The Mortgage Corner
New-home sales are now back to the long term average in the above graph that dates back to the 1960s, and consumers are still reasonably confident of their future.
"Sales of new single‐family houses in October 2019 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 733,000, according to estimates released jointly today by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. This is 0.7 percent below the revised September rate of 738,000, but is 31.6 percent above the October 2018 estimate of 557,000."This was the first time since 2007 that the annual pace of single-family home sales remained above 700,000 for three consecutive months, according to Calculated Risk. New-home sales were nearly 32 percent higher on an annual basis in October.
This means that residential construction is also increasing the supply of new homes, as I said last week; at the same time as there is a significant housing shortage and housing construction isn’t yet back to historical levels.
Whereas, “Consumer confidence declined for a fourth consecutive month, driven by a softening in consumers’ assessment of current business and employment conditions,” said Lynn Franco, Senior Director of Economic Indicators at The Conference Board. “The decline in the Present Situation Index suggests that economic growth in the final quarter of 2019 will remain weak. However, consumers’ short-term expectations improved modestly, and growth in early 2020 is likely to remain at around 2 percent. Overall, confidence levels are still high and should support solid spending during this holiday season.”So, although consumer confidence is down a bit from last year, it is still enough to cheer consumers for the holidays.
I said I was also going to say something about interest rates trends last week. We only have to look to Japan and the EU to see that U.S. interest rates could continue downward; but only if our government doesn’t step in with public investments that are sorely needed—such as in our energy network, infrastructure, education, environmental protection and the like that we have been discussing ad nauseum.
As of now, the opposite is true. Republicans rammed through tax cuts that have run up a $1 trillion dollar annual deficit. But the windfall went into corporation profits rather than into public spending programs that would have produced more productive workers and sustained growth.
It meant that financial engineering has created a huge savings glut—both here and in Europe—that is driving down interest rates to zero or below. EU countries are so desperate to put their excess savings to work that they are willing to pay investors to use their savings with negative interest rates. The same could happen here if we don’t find a way to use those savings productively.
This came out of so-called austerity measures in an overreaction to the Great Recession. Conservative ‘austerians’ as they were called worried more about budget deficits than investments that would stimulate more spending by domestic consumers and businesses that would in turn boost future growth.
This is what happens with the savings glut we have now. Too many policymakers and investors are obsessed with saving—in fact, hoarding wealth—rather than putting it to productive use that would lower public debt over the long term.
Though it’s really rational financial behavior when individuals hold on to savings for a rainy day. But that’s not the case for governments that won’t spend what’s needed for the future. It will bring on the rainy days sooner. Lord John Maynard Keynes knew it in the 1930s. He was the creator of Keynesian economics and a government that gave us the New Deal.
Harlan Green © 2019
Follow Harlan Green on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarlanGreen
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