This is a note to me from one of my Short Seller Journal subscribers:
As a 20 year real estate agent, investor and wholesaler in Atlanta, I’d like to add my comment to your analysis. I totally agree that things are not what they seem to be in housing. I despised the NAR [National Association of Realtors] when I was a member because of their ‘it never rains’ housing reports and their confiscatory attitude toward realtor dues and their subversive political activity. I eventually gave up my agent’s license when they started forced PAC contributions in 2010. Edward Pinto of the American Enterprise Institute told me that NAR is spending $55 million a year for lobbying on housing issues. The NAR never met a loan they did not like.
I’ve been working the Atlanta metro housing market since the early 1990′s. I can tell you that this time around is different in that the home buyers I’m seeing in entry level FHA neighborhoods are mostly ‘minorities’ (some are refugees), and virtually every neighborhood in my general area northwest of Atlanta is being sold with 100% financing via USDA loans. There is NO equity in these neighborhoods, and most of the selling prices are as high or higher than 2006-07. The mortgage fees and costs for things like PMI and funding fees are added into the payment along with ever rising tax and insurance payments. The outcome is not going to be pretty.
I do not know when exactly, but at some point, I’m going to make that massive killing in housing stocks that I missed out on in 2009. I knew that crash was coming as early as 2004, from reading mortgage data, but I did not think to short the home builders! This time I won’t miss. Enjoy your work very much.
This post was published at Investment Research Dynamics on June 28, 2016.
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