6/6/2013: US House Prices: Trouble Brewing for Monetary Policy Dilemma

Now, QE seems to be feeding through into the real assets, not just financial ones, in the case of the US. Here's a chart from Pictet on CoreLogic house prices index changes and underlying house prices fundamentals:

And the same adjusting for inflation, annualised 3mo series (q/q):

CoreLogic rose 3.2% m/m in April, following a +2.2% m/m rise in March. Based on Pictet seasonal adjustments, "the increase remains surprisingly high: +1.6%, after +1.7% in March. Since the end of last year, house prices have risen by 6.4% (after seasonal adjustments), an astonishing annualised rate of 20.4%. On a y-o-y basis, the increase reached 12.1%, the highest since April 2006."

Although as the chart below shows, things are still ok in 'affordability' terms (index of house prices), with recent rises from the trough returning the index to mid-2009 levels. It would take a further 28% rise to hit pre-crisis peak of March 2006:

Lest we forget - unwinding the QE will hammer interest rates on longer maturities (see: http://trueeconomics.blogspot.ie/2013/05/1652013-on-that-impossible-monetary.html) which will spell trouble for debt-funded assets, like property.

22/1/2013: US Existing Home Sales Signal Restart of Household Investment in 2012

Cycle returned to the upswing in 2012 in the US Household Investment area, despite a headline dip on monthly series basis:

• Sales of existing homes in the US fell 1% in December to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.94 million, according to the National Association of Realtors. The rate in November was revised down to 4.99 million from an estimate of 5.04 million released earlier. This was the highest rate of sales since November 2009. 
• Lawrence Yun, NAR's chief economist: "Record low mortgage interest rates clearly are helping many home buyers, but tight inventory and restrictive mortgage underwriting standards are limiting sales." 
• On annual basis, existing-home sales are up 12.8% from 2011. 
• The median existing-home price rose 11.5% from 2011 to $180,800. 
• Overall over 2012, existing-home sales hit 4.65 million annual rate of sales, the highest rate since 2007 and up 9.2% on full year 2011. 
• The median price reached $176,600 in 2012, rising 6.3% on 2011 and marking the highest annual growth since 2005

The Calculated Risk has an excellent analysis of underlying data: http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2013/01/existing-home-sales-another-solid-report.html

Chart from Calculated Risk summarising trends: