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美国楼市因为新冠疫情而出现惊人变化

美国楼市因为新冠疫情而出现惊人变化

Shawn Tully 2021-03-13
美国正在经历自2006年房地产热高潮以来最大规模的房价暴涨。

美国企业研究所住房中心(American Enterprise Institute’s Housing Center)的数据显示,美国正在经历自2006年房地产热高潮以来最大规模的房价暴涨,其将在早春实现中双位数增长。但这次的房地产市场表现与以往的牛市特征(抵押贷款利率超低,且地产库存较少)完全不同,堪称出现了颠覆性的变化。这是新冠疫情期间,经济方面最重大、最鲜为人知的变化之一:以往涨价幅度总是落后于市场的高端住宅,目前的升值速度正在与炙手可热的低端住宅并驾齐驱。

原因是:过去的美国富人习惯于在他们居住或工作的地方购买第二套豪宅,而如今,疫情期间他们无需到写字楼上班,可以在任何地方工作。所以他们卖了在圣何塞、西雅图或芝加哥的房子,然后在菲尼克斯、博伊西或辛辛那提买了一栋更大、更便宜的房子。在那里,他们能够在宽敞的家庭休息室里通过Zoom与同事们沟通,在泳池边度过周末,看孩子们在大大的后院里嬉戏。

“这一趋势之前已经开始,但新冠疫情加剧了这一变化。”美国企业研究所住房中心的主任埃德·平托说。“我们从未见过规模如此之大的房地产套利,不管工作地点在哪,人们都选择去边远城市搜寻性价比更高的房子。这让我想起了19世纪中期的土地热,当时伊利诺伊州的土地越来越贵,于是人们去堪萨斯寻找更大、更便宜的农场,然后继续向西部迁移,以获得更多的土地和更好的性价比。这次是自由市场在房地产领域的胜利。”

过去,靠低利率支撑的房地产牛市期间,最便宜的房屋总是升值最快。高端住宅也略有涨幅,却不如低端住宅。以圣何塞为例,当时居住和工作在圣何塞的富人,通常的做法是,在圣何塞购买第二套房。

平托说,与美国联邦住房管理局(Federal Housing Administration)资助的首次购房者相比,这些家庭通常会支付更多的首付,贷款较少。“他们是一个比较保守的群体。他们会在买更多房子的同时,让月供依旧和以前一样多,而且他们经常这样做。”他补充说道。“但如果有一家人,他们住在一栋漂亮的、价值100万美元的三居室里,而且仍然喜欢那栋房子。那么他们就没有必要急着去买城里另一边更贵的四居室房子。”

它不像低端住宅,政府为其提供了很多支持,实际上是在告诉你:“去买那套房子!”结果是,在经济繁荣时期,有美国联邦住房管理局支持的首套住房购买者,一般会让低端住宅的房价升高,其对或殖民地时期风格、或后现代风格豪宅的刺激力度,远低于高收入者在自己的家乡买房。

可移式住宅

而美国人新出现的流动性正在扭转这一长期趋势。自去年6月以来,高端住宅价格增幅在10月与低端住宅持平,此后一直保持着增长势头。美国企业研究所将房屋分为了四个价位类别:低端、中低端、中高端和高端,并提供了40个大城市的具体房价。由美国联邦住房管理局提供贷款融资、销售额等于或低于40%的,属于低端住宅。具体价格则因地而异。在圣迭戈,低端住宅的平均价格是37.7万美元,而在夏洛特是14.7万美元。西雅图中高端住宅的房价是68.1万美元,在菲尼克斯则是41.4万美元。对美国联邦住房管理局、房利美(Fannie Mae)或房地美(Freddie Mac)来说,高端住宅过于昂贵,因此买家通常会从银行或其他贷款机构申请较低的房屋抵押贷款,比例在70%至80%之间。

从2012年到2020年年中,低端住宅的升值表现远远好于高端住宅,年均升值率约为7%,而中高端和高端住宅的升值率分别约为5%和4%。直到一年前,低端住宅的价格涨幅仍然处于显著领先地位。但今年1月的数据显示,三类住宅的升值速度开始并驾齐驱,升值率达到了十年来从未有过的水平:低端住宅为14.3%,中高端住宅为16.1%,高端则为13.7%。

对平托来说,在火爆的房地产市场中,高端住宅的强劲表现标志着一种结构性转变,这种转变可能至少会持续两年。要预测不同类型住宅房价的走势,重要的是,考察推动房产升值的高度有利因素的综合作用,以及新冠疫情带来的居家办公经济是如何为高端住宅市场推波助澜的。让我们先开始进行需求分析。

为了预测未来几个月的房价,平托收集了大量具有代表性的样本数据,这些数据包括提交给美国联邦住房管理局、房利美和房地美以及其它政府机构和私人银行的贷款申请。这些被称为“利率锁定”数字,因为合同是在贷款人设定抵押贷款利率时签订的。这些数据能够让他在销售情况公开之前,早早预测未来的房价。基于这些信息,他预测未来几个月房价将加速上涨,甚至可能超过1月的升值率,可能所有类别的住宅都是如此。

在之前住宅升值率很低的时候,这一方法使平托准确地预测到,房价升值率在今年早些时候将达到两位数。2020年,房地产市场开始飞速发展。截至今年3月初,购房合同数量达到了5.1万份,超过了2019年同期的3.3万份。出乎意料的是,疫情爆发只让买房者望而却步了大约七个星期。

从2020年6月中旬到11月底,新签合同数量平均每月约为5万份,远高于2019年的3.5万份。在经历了季节性的、年底的下跌后,利率锁定再次飙升,比2019年高出约60%。这些大额的合同数据,预示着未来几个月的销售额将大幅增长,并显示出强劲的上升势头,我们几乎可以肯定,它会继续增长。

随着美国人对房屋需求加剧,待售房屋的库存在不断减少。平托提出了造成库存紧张的四个原因。首先,年届六七十岁的婴儿潮一代不再待在公寓里了,他们住在家里的时间变得更长。大约是因为在疫情期间,能够供全家人居住的房子变得很有吸引力。其次,诸如卡罗莱纳州和得克萨斯州等建筑相对密集的地方,需要更长时间来获得土地规划许可和新建筑批准。第三,东北部和西部大部分地区严格的土地使用限制,制约了新房屋的供应。第四,由于疫情因素,春夏季工人无法顺畅施工,进一步放大了这些不利阻碍。

以上因素综合作用,将库存推至了历史低点。自2020年1月以来,挂牌出售的房屋数量从100万套锐减至60万套。“去化月数”是指按照当前速度出售所有房源所需的时间,目前已经从3.3个月降至2个月。平托估计,这还不到5个月库存量的一半,标志着市场处于均衡状态。值得注意的是,中高端住宅的去化月数仅为微不足道的2.2个月,高端住宅为4.7个月,约为去年4月8.9个月的一半。

更大、更新、更贵

巨大的需求和极度紧张的库存使房价飞涨。而大城市的房产往往升值最快。在这些大城市中,一些高收入的家庭正在搬离,以用更少的钱购买更大、更新的房子,而他们离开的房价过高的地区,其房价涨幅则是最低的。

最大的赢家是菲尼克斯。从2020年1月到今年1月,其年升值率从9%增长到了全国领先的14.5%。和菲尼克斯一样,萨克拉曼多也受益于洛杉矶和旧金山的人口外流,高端和中高端住宅的年升值率分别达到了18.1%和19.7%。大套利的其它赢家是加利福尼亚的里弗赛德(中高端住宅17.4%)、坦帕(20.5%)、纳什维尔(16.5%)和亚特兰大(14.1%)。

俄亥俄州哥伦布市的廉价住房,吸引了在芝加哥可以居家办公的富人们,推动中高端住宅的房价,较2020年1月上涨了16%。令人惊讶的是费城,其高端住宅的年升值率从2020年1月的1.5%,飙升至了12月的18.2%。费城与曼哈顿及其郊区之间的巨大价格差犹如一个吸尘器,将高收入者从狭小的公寓或小房子中拉出来,来到这座城市,购买更大、更便宜的房子。每周坐美国铁路公司(Amtrak)的火车,长途跋涉去他们位于纽约的办公室一两次,只需要花费90分钟左右。平托说,普罗维登斯非常热门,这要归功于波士顿的外流人口。新泽西州的纽瓦克和阿斯伯里帕克饱受曼哈顿人潮的热捧,他们穿过哈德逊河,正在寻机购买豪宅。

抵押贷款利率会何去何从?

最大的问题是,抵押贷款利率的提高,是会拉平年升值率曲线还是使其下降。30年期基准利率已经从1月初的2.65%升至3.25%。平托认为,如果基准利率达到4%,全国的房价将继续实现高个位数增长。“如果基准利率超过5%,这个政党就会下台。”他说。“我们现在离那还远着呢。”

他说,30年期基准利率的升高,不会对4月和5月的房价造成任何影响,因为这些交易已经完成。因此,在这几个月里,房价的升值率会保持在13%至14%以内。但基准利率的提高将在5月底和6月产生影响。平托说:“到那时,房价升值率应该会放缓到9%至10%。“这个速度仍然非常快,比过去10年的任何时候都要快,当然,比不过最近的升值速度。”他补充说。

但他说,月供稍微提高一点,并不会阻碍一些大城市,其中高端住宅房价持续上涨的基础性变化。“3.5%的基准利率,不会停止圣何塞人搬到菲尼克斯的脚步,在那里他们可以以少30%的价格买到更大的房子。”他说。他对比了圣何塞的一套1400平方英尺的房子(60.2万美元)、萨克拉门托的一套2200平方英尺的房子(43万美元),以及菲尼克斯的一套更大的抹灰模型房子(38.4万美元)。“卖掉北加州的房子并搬走的家庭,获得的房子更大、月供更少,还能够再拿到手一些钱。”

对平托而言,正是疫情带来的新的生活方式,将已经形成的震颤变成了一场地震。他说:“在过去,加利福尼亚和纽约似乎是垄断市场。如果你在那里工作,你就得花大价钱住在那里。45年来,高端住宅的价格越来越让人难以承受。直到最近,人们还觉得自己别无选择,只能住在圣何塞、旧金山或西雅图。但疫情打破了禁锢。如此大规模的人口外流,之前从未发生过。最终,自由市场将获取胜利。”这本来需要几十年的时间,但这场疫情打开了大门。最好,这场新的土地热会继续以强劲的步伐前行。(财富中文网)

译者:Claire

美国企业研究所住房中心(American Enterprise Institute’s Housing Center)的数据显示,美国正在经历自2006年房地产热高潮以来最大规模的房价暴涨,其将在早春实现中双位数增长。但这次的房地产市场表现与以往的牛市特征(抵押贷款利率超低,且地产库存较少)完全不同,堪称出现了颠覆性的变化。这是新冠疫情期间,经济方面最重大、最鲜为人知的变化之一:以往涨价幅度总是落后于市场的高端住宅,目前的升值速度正在与炙手可热的低端住宅并驾齐驱。

原因是:过去的美国富人习惯于在他们居住或工作的地方购买第二套豪宅,而如今,疫情期间他们无需到写字楼上班,可以在任何地方工作。所以他们卖了在圣何塞、西雅图或芝加哥的房子,然后在菲尼克斯、博伊西或辛辛那提买了一栋更大、更便宜的房子。在那里,他们能够在宽敞的家庭休息室里通过Zoom与同事们沟通,在泳池边度过周末,看孩子们在大大的后院里嬉戏。

“这一趋势之前已经开始,但新冠疫情加剧了这一变化。”美国企业研究所住房中心的主任埃德·平托说。“我们从未见过规模如此之大的房地产套利,不管工作地点在哪,人们都选择去边远城市搜寻性价比更高的房子。这让我想起了19世纪中期的土地热,当时伊利诺伊州的土地越来越贵,于是人们去堪萨斯寻找更大、更便宜的农场,然后继续向西部迁移,以获得更多的土地和更好的性价比。这次是自由市场在房地产领域的胜利。”

过去,靠低利率支撑的房地产牛市期间,最便宜的房屋总是升值最快。高端住宅也略有涨幅,却不如低端住宅。以圣何塞为例,当时居住和工作在圣何塞的富人,通常的做法是,在圣何塞购买第二套房。

平托说,与美国联邦住房管理局(Federal Housing Administration)资助的首次购房者相比,这些家庭通常会支付更多的首付,贷款较少。“他们是一个比较保守的群体。他们会在买更多房子的同时,让月供依旧和以前一样多,而且他们经常这样做。”他补充说道。“但如果有一家人,他们住在一栋漂亮的、价值100万美元的三居室里,而且仍然喜欢那栋房子。那么他们就没有必要急着去买城里另一边更贵的四居室房子。”

它不像低端住宅,政府为其提供了很多支持,实际上是在告诉你:“去买那套房子!”结果是,在经济繁荣时期,有美国联邦住房管理局支持的首套住房购买者,一般会让低端住宅的房价升高,其对或殖民地时期风格、或后现代风格豪宅的刺激力度,远低于高收入者在自己的家乡买房。

可移式住宅

而美国人新出现的流动性正在扭转这一长期趋势。自去年6月以来,高端住宅价格增幅在10月与低端住宅持平,此后一直保持着增长势头。美国企业研究所将房屋分为了四个价位类别:低端、中低端、中高端和高端,并提供了40个大城市的具体房价。由美国联邦住房管理局提供贷款融资、销售额等于或低于40%的,属于低端住宅。具体价格则因地而异。在圣迭戈,低端住宅的平均价格是37.7万美元,而在夏洛特是14.7万美元。西雅图中高端住宅的房价是68.1万美元,在菲尼克斯则是41.4万美元。对美国联邦住房管理局、房利美(Fannie Mae)或房地美(Freddie Mac)来说,高端住宅过于昂贵,因此买家通常会从银行或其他贷款机构申请较低的房屋抵押贷款,比例在70%至80%之间。

从2012年到2020年年中,低端住宅的升值表现远远好于高端住宅,年均升值率约为7%,而中高端和高端住宅的升值率分别约为5%和4%。直到一年前,低端住宅的价格涨幅仍然处于显著领先地位。但今年1月的数据显示,三类住宅的升值速度开始并驾齐驱,升值率达到了十年来从未有过的水平:低端住宅为14.3%,中高端住宅为16.1%,高端则为13.7%。

对平托来说,在火爆的房地产市场中,高端住宅的强劲表现标志着一种结构性转变,这种转变可能至少会持续两年。要预测不同类型住宅房价的走势,重要的是,考察推动房产升值的高度有利因素的综合作用,以及新冠疫情带来的居家办公经济是如何为高端住宅市场推波助澜的。让我们先开始进行需求分析。

为了预测未来几个月的房价,平托收集了大量具有代表性的样本数据,这些数据包括提交给美国联邦住房管理局、房利美和房地美以及其它政府机构和私人银行的贷款申请。这些被称为“利率锁定”数字,因为合同是在贷款人设定抵押贷款利率时签订的。这些数据能够让他在销售情况公开之前,早早预测未来的房价。基于这些信息,他预测未来几个月房价将加速上涨,甚至可能超过1月的升值率,可能所有类别的住宅都是如此。

在之前住宅升值率很低的时候,这一方法使平托准确地预测到,房价升值率在今年早些时候将达到两位数。2020年,房地产市场开始飞速发展。截至今年3月初,购房合同数量达到了5.1万份,超过了2019年同期的3.3万份。出乎意料的是,疫情爆发只让买房者望而却步了大约七个星期。

从2020年6月中旬到11月底,新签合同数量平均每月约为5万份,远高于2019年的3.5万份。在经历了季节性的、年底的下跌后,利率锁定再次飙升,比2019年高出约60%。这些大额的合同数据,预示着未来几个月的销售额将大幅增长,并显示出强劲的上升势头,我们几乎可以肯定,它会继续增长。

随着美国人对房屋需求加剧,待售房屋的库存在不断减少。平托提出了造成库存紧张的四个原因。首先,年届六七十岁的婴儿潮一代不再待在公寓里了,他们住在家里的时间变得更长。大约是因为在疫情期间,能够供全家人居住的房子变得很有吸引力。其次,诸如卡罗莱纳州和得克萨斯州等建筑相对密集的地方,需要更长时间来获得土地规划许可和新建筑批准。第三,东北部和西部大部分地区严格的土地使用限制,制约了新房屋的供应。第四,由于疫情因素,春夏季工人无法顺畅施工,进一步放大了这些不利阻碍。

以上因素综合作用,将库存推至了历史低点。自2020年1月以来,挂牌出售的房屋数量从100万套锐减至60万套。“去化月数”是指按照当前速度出售所有房源所需的时间,目前已经从3.3个月降至2个月。平托估计,这还不到5个月库存量的一半,标志着市场处于均衡状态。值得注意的是,中高端住宅的去化月数仅为微不足道的2.2个月,高端住宅为4.7个月,约为去年4月8.9个月的一半。

更大、更新、更贵

巨大的需求和极度紧张的库存使房价飞涨。而大城市的房产往往升值最快。在这些大城市中,一些高收入的家庭正在搬离,以用更少的钱购买更大、更新的房子,而他们离开的房价过高的地区,其房价涨幅则是最低的。

最大的赢家是菲尼克斯。从2020年1月到今年1月,其年升值率从9%增长到了全国领先的14.5%。和菲尼克斯一样,萨克拉曼多也受益于洛杉矶和旧金山的人口外流,高端和中高端住宅的年升值率分别达到了18.1%和19.7%。大套利的其它赢家是加利福尼亚的里弗赛德(中高端住宅17.4%)、坦帕(20.5%)、纳什维尔(16.5%)和亚特兰大(14.1%)。

俄亥俄州哥伦布市的廉价住房,吸引了在芝加哥可以居家办公的富人们,推动中高端住宅的房价,较2020年1月上涨了16%。令人惊讶的是费城,其高端住宅的年升值率从2020年1月的1.5%,飙升至了12月的18.2%。费城与曼哈顿及其郊区之间的巨大价格差犹如一个吸尘器,将高收入者从狭小的公寓或小房子中拉出来,来到这座城市,购买更大、更便宜的房子。每周坐美国铁路公司(Amtrak)的火车,长途跋涉去他们位于纽约的办公室一两次,只需要花费90分钟左右。平托说,普罗维登斯非常热门,这要归功于波士顿的外流人口。新泽西州的纽瓦克和阿斯伯里帕克饱受曼哈顿人潮的热捧,他们穿过哈德逊河,正在寻机购买豪宅。

抵押贷款利率会何去何从?

最大的问题是,抵押贷款利率的提高,是会拉平年升值率曲线还是使其下降。30年期基准利率已经从1月初的2.65%升至3.25%。平托认为,如果基准利率达到4%,全国的房价将继续实现高个位数增长。“如果基准利率超过5%,这个政党就会下台。”他说。“我们现在离那还远着呢。”

他说,30年期基准利率的升高,不会对4月和5月的房价造成任何影响,因为这些交易已经完成。因此,在这几个月里,房价的升值率会保持在13%至14%以内。但基准利率的提高将在5月底和6月产生影响。平托说:“到那时,房价升值率应该会放缓到9%至10%。“这个速度仍然非常快,比过去10年的任何时候都要快,当然,比不过最近的升值速度。”他补充说。

但他说,月供稍微提高一点,并不会阻碍一些大城市,其中高端住宅房价持续上涨的基础性变化。“3.5%的基准利率,不会停止圣何塞人搬到菲尼克斯的脚步,在那里他们可以以少30%的价格买到更大的房子。”他说。他对比了圣何塞的一套1400平方英尺的房子(60.2万美元)、萨克拉门托的一套2200平方英尺的房子(43万美元),以及菲尼克斯的一套更大的抹灰模型房子(38.4万美元)。“卖掉北加州的房子并搬走的家庭,获得的房子更大、月供更少,还能够再拿到手一些钱。”

对平托而言,正是疫情带来的新的生活方式,将已经形成的震颤变成了一场地震。他说:“在过去,加利福尼亚和纽约似乎是垄断市场。如果你在那里工作,你就得花大价钱住在那里。45年来,高端住宅的价格越来越让人难以承受。直到最近,人们还觉得自己别无选择,只能住在圣何塞、旧金山或西雅图。但疫情打破了禁锢。如此大规模的人口外流,之前从未发生过。最终,自由市场将获取胜利。”这本来需要几十年的时间,但这场疫情打开了大门。最好,这场新的土地热会继续以强劲的步伐前行。(财富中文网)

译者:Claire

The U.S. is riding the greatest housing price explosion since the height of the 2006 craze, setting a pace that's due to hit the mid-teens by early spring, according to the American Enterprise Institute's Housing Center. But this boom is a game changer, a completely different phenomenon from previous bull runs featuring super-low mortgage rates and slender inventories. In a historic turnabout that's one of the biggest, most underreported stories of the COVID economy, expensive homes—which almost always lag in a surging market—are racing neck-and-neck with the sizzling low end.

The reason: Affluent Americans who used to shop for move-up manses where they live and work no longer need to commute to an office complex and can work from anywhere. So they're selling in San Jose, Seattle, or Chicago and buying a bigger, cheaper house in Phoenix or Boise or Cincinnati, where they Zoom with colleagues from expansive home dens, spend weekends poolside, and watch their kids frolic in a big backyard.

"This trend was already underway, but the pandemic made it far stronger," says Ed Pinto, director of the AEI Housing Center. "We've never seen a housing arbitrage play on anything like this scale, with people seeking better deals in far-flung cities regardless of where they work. It reminds me of the great land rush of the mid-1800s where as land got more expensive in Illinois, people went to Kansas for bigger, cheaper farms, then kept moving west for more space and better deals. It's the free market winning in housing."

In past strong markets sustained by low rates, it has been the least expensive homes that almost always showed the fastest gains. The upper tiers benefited, too, but less so. The affluent customers living and working in, say, San Jose, were most often shopping for a move-up home in San Jose.

Those families were typically putting up more cash and using less leverage than first time buyers supported by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), says Pinto. "They were a more conservative group. They could buy more house with the same monthly payment as before, and often did," he adds. "But a family living in a nice three-bedroom, $1 million house still liked that house. They didn't necessarily sprint to buy the more expensive four-bedroom house across town.”

It wasn't like the low end, where the government is providing so much help it's really telling you, “Go buy that house!” The upshot is that in good times, the FHA crowd purchasing their first homes tended to pump the accelerator at the low end a lot harder than the high-earners shopping in their hometowns did for the colonials and postmoderns in the upper range.

Mobile homes

Americans’ newfound mobility is reversing that longstanding trend. Since June, expensive homes pulled even with the low end in October, and have been keeping pace ever since. The AEI splits homes into four price buckets: low, low-medium, medium-high, and high, and provides the breakdowns for 40 metros. Sales at or below the 40th percentile for those financed with FHA loans fall in the low bin. That numbers ranges all over depending on the metro; in San Diego, the average in the low bin is $377,000, while in Charlotte it's $147,000. The "medium-high" sits at $681,000 in Seattle and $414,000 in Phoenix. High-end abodes are usually too expensive for FHA, Fannie Mae, or Freddie Mac financing, so buyers typically get lower home-to-value mortgages in the 70% to 80% range from banks or other lenders.

From 2012 to mid-2020, "low" far outperformed the higher ranges, booking average appreciation of around 7% a year, versus roughly 5% for "medium-high" and 4% for "high." A year ago, low still enjoyed a significant lead in both categories. But the numbers for January show all three tiers locked in a tight race, and speeding at rates not witnessed in a decade: the low end sprinting at 14.3%, medium-high at 16.1%, and high at 13.7%.

For Pinto, the nose-to-nose performance of the high end in a raging market marks a tectonic shift that's likely to persist for at least two years. To foresee where the different price tiers are heading, it's important to examine the confluence of highly favorable forces propelling all housing, and how the pandemic-driven, work-at-home economy is supercharging the high end. Let's start with the powerhouse demand picture.

To forecast prices in the months ahead, Pinto collects a large, representative sample of the data on loan applications submitted to FHA, Fannie, and Freddie and other government agencies, as well as private banks. Those are called "rate lock" numbers, since the contracts are signed when the lenders set the mortgage rate. That data allows him to project prices into the future, well before the sales are a matter of public record. Based on that information, he's projecting that prices will accelerate in future months even exceeding the rate reported for January, probably in all price tiers.

That methodology led Pinto to accurately predict that what he calls “HPA,” for home price appreciation, was heading for double digits earlier this year, when the rate of increase was much lower. Housing started 2020 on a tear. By early March, purchase contracts were exceeding same-week 2019 levels 51,000 to 33,000. Surprisingly, the COVID outbreak sidelined buyers for only about seven weeks.

From mid-June to the end of November, newly signed contracts were running at about 50,000 a month on average, far above the 35,000 registered in 2019. After taking a seasonal, year-end dip, rate locks spiked again, running around 60% over 2019 levels for the rest of the year. Those big contract numbers foretold a giant jump in sales in the months ahead, and showed momentum so strong that it was almost certain to keep building.

As America's hunger for houses intensified, the stock of homes for sale kept shrinking. Pinto offers four reasons for the inventory crunch. First, older baby boomers in their sixties and seventies are staying longer in their homes instead of downsizing to apartments, in part because the pandemic makes having space for hosting the family so attractive. Second, in places like the Carolinas and Texas, where building has been relatively plentiful, it's been taking longer and longer to get land zoned and approved for new construction. Third, severe land use restrictions in the Northeast and much of the West continue to keep a tight lid on fresh supply. Fourth, COVID magnified the damage from those barriers by shutting down construction for a couple of months in the spring and summer.

The result was a perfect gale that drove inventories to historic lows. Since January 2020, the number of homes listed for sale has cratered from 1 million to 600,000. “Months of supply,” the time required to sell all listings at the current pace, has fallen in that period from 3.3 to 2.0 months. That's less than half the five-month stock that, Pinto reckons, marks a balanced market. Remarkably, the number for homes in the medium-high category is a paltry 2.2 months, and the high end stands at 4.7 months, about half the 8.9 reading last April.

Bigger, newer, more expensive

The combination of gigantic demand and ultra-tight inventories is sending prices skyward. And the biggest leaps are frequently coming in metros where newly mobile, high-income families are moving to buy a much bigger, newer house for a lot less money, while the exorbitantly priced locales they're leaving are posting the lowest gains.

The biggest winner is Phoenix. From January 2020 to January of this year, its annual appreciation rate, or HPA, expanded from 9% to a nation-leading 14.5%. Like Phoenix, Sacramento benefited from the outflow from L.A. and San Francisco, as high and medium-high HPAs touched 18.1% and 19.7% respectively. Other winners from the Great Arbitrage were Riverside, Calif. (medium-high 17.4%), Tampa (20.5%), Nashville (16.5%), and Atlanta (14.1%).

The housing bargains in Columbus, Ohio, are drawing affluent work-from-homers from Chicago, pushing medium-to-high prices up 16% from January 2020. A coastal surprise is Philadelphia, where the HPA for the high grouping zoomed from 1.5% in January 2020 to 18.2% in December. The giant price gap between Philly and Manhattan and its burbs created a vacuum pulling high-earners from cramped condos or small homes to land bigger, cheaper homes in the City of Brotherly Love. The trek on Amtrak to visit their Big Apple offices once or twice a week takes just 90 minutes or so. Providence, says Pinto, is superhot, thanks to the outflow from Boston. Newark and Asbury Park, N.J., are feasting from the stream of Manhattanites seeking great buys across the Hudson.

Where are mortgage rates heading?

The big question is whether increasing mortgage rates will flatten the HPA curve or send it downward. The 30-year benchmark has already vaulted from 2.65% in early January to 3.25%. Pinto believes that if rates reach 4%, national prices will keep rising in the high single digits. "It would take over 5% to end the party," he says. "We're nowhere near that now."

The spike in the 30-year, he says, will show no effect in April and May because those deals are already done. So for those months, prices should keep rising in the 13% to 14% range. But the higher rates will start to bite in late May and June. By then, appreciation should slow to 9% to 10%, says Pinto. "That's still a very fast pace, much faster than at any time in the last 10 years, except for the recent increase in rates," he adds.

But somewhat higher monthly payments, he says, won't undermine the fundamental shift that's lifting prices of the more expensive homes in highly affordable metros. "A 3.5% rate won't stop families from moving from San Jose to Phoenix, where they can get a lot more house for 30% less," he says. He compares a 1,400-square-foot home in San Jose that sold for $602,000 to a 2,200-square-foot abode in Sacramento at $430,000, and a bigger stucco model in Phoenix at $384,000. "Families that make that move get much more space, pay a lot less per month, and pocket the cash from selling their home in Northern California," he says.

For Pinto, it was the COVID lifestyle that turned a tremor, already building, into an earthquake. "In the past, it was as if California and New York were captive markets," he says. "If you worked there, you had to pay big to live there. Prices kept getting more unaffordable for 45 years in those expensive markets. The perception until recently was you had no choice but to live in San Jose, or San Francisco, or Seattle. But the pandemic broke the shackles. An exodus on this scale has never happened before. At the end of the day, the free market will prevail." It took decades to happen, but the pandemic unlocked the gates. The best bet is that the new incarnation of the Great Land Rush will keep running on strong legs.

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