The Housing Market Is Far From Stationary

December 9, 2022

My key point made here…

And illustrated here:

But I digress…

NYC Rental Prices Peaked But Are Not Coming Down

I’ve been the author of the expanding series of market reports since 1994 for Douglas Elliman Real Estate. This week Douglas Elliman published our rent research covering the NYC rental market in November.

Elliman Report: November 2022 Manhattan, Brooklyn & Queens Rental Report

Bloomberg produced an illustrative chart on the Manhattan median price trend that showed how prices have leveled off since the summer.

Here was The City‘s take…

…And the Daily Mail‘s…

Other coverage that woke everyone out of their post midterm election doldrums included CNBC, CNN, Crains, The Real Deal, Brick Underground and Reuters (And Investopedia of all places). There was an excellent postmortem done by The Real Deal in a separate piece called “Putting Manhattan rents’ wild ride in perspective.”

Elliman Report: November 2022 Manhattan, Brooklyn & Queens Rental Report

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MANHATTAN RENTAL MARKET HIGHLIGHTS

“Median rent drifted lower from its July peak but remained near record levels.”

– Average and median rent were the third highest on record
– The most significant annual decline in new lease signings since the onset of the pandemic
– The vacancy rate rose for the seventh consecutive month
– Doorman rents showed a weaker month over month price trend than non-doorman rents
– New development listing inventory rose at a much faster rate than existing rentals
– Luxury net effective median rent increased rose to the third highest on record
– Luxury listing inventory expanded year over year for the fourth straight month
– Luxury concessions were the third lowest on record

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BROOKLYN RENTAL MARKET HIGHLIGHTS

“Median rent declined month over month for the second time since August.”

– Price trend indicators declined month over month as prices slid below the August peak
– New leases and listing inventory declined year over year for the past two months
– The market share of landlord concessions and the amount expanded month over month

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QUEENS RENTAL MARKET HIGHLIGHTS

[Northwest Region] “Despite peaking in July, median and average rents were the second-highest on record.”

– Average and median rent were the second-highest on record, just below the July peak
– Listing inventory declined year over year for the past twelve months
– The market share of landlord concessions has declined annually for the sixteenth consecutive month

1010 Wins Radio: Manhattan rents continue to rise

Here is a Douglas Elliman broker (30 seconds in) providing the on the ground color of the results of our Douglas Elliman report for 1010 WINS in NYC.

Airbnb Is Helping Push Rents Higher And Some Cities Are Taking Action

On average, the rent per square foot achieved by an Airbnb landlord is 2.5 times the rent per foot of a one-year lease (if you ignore regular vacancy periods). Its a convenient source of income but in multi-family buildings, it impacts safety and quality of live. Example: a buyer of a condo has a new neighbor every two days. Sometimes they are quiet, and sometimes they are up all night. Owners in multi-family buildings cannot sublet for less than 30 days, and it can only be done from a primary residence. This is routinely ignored, and with local law 18, thousands of these landlords will be removed from the system.

Here’s a great recap by Habitat Magazine about NYC’s attempt to reign in bad behavior through local law 18.

Local Law 18 does not change the underlying rules governing short-term rentals. In buildings with three or more units, it remains illegal to rent housing for fewer than 30 days if the owner or lease-holder is not present during the entire rental period.

And another terrific read at Wired: Airbnb Is Running Riot in Small-Town America

In the Wall Street Journal’s The Housing Slowdown Is Wreaking Havoc on the Short-Term Rental Market

However, while the absolute number of bookings has risen, there has also been a sharp rise in supply of available short-term rental listings in the U.S., up 23.3% in October 2022 compared with October 2021. “That’s massive growth,” Mr. Lane says. In the spring, at the peak of the short-term rental supply increase, there were between roughly 80,000 and 88,000 short-term rentals being added per month.

And this piece by Thrillist NYC May Lose 10,000 Airbnb Listings Due to New Regulations

The new rules—which were initially proposed earlier in November—are set to go into effect starting January 9, Daily News reports. According to the new regulations, Airbnb hosts will be required to register their listed homes and apartments with the city’s Office of Special Enforcement, and failing to do so will result in hefty fines. Hosts who proceed to rent out their units without registering them could face penalties up to $5,000.

Burbs & Boroughs Podcast: Is this the Economic Hurricane? with Jonathan Miller

I joined John Engel and Roberto Cabrera again on their Burbs & Boroughs Podcast this week to talk about the state of the market. They are real estate agents who want to get to the bottom of it. Apologies in advance to anyone from Nebraska for telling the only dad joke I know about the state.

Mortgage Rates Continue To Slip

According to Freddie Mac, mortgage rates continue to slide as banks grapple with a near-empty pipeline.

As the Fed begins to pivot away from regular increases to the federal funds rate. But like my discussions around the NYC rental market, just because rates peak doesn’t mean they fall immediately. The big question here is how long it will be before they cut rates. My wild guess based on nothing but gut? Late 2023/early 2024.

Thoughts About Housing Contractors

These thoughts apply to contractors in other industries as well.

Getting Graphic

My favorite housing market charts of the week made by others

Len Kiefer‘s Chart Handiwork

My favorite random charts of the week made by others

Appraiserville

(For earlier appraisal industry commentary, visit my old clunky REIC site.)

Lowballed, The ABC Documentary: Or How 35 Years Of TAF Inaction Snowballed

We knew this ABC documentary was on its way a while ago and I had shared the trailer then.

Right now, The Appraisal Foundation (TAF) has got to be thinking that this documentary should be called “Snowballed” because of the groundswell of anger that has arisen from its behavior and willingness to stick to the status quo despite misinformaing the public and government entities that they are actual doing something to sold the problems they have created in the appraisal industry, essentially damaging the public trust and ignoring appraisers.

As a reminder, TAF is a not-for-profit organization that wrote the bat-shit crazy letter, the chickenshit letter and is the subject of an active investigation by HUD on whether USPAP promotes a lack of diversity in the appraisal profession (BLS: 97.7% of appraisers are white)

TAF morphed into a bureaucratic monarchy of Dave Bunton, the only person who’s ever run it, and who has surrounded himself with FODs (friends of Dave). As was illustrated recently he and his FODs banishes anyone who doesn’t support the status quo.

“Lowballed” articulates the result of decades of a mentoring system where new people entering the profession have to work for two years before they can make a living from an existing industry that is 98% white.

The Lowballed documentary dropped last Friday but I was unable to get it in time to place in these Housing Notes, so here it is. Please watch. Get informed.

It was interesting to hear HUD Chairwoman Fudge say it was encouraging to have the ASC and TAF say they want to solve the problem. But I grimaced at her mention of TAF because that’s how Dave, as a master bureaucrat, leaped forward at the beginning of the PAVE project to say TAF wanted to fix the problem (they created), but as we have chronicled here – that is not the case at all. I don’t need to remind my regular readers that TAF took more than 30 years to appoint a person of color to any of their boards, and that was done only after being pressured publicly or the fact they had formed a diversity council that a middle-aged white guy initially led. And also, I learned this recently when I shared the letters from John Ryan who resigned from the AQB after being removed from the AQB chairmanship for daring to put “barriers to entry” into the profession on the agenda. And worst of all, they essentially ghosted him by not placing any accusations in writing and left him hanging until he resigned.

TAF Thinks That Focusing On The Consumer Will Protect The Public Trust

Although Dave likely banned me from receiving his monthly newsletter (I hear he does that to others who are not an FODs), a tool he shares how hard TAF is working to fix all the problems it has created, here’s a new one:

Council to Advance Residential Equity (CARE)
The Appraisal Foundation Board of Trustees and staff is continuing work to establish the Council to Advance Residential Equity. This council consists of organizations with a mission of consumer advocacy, fair housing, or civil rights. This council will hold its inaugural meeting this month. If you know of an organization that might be interested in participating, please contact Jalin Debeuneure at jalin@appraisalfoundation.org.

I’m not against the super generic mission proclaimed, but this is a master work in bureaucratic gobbly gook. Whenever there is an issue facing TAF that they want to ignore, they say: “let’s form a committee!” or “let’s form a council!” while doing nothing to advance a solution to the problems they face. There is an AQB board that doesn’t allow the discussion of “barriers to entry” but hey, lets form a CARE? (I secretly suspect they are jealous of the name “PAVE.”)

My main point here is that protecting the public trust is accomplished by focusing on the appraiser. That is your mission. If you do that well, then the public trust is protected. There is a CFPB in existence to protect the consumer. Let’s not lose sight of the mission and actually protect the public trust.

OFT (One Final Thought)

Because I’m in the valuation industry, so I thought this 30-year old clip was awesome.

Brilliant Idea #1

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Brilliant Idea #2

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See you next week.

Jonathan J. Miller, CRE, Member of RAC
President/CEO
Miller Samuel Inc.
Real Estate Appraisers & Consultants
Matrix Blog
@jonathanmiller

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