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With the terrible mortgage applications index from Wednedsay, we are seeing US pending home sales crashiing. As Joe Biden handles the economy his way. After an unexpected jump in March, pending home sales were expected to drop 1.0% MoM in April as mortgage rates pushed back above 7.00% and stayed there. Well, the analysts had the direction right but magnitude was way off as pending home sales plunged 7.7% MoM – the biggest drop since Feb 2021 (and below the lowest estimate), leaving sales down 0.7% YoY… Source: Bloomberg This is the 29th straight month of YoY declines for non-seasonally-adjusted...

From Mike Shedlock (Mish). It’s a perfect time to do something really stupid, like offering zero percent down payments on mortgages. Case-Shiller national and 10-city indexes via St. Louis Fed, OER, CPI, and Rent from the BLS Perfectly Stupid Timing Morningstar reports One of the Biggest U.S. Lenders is Offering 0%-Down-Payment Mortgages for First-Time Home Buyers. Home buyers will be able to buy a home without putting any money down under a new program launched by United Wholesale Mortgage, one of the largest U.S. mortgage lenders. The Pontiac, Mich.-based company’s new program will be available to first-time home buyers and...

I saw former President Obama criticizing former President Trump for not passing “transformative” changes. That is, Trump didn’t sign any Obama-like transformative changes (like Obamacare). Truimp did try to slow down the damage done by Obama and his transformative agenda (e.g., open borders, wealth redistritution, green energy) that Biden has attempted to continue. As we approach the party conventions and Presidential election of 2024, we saw the Economic Surprise Index (ESI) in May decline to -0.126. Coupled with Biden’s negative buying conditions for housing (higher mortgage rates and soaring house prices), Obama’s Jacobian transformative economic fantasty is on thin ice....

The owners of 64 New York City office buildings are eyeing a drastic transformation: turning their commercial properties into housing, according to fresh data from the Department of City Planning. In an interview with Gothamist, City Planning Director Dan Garodnick revealed that these owners or their reps have reached out to the city’s Office Conversion Accelerator Program to do so. This initiative aims to simplify the labyrinth of rules and building codes, assisting owners in repurposing their spaces. It’s a key part of Mayor Eric Adams’ bold plan to create 20,000 new apartments over the next decade, easing the Big...

Governor Kathy Hochul announced that 213 municipalities in New York have launched applications to be certified as Pro-Housing Communities, with 61 already certified. This certification, part of a program initiated by Governor Hochul last year, makes municipalities eligible for up to $650 million in state discretionary funding. The Pro-Housing Communities Program acknowledges localities committed to housing growth. Six communities in the Finger Lakes – including the city of Canandaigua, and villages of Dundee and Newark received certification from the state. Governor Hochul emphasized the importance of building safe and affordable housing. “My administration is ready to work with any community...

New York City Councilwoman Shahana Hanif blasted Mayor Eric Adams (D) for his temporary tax-supported immigrant housing policies, suggesting instead that taxpayers pony up for permanent housing for immigrants. On Thursday, Hanif accused Adams of not wanting “New Yorkers to be happy” and denying them the chance to enjoy “permanent, dignified housing.” “The administration just does not want New Yorkers to be happy — plain and simple,” the Democrat told NY1. Adams has been working to enforce limits on shelter time for illegal aliens, threatening to evict them after 30 days for singles and 60 days for families. Adams began...

President Joe Biden’s policy of mass migration is forcing up housing inflation, so pushing up interest rates and mortgage rates, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. Housing prices should have dropped amid the recent supply of new apartments and homes, but have “not behaved the way we thought it would,” said Austan Goolsbee, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.. “I still think it will, but if it doesn’t, we’re going to have a hard time” bringing inflation back down to the target of 2 percent, Goolsbee told the Journal for a May 11 article.

Renting a Home vs. Owning a Home: An Overview Buying a home is a huge part of the American Dream. Choosing to buy or rent, though, is a major decision that affects your financial health, lifestyle, and personal goals. Whichever option you choose depends entirely on your lifestyle and financial situation. Both require a regular income (so you can afford the payments and associated costs) and may also require a certain degree of effort to maintain.

As the U.S. economy slows down, those at the bottom of the economic food chain are being hit the hardest. Homelessness is surging, the number of Americans living in poverty is rising, and more Americans are considered to be among “the working poor” than ever before. Unfortunately, we are witnessing a historic economic shift right now, and economic conditions are only going to get even more harsh during the months ahead. Needless to say, that is really bad news for all of us. According to a report from Harvard University, approximately 650,000 Americans were homeless at some point last year....

Vermont Business Magazine Champlain Housing Trust announced an expansion of its program that provides a $25,000 forgivable loan to buyers who are Black, Indigenous or people of color and who are buying a permanently affordable home through the trust or its partner agencies across the state. Originally operating in the northwest part of the state, the Homeownership Equity Program (HEP) Downpayment Assistance will now be available through nine partner organizations covering every county of the State. The program was created with a three-year grant from the New England Federal Credit Union in 2021. The expansion of the program is funded...

Security guards patrolling the Big Apple’s public housing for seniors could get axed due to budget cuts — and some politicians worry that replacing them with cops could send the wrong message. The New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) is considering firing the unarmed guards at 34 of the authority’s 55 senior housing facilities as the authority contends with a $35.3 million shortfall in its 2024 budget, officials said at a budget hearing Tuesday. But some city council members complained that it would be a bad move to try to replace the guards with uniformed NYPD cops and security cameras,...

Biden and Bidenomics is disastrous for the middle class and low wage workers. Food and housing prices through the roof, and now we have mortgage purchase demand declining -57% under Biden. Mortgage applications increased 2.6 percent from one week earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending May 3, 2024. The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, increased 2.6 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index increased 3 percent compared with the previous week. The seasonally adjusted...

A nonprofit that provides services to homeless people in San Francisco has been accused of $100,000 fraud and nepotism. The industry built on supposedly helping the homelessness in San Francisco means that those raking in money from donations want to keep the crisis going.

A popular hotel in New York City’s Broadway District has been converted into a migrant shelter as the city continues to face an unprecedented influx of migrants from the U.S. border. The hotel wrote on its Facebook page: “To our valued guests: it is with great sadness that we announce the Square Hotel will be closed for the foreseeable future. We appreciate your patronage and hope to welcome you back someday soon.”

San Francisco's well-publicized homelessness crisis is emblematic of the problems facing many of America's big cities as they struggle to provide affordable housing against the backdrop of high interest rates and low inventory. This has led the city to employ a variety of methods to tackle the problem, but a recent plan to provide tiny houses for San Francisco's homeless population has residents furious over the cost. The units would cost a reported $113,000 each to construct. Considering that the average home in San Francisco costs nearly $1 million the $113,000-per-unit cost for the tiny houses seems in line with...

A chic hotel in the heart of Broadway has been quietly operating as a migrant shelter — the latest sign of the growing Big Apple crisis. The 141-room Square Hotel at 226 West 50th Street between Eighth Avenue and Broadway is just across from Gershwin Theatre, where the musical “Wicked” is playing, The Post has learned.“To our valued guests: it is with great sadness that we announce the Square Hotel will be closed for the foreseeable future. We appreciate your patronage and hope to welcome you back someday soon,” the Square Hotel says on its Facebook page.A chic hotel in...

Surprise! Just in time for the November election, this is a negative surprise that Biden doesn’t want to hear. The Citi Economic Surprise index crashed to -7.30, the lowest since January 2023. Under Biden’s leadership (hell, he and his family already own several mansions … on a Senator’s pay), home prices are up 32% under Biden and mortgage rates are up a staggering 160%. Getting young households who rent to buy a home in this environment will require magic.

Baby boomers are refusing to downsize in their golden years, according to a Redfin study, which found that the generation born between 1946 and 1964 owns nearly three in 10 (28.2 percent) large homes in the nation—nearly twice as many as millennial households with kids (14 percent). This is happening despite boomers' kids having long left the nest and their households having shrunk to one or two people. Instead of selling their large properties and moving to a smaller place, boomers are turning the extra bedrooms into hobby rooms and guest rooms for visiting family members. Read more: What Is...

When Merete Muenter tells people that she pays $623 a month for her studio in an affordable housing complex in New York City, many assume the worst: a run-down dump in a crime-ridden neighborhood. The reality is that her subsidized rental is far nicer than any of the market-rate places she’s lived in previously. “People … don’t realize that my affordable housing apartment is in a luxury building that has all the amenities that I never dreamed of having, living in midtown Manhattan,” says Muenter. “I have a doorman, elevators, gym, roof terrace, courtyard, even a washer and dryer in...

Janet Yellen, world class propagandist (US version of Baghdad Bob) and US Treasury Secretary under Biden, was so wrong about inflation. Instead of being “transitory”, turns out to be seemingly permanent. Today’s Case-Shiller home price report was released for February. The National Home Price index was up 6.4% year-over-year. But look at the explosion of M2 Money and home prices. Hmm. If we look at home prices and M2 Money on a year-over-year (YoY) basis, we can see the surge in money printing with COVID and the corresponding surge in home prices. As M2 Money growth slowed, the Case-Shiller National...