending to the fall in home equity...
The "wealth effect" is an effect on attitudes...
When wealth doesn't expand, confidence wanes and they tighten their belts. It has a leveraging effect.
Yes, the effects of less (or more) spending are compounded, as they work their way through the economy, but people aren't going to slow spending at the same rate that home equity is lost.
People may lose tens of thousands of dollars' worth of potential value in their homes, but unless that somehow affects their immediate income, they're only going to spend, at most, a few thousand dollars less per year - if that.
Also, we're really only talking about perhaps fifty metropolitan areas in the U.S., where prices have far outstripped any realistic support level, that are going to get hammered.
Since many of those areas aren't huge cities, and not everyone there owns their own abode, we're talking about (very roughly) 20 million U.S. households that could potentially be affected.
It's negative, and it's big, but an uptick in the unemployment rate to 6% would hurt more.
With higher rates, the incentives will shift from spending and borrowing to saving and debt reduction.
Which will give us the fuel to fund the next "Big Thing" with.
We're not investing in new energy capacity in the US, but relying more and more on imports.
We're investing HUGE amounts in U.S. energy capacity, from Gulf of Mexico oil to natural gas in northern Texas, Utah, Wyoming, and Montana, and oil exploration in Nevada and Utah.
ANWR gets all of the headlines, but ultimately far more new oil will be produced in the Lower 48.
Tell me where the next boom will come from here in the US.
A guess only:
Biotechnology, nanotechnology, and composite materials.
Quantum computing, if they can get it to work, will be HUGE, bigger than the dot.com bubble.
The medical field is a sure thing - drugs, hospitals, medical devices, nursing care...
The aging Boomers will see to that.
But that might not be the next boom, it might be the one after.
The median Boomer is only 50, after all.
Specific advice:
Buy Toyota and Wal~Mart, to hold for years.
Wal~Mart is at six year lows, a great time to buy.
More speculatively, I like eBay to keep growing. Google has all the sex appeal right now, but over the long run, eBay has more profit potential, and a much more defendable niche.
eBay is a retailer, Google is like a television network, and is vulnerable to having their audiences move to a hit on another network.
Which is not to say that I don't believe that Google will be a profitable company for a long, long time, ( The number of people who use Internet search engines to find information has jumped over the last year, claiming a solid No. 2 spot behind e-mail among online tasks, a new study finds. ), just that their share price is already assuming perfect execution and market dominance for, like, twenty years.
Short Google using LEAPs.
(Long-term Equity Anticipation Securities, long-term stock or index options which are available with expiration dates up to three years in the future).
[I own eBay and Wal~Mart, I do not own or hold any position on Google or Toyota].
Forgot to mention, radio frequency identification tags, (RFID), will act as an afterburner for Wal~Mart profits over the next decade - as well as adding a few percentage points of productivity to the American economy as a whole, not to mention saving lives when applied to the drug and medical fields.
Bret:
While what you wrote about future home valuations seems probable, nonetheless there are a few dozen housing markets right now that are FAR ahead of themselves.
Also, while they aren't making any more land, there is plenty of undeveloped land in potentially desirable locations.
In places where the attraction is geographically limited, such as NYC, San Diego, or around various lakes, prices might continue to grow strongly, in the long term.
But, if we're talking about large-scale attractions like a warm climate, a coastline, or mountains, there are many options other than the current hot-spots like Miami, Aspen, Phoenix, etc.
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