Housing in the Time of COVID-19

The Mortgage Corner

NAHB.org

I reported in January that housing construction was slowly recovering, in part due to the extreme housing shortage and record low interest rates.  Well, rates are even lower today, but purchase applications are now plunging as will new-home sales, whereas I believe refinancing will continue to surge because of even lower mortgage rates.

So it’s good to know the Fed is also supporting the mortgage-backed securities market with its Quantitative Easing from the latest $2 billion bailout bill, since the mortgage market is suffering from the same credit crunch as every other part of the finance industry.

And who wants to buy a home in this lockdown that could last months, anyway?  Reports are coming in that homebuying is also frozen in place, while everyone waits out the pandemic.

Wolf Richter for the financial blog Wolf Street writes, “In states where lockdowns started first – they were kicked off in the San Francisco Bay Area – the year-over-year plunge in purchase-mortgage applications was the most severe:

California: -36.4%

New York: -35.6%

Washington: -32.5%

Purchase mortgage applications plunged another 11 percent after dropping 24 percent from the equivalent week a year ago.  Since the multi-year peak in January, purchase-mortgage applications have plunged by one-third, said the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA).

Whereas the MBA’s Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, increased 15.3 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier. This is because refinancing per the Refinance Index increased 26 percent from the previous week and was 168 percent higher than the same week one year ago.

"Mortgage rates and applications continue to experience significant volatility from the economic and financial market uncertainty caused by the coronavirus crisis. After two weeks of sizeable increases, mortgage rates dropped back to the lowest level in MBA's survey, which in turn led to a 25 percent jump in refinance applications," said Joel Kan, MBA's Associate Vice President of Economic and Industry Forecasting.

"The bleaker economic outlook, along with the first wave of realized job losses reported in last week's unemployment claims numbers, likely caused potential homebuyers to pull back," he continued.

There will be an even more severe housing shortage, in other words, with more than 500,000 homeless living on the streets in January.  Homelessness will now increase with the new coronavirus pandemic, as the many without government-insured mortgages (GSEs) from Fannie, Freddie, FHA, and the VA will probably lose their homes, if they cannot keep up their loan payments.  HUD’s Federal Housing and Finance Authority has said the requirement that lenders hold off on foreclosures for one year only applies to the GSEs the FHFA regulates.

 And so the housing shortage will continue.  In many markets, this will mean no open houses (for new-home purchases). Face-to-face closings are to be avoided.

 “But exchanging signed documents through car windows in a parking lot is OK. Under the pressure of social distancing, the doors have opened to modern document technology. In theory, homes can be sold, and mortgages can be written, but it’s now a different ballgame,” says Richter.

The housing shortage will require even greater government support to keep people in their homes for the duration of the novel coronavirus pandemic, and beyond.

Harlan Green © 2020

Follow Harlan Green on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarlanGreen

Can We Provide Housing For Everyone?

ANSWERING THE KENNEDYS’ CALL

thelundreport.org

I said in an earlier column “that part of the solution to the housing and homeless crisis has to be the responsibility of governments.” But the Silicon Valley giants Google, Apple, and Washington State’s Microsoft are finding it necessary to also boost housing supply, for no other reason than to make it affordable for their employees being priced out of their own markets.

San Francisco’s median home price has reached $1.5m, for instance, In January, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the San Francisco Foundation, Facebook, Genentech, and others announced a new $500 million fund to build or preserve more than 8,000 homes in five Bay Area counties over the next five to 10 years, reported the San Jose Mercury News.

And Microsoft has committed $500 million to build affordable housing and tackle homelessness in the Seattle area, while Wells Fargo recently said it would spend $1 billion for affordable housing as part of a broader national philanthropic push.

But Google, said in a blog post cited by the Mercury News it would spend $750 million to build housing on its own land. Aimed at freeing up space for 15,000 homes, the  process could take up to 10 years. Google would work with cities to rezone land that is mostly designated now for office or commercial uses. In 2018, 3,000 homes were built in the South Bay, Google noted.

Regarding the homeless crisis, a recent Project Syndicate article by UC Berkeley economist Laura Tyson, and Lenny Mendonca, Chairman of New America, highlighted just how much government support will be needed to take some of the half million homeless off the streets, a number that has grown sharply just since 2017 as housing rents and prices have soared with the economic recovery.

According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), there were roughly 554,000 homeless people living somewhere in the United States on a given night last year. “A total of 193,000 of those people were "unsheltered," meaning that they were living on the streets and had no access to emergency shelters, transitional housing, or Safe Havens. Despite a booming stock market and strong economic growth, a large swathe of America is still struggling to make ends meet.”

Affordability is the real problem. “Of 3,007 counties in the US, a worker earning the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour can afford a one-bedroom rental in only 12,” said Project Syndicate. “In San Francisco, where the median house price is over $1.5 million, a single mother earning the minimum wage would have to work 120 hours per week to meet her basic needs. And even outside of high-cost regions, nearly two-thirds of US households lack the savings to cover a $500 shock such as a car repair or health-care expense. For these families, one bad turn can result in homelessness.”

The most common-sense solution would be to build more homes for all socio-economic strata, but surveys have shown that a majority of the home owning public thinks in NIMBY (Not-in-My-Backyard) terms; which means the most affordable housing is being built on least-desirable land usually far from population centers.

StrongTowns.org is one such advocate and clearing house for the building of affordable housing under its Mission Statement: “For the United States to be a prosperous country, it must have strong cities, towns and neighborhoods. Enduring prosperity for our communities cannot be artificially created from the outside but must be built from within, incrementally over time.”

For instance, California would need to build around 180,000 more new housing units each year – about 100,000 more than are currently being built – just to keep up with population growth. Since 2010, eight times as many jobs as housing units have been added in San Francisco, where the average cost of building “affordable apartments” has jumped to $425,000. King County, Washington, which includes Seattle, estimates that it would need 14,000 more units to house its homeless population.

Not providing lodgings and services for the homeless can be even more expensive. There are many studies that show how costly it can be to leave the homeless on America’s streets; as much a two times the cost of providing shelter when healthcare and other public costs are incurred.

Many local and state governments have developed what have been called ‘Housing First’ programs to help subsidize the 30 percent of homeless with mental illnesses in particular. Chronically homeless people are regular visitors to emergency rooms, and each visit results in a hefty bill. They also frequently use mental health and addiction treatment services and tend to rack up arrests, leading to costly jail terms.

“Housing First is a homeless assistance approach that prioritizes providing permanent housing to people experiencing homelessness, thus ending their homelessness and serving as a platform from which they can pursue personal goals and improve their quality of life,” said its program statement. “This approach is guided by the belief that people need basic necessities like food and a place to live before attending to anything less critical, such as getting a job, budgeting properly, or attending to substance use issues.”

Philip Mangano, the former homelessness policy czar under President George W. Bush was an early government official that had the foresight to expand housing-first programs -- with federal dollars behind them -- into cities around the country.

Using data from the 65 cities -- of all different sizes and demographics -- the cost of keeping people on the street added up to between $35,000 and $150,000 per person per year, said Mangano.

One lack that has yet to become part of this conversation is the dearth of alternative transportation modes that service the Bay Area. Even BART, the SF Bay Area’s sole rapid transit system, has yet to encircle the Bay that would connect it to Silicon Valley, which means congested freeways for years to come, and more than 2 hour commutes to Silicon valley jobs for those that live in the more affordable housing markets outside the Bay Area.

We must find a way to care for the homeless and those rendered hopeless by the Great Recession, loss of good-paying jobs and record income inequality that has now lasted decades. Or, the richest country on earth risks becoming the poorest provider of care for our citizens, and our democracy.

Harlan Green © 2019

Follow Harlan Green on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarlanGree