mortgage debt trends

US households are deleveraging mortgage debt

Eric Garland DataLab

This chart from Deutsche Bank Research shows that since the financial crisis of 2008 and beyond, US households have been deleveraging their mortgage debt. This is a major reversal, and the chart shows this is the first major trend in this direction since the post-World-War-II era. US consumer credit continues to leverage up slightly. These trends combined may explain recent …

serious delinquencies mortgage

Serious delinquencies for mortgages drop to almost pre-crisis levels

Eric Garland DataLab

Courtesy of Calculated Risk, this chart shows FannieMae and FreddieMac’s reporting on serious delinquencies for U.S. mortgages in the last 20 years. While there is much speculation about whether there is an asset bubble in the housing sector, this indicator shows that the fundamentals may still be holding. The peak of the serious delinquencies occurred when it hit 4.2% in …

US housing starts 2017

New housing starts in the United States, 2008-2017

Eric Garland DataLab

Further to the trends in high confidence by homebuilders, check out these trends in single- and multiple-unit housing starts. There’s no question – the US housing sector is at pre-2008-crisis levels in terms of new housing starts. The questions we have are about whether the fundamentals that blew up the housing market in 2008 have been repeated. We know that US …

NAHB Housing Market Index 2017

US homebuilder confidence is at a recent high point

Eric Garland DataLab

Shaking off any implications of impending trade wars with China or Mexico, as well as any doubts from rewiring 17% of the US economy through healthcare legislation, America’s homebuilders are expressing the most confidence in recent years. The reason for this given by CNBC analysts was that builders are anticipating a lax regulatory regime that will make housing starts much …

Case-Shiller price index

Case-Shiller price index headed for 2008 levels

Eric Garland DataLab

This firm held the Case-Shiller price index up as a trend that absolutely should have warned executives of a major event over the horizon. The historic inflammation of asset prices looked to us to be the symptom of something heavy on the horizon, not necessarily the high score on a video game. With irrational exuberance all over the housing markets …