Tuesday – California And New York Have Something To Brag About

June 4, 2024

They have low LTVs, game show longevity, and more places to go to the bathroom. Pat Sajak, 41-year host of Wheel of Fortune is retiring this Friday. New York is launching “Ur In Luck” (pun obviously intended) to expand the number of public restrooms. Oh, and New York and California have the lowest mortgage loan-to-values of the 15 largest states.

Here’s a reminder of how big NYC is.

Both NY and CA have been beaten up quite a bit about high housing costs and their outbound migration patterns after the pandemic.

And because of California’s surge in home prices, ICE’s May Mortgage Monitor Report indicated that “Just five West Coast metros – Los Angeles ($1.1T), San Francisco ($648B), San Jose ($348B), San Diego ($331B), and Seattle ($324B) – account for nearly a quarter ($2.7T) of total tappable equity.”

But nationwide, 48M U.S. homeowners with mortgages have an average equity of $206K per borrower, up from $185K at the same time last year. The abundance of home equity explains why distressed real estate is so low and we are not looking at a banking crisis circa 2009 from residential mortgage lending.

The significant amount of homeowners’ equity in these locations reminds us not to judge a book only by its cover (or a car wrapped in a sheet in Florida).

Did you miss Friday’s Housing Notes?

June 3, 2024

Monday – Housing Consumer Identifies Through Ketchup As They Slow Their Spending

This Is A Whole New Thing – Housing Notes Daily

Well, I’ve been writing this Housing Notes newsletter since March 2015 (more than 9 years as a weekly exercise) and at last count were nearly 500 weekly iterations, evolving into a Friday 2 pm launch date no matter where I was in the world, whether or not I was on vacation, and what was going on in my personal life. It was such a consistent routine that many subscribers told me it marked the beginning of their weekend. But what is going to be so new about Housing Notes Daily?

I’m now a week into this daily effort and I still believe that less is more. My sidebar passion project Appraiserville is being moved to the Beehiiv platform soon and I plan on releasing it weekly while linking from here temporarily. More on that soon. Promise.

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