ZHedge’s article, about homes up for sale at the end of Jan being down 26% YOY and massive hiring by RE companies, states there now are more agents than houses for sale. https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/there-are-now-more-real-estate-agents-homes-sale-us With lumber futures hitting $1260 today (+$1000 since 20Q2) and the spaz of homes getting several to dozens of offers, Residential appears to getting into panic-buying, bubblicious territory. In your opinion, what will be the underlying circumstances/forces that are most likely to torpedo this roaring megatrend? Extra Credit: Give us your best estimate of the quarter when it will it roll over.
I'd say it'll level out in Q3. On the one hand the stimulative effect of lower rates will run off; on the other, the end (finally) of the Covid hysteria means full reopening of universities and workplaces, and despite predictions of mass permanent WFH, my expectation is that the vast majority of workers will need to be in the office the vast majority of time. Lots of people who moved 2 hours away from the city will come to regret it as they find that current and future employers are more hostile to WFH than expected, and/or find that not being physically present isolates them from the rest of the in-office workforce.
I think it will take 2 years to unwind. that or the American landscape will have one of the largest changes since the creation of suburbs 60 years ago.
RE will top the same time the stock and crypto markets top. Right after the Fed stops printing trillions every few months (if that ever happens)
lol...America More Realtors than Houses for sale More bankers than real money More lawyers than Canada has soldiers More doctors than actual pandemics More police than shares of Smith Wesson More people in jail than the population of Norway More cows than people More politicians than available tax revenue to pay them Yet...has the Lowest IQ in the Fee World
“More cows than people.” Now you’ve gone and said that like it’s a bad thing. While it IS true my gorgeous little exurban Ag county has 66k head to 22k citizens, our local culture only requires eight peace officers per shift to cover 435 square miles, taxes are like my 1970 Dodge Charger car payment and I’m only 58msec from the CBOE. For me, a well seasoned/smoked standing prime rib roast with a local raspberry dinner wine is absolutely incomparable to the crooked, unprincipled, psycho misfits you otherwise accurately reference in the line items of your post. Just don’t be hatin’ on my cows
Newwurld, It is exactly this ‘large landscape’ change, I am seeing, that triggered this thread. The metro/county area we left eight years ago has doubled in diameter, tripled in taxes with gov debt/unfundeds exploding over $2 billion. The scale of this is nothing like I have ever seen. It’s not random activity, but like people running out of buildings synced to an earthquake. Out of state expats are swamping all our state’s metro/suburban/exurban counties en masse trying to plow back their harvested capital before inflation eats it up and I hear that lots of new build contracts are already defaulting because of rapid material price changes. Part of me buys into the longer term that this flow could have a huge life of its own and could go a couple years. The other part sees this like eight lanes of Jersey Turnpike nose to tail traffic at 99mph with a bearing seizure in a random concrete truck about to shake things up. Got two kids wanting to build asking my advice. My choices appear to be (a) putting them at deep risk of being in an underwater mortgage or (b) giving their savings the Weimar treatment. Money used to be scarce and building opportunities plentiful. That’s now completely inverted. Can’t see an endgame that is close to prudent risk.
Its just a good joshing...trying to add some light hearted posting....we have a high IQ, And I love our country. I really should have left the cows out of all this. I love a good steak. My brother is a cop. He gave me this post from another.
Actually nothing you wrote is true, except for the prison/Norway sentence. And that’s only because the US has a portion of the male population that abandons their children before birth and refuses to take care of their families.