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Notes -
Almost anyone who closed on a house in the United States in the last month paid more for that house than it is worth today. Where I live, homes saw about a 65% increase in value over the last 2 years. In the last few months, they've decreased by between 5% and 10%. Will they lose another 10% in the next 6 months? That doesn't seem like a completely crazy prediction to me, I've lived through enough housing cycles to know how wildly prices can swing. But anyone who owned their home before COVID-19 will still be "up" well over 30%, and most will have mortgages in the 3%-4% range. By contrast, in 2008 it was common for people to be carrying mortgages at over 8%, and second mortgages covering their "down payment" (to evade the cost of PMI) at well over 10%. Barring an extreme and sudden spike in unemployment, people are just not going to be losing houses the way they did in 2008.
(In my own area, inventory is a tiny fraction of what it was five years ago. As prices cool ever-so-slightly, supply might finally be starting to catch up to demand... but it's not going to close that gap overnight.)
Recession, yeah, I think there's a pretty broad consensus on that happening. I think we get some hard numbers a week from today? But the practical implications are unclear to me. I think the whole world is still, essentially, finding its footing post-COVID. In the U.S. we responded by debasing our fiat currency to an unprecedented extreme, so we can't expect a quick return to equilibrium.
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