Market Update | OCT 27

DID YOU KNOW?

Top Headlines: Delivered by Leonard Steinberg

October 27, 2023

01  It’s estimated that total existing-home sales in 2023 will be around 4.1 million, the smallest number of sales since about 2008, the year that Lehman Brothers collapsed and sparked the global financial crisis.

(WSJ)

02  “One of the central challenges facing cities isn’t money. It’s management and, more specifically, managing innovation.”

(MICHAEL BLOOMBERG)

03  The percent of subprime auto borrowers at least 60 days past due on their loans rose to 6.11% in September.

(BLOOMBERG)

04  How to make homes more affordable? One method is to build smaller homes. Two years ago, when interest rates were low, the average Hayden home was a 1,900sf 3-bedroom that cost $500,000, with a $2,000 monthly payment. (5% down payment and 30-year, 3% fixed-rate mortgage). Now, the average Hayden home is 1,550sf and costs about $400,000, or $2,100 a month. Shrinking proportions and building more efficiently scaled homes has been a trend for decades in large cities but is now in the suburbs and exurbs.

(NY TIMES)

05  Only 1% of existing US homes changed hands in the first half of 2023, the lowest number in a decade and the lowest available inventory of homes in 20 years.

06  Economists spent 2021 expecting inflation to prove “transitory.” They spent much of 2022 underestimating its staying power. And they spent early 2023 predicting that the Fed’s rate increases, meant to cure the inflation, would plunge the economy into a recession.

(NY TIMES)