patrick.net

Misc says

Bad news for the Housing Doomers. The Case/Shiller went up a tiny amount month over month in the latest readings I normally wouldn't read too much into a single data point, but mortgage rates have continued to decrease since then. If rates continue down and housing prices go up even a little bit over the next 3-4 months we may see a FOMO homebuying blitz during next year's Spring season.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CSUSHPISA

Hahaha

Misc says

Bad news for the Housing Doomers. The Case/Shiller went up a tiny amount month over month in the latest readings I normally wouldn't read too much into a single data point, but mortgage rates have continued to decrease since then. If rates continue down and housing prices go up even a little bit over the next 3-4 months we may see a FOMO homebuying blitz during next year's Spring season.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CSUSHPISA

Depends on housing market consumer sentiment which is based on economic factors like stock market and employment conditions.

Of course it depends on the local market such as here in Panama City Florida there has been noticeable job growth not just in the tourism industry such as Eastern Shipyard is expanding and there is an aerospace campus to be built which will add at least 1500 new long-term jobs.

Rents have essentially been frozen in Panama City for last 3 years, but housing costs are going down like property insurance, HOA regular assessments, etc.

.

That’s the first I’ve heard about insurance going down. It’s been reported for some time now that insurance has been going up.

Glock-n-Load says

That’s the first I’ve heard about insurance going down. It’s been reported for some time now that insurance has been going up.

Florida property insurance has gone down after Ron DeSantis insurance reforms.

Yes, Florida has enacted reforms that effectively cap certain lawsuits against property insurance carriers—especially by limiting attorney fees, shortening filing windows, and restricting bad faith claims.
Here’s a breakdown of the key legal changes affecting property insurance litigation in Florida:

⚖️ Legal Caps and Restrictions on Lawsuits
1. Attorney Fee Limits
• SB 2-A (2022 Special Session) eliminated the longstanding “one-way attorney fee” provision.
• Previously, policyholders who won against insurers could recover legal fees.
• Now, each party pays their own legal costs, making lawsuits less financially viable for many homeowners.
2. Shortened Filing Deadlines
• Claims must now be filed within 1 year of the date of loss (down from 2 years).
• Supplemental claims must be filed within 18 months.
3. Bad Faith Lawsuits Curtailed
• Policyholders cannot file bad faith lawsuits unless they first win a breach of contract case.
• This change significantly reduces the number of high-dollar punitive claims against insurers.
4. Assignment of Benefits (AOB) Restrictions
• AOB agreements—where contractors sue insurers directly—are now heavily restricted.
• This reform has cut down on third-party litigation, which was a major driver of insurance costs.

Impact on Homeowners and Insurers
• These reforms aim to stabilize Florida’s insurance market, which has been plagued by high litigation rates and insurer insolvencies.
• Critics argue they limit consumer protections, while supporters say they reduce fraud and frivolous lawsuits.
If you're analyzing how these changes affect Panama City Beach homeowners or comparing litigation trends pre- and post-reform, I can help chart that out. Want to see how lawsuit volume or average payouts have shifted since SB 2-A? Just say the word.

Desperately trying to prop up wildly inflated house pices with more debt...just like Japan tried when their housing market crashed and never recovered.

https://ground.news/article/thiel-says-housing-crisis-pushes-millennials-toward-socialism_7f8c3b

Peter Thiel's 2020 private email resurfaced and went viral after Zohran Mamdani's mayoral victory, with Chamath Palihapitiya posting a screenshot on X on November 5, 2025, and Business Insider verifying it.

Peter Thiel wrote in January 2020 that too much student debt and unaffordable housing leave Millennials with negative capital, noting 70% identify as pro-socialist in a message to Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO, and Marc Andreessen, venture capitalist.

Thiel told the Free Press Friday that strict zoning and construction limits have benefited boomers while making homebuying extremely hard for millennials, warning this could push young people toward extremist ideologies.

Polling expert Frank Luntz called the off-year results a 'wake-up call' as an August Gallup poll found 49% adults 18 to 34 held a positive view of socialism.

Thiel, often described as a libertarian who supported President Donald Trump, urged Mark Zuckerberg and tech leadership to address young Americans' growing disconnection, saying he would be the last to advocate socialism.

It's not just zoning. It's continuous warfare against the working class by outsourcing to China and insourcing illegals to drive down wages further. And laws that unfairly benefit owners, like Prop 13 and the mortgage interest deduction, both of which simply make houses more expensive.

I ran a side-by-side comparison of a 30-year vs. 50-year mortgage on a $500,000 loan at 6% interest.

Here are the takeaways:

In a 30-year mortgage, 17% of your payments in the beginning of the loan go toward principal. In a 50-year mortgage, only 5% goes to principal.

In a 30-year, 25% of your payment goes to principal by year 7.

In a 50-year, that doesn't happen until year 26.

In a 30-year, 50% of your payments goes to principal by year 18.

In a 50-year, that takes 38 years.

Here's the bottom line:

30 years is already an insanely long period of time to finance a purchase.

If you're going to get a 50-year mortgage, you might as well just rent and let someone else deal with major repairs and capex.

https://x.com/bavedikian/status/1987554135357493362?s=20

The citizens need a much less daunting way to become self employed also.

MolotovCocktail says

If you're going to get a 50-year mortgage, you might as well just rent and let someone else deal with major repairs and capex.

I don't agree with a 50 year mortgage. Since the crash, and I don't know the percentage, but a lot of people have gotten into 15 year mortgages when rates were low. The smart people are not looking for a 50 year if it was available.

Thing with 50 year is that lenders, brokers, builders, attorneys all would want it. More business. Also those groups in combination are the biggest lobbyist in DC. So if someone floats it, I'd bet they all jump on board.

I think the % of homeowners is in/near the sweat spot. Some people just shouldn't own homes and/or can't do the basic maintenance. They drop a number 2 and clog the toilet they call the plumber. If you make it easier it just results in more defaults.

The only argument would be the wealthy. Make $300k/yr plus and get a low monthly nut on a $900k house. If times get tough, your payment is low. If it get good times, you pay more toward principle. No different than rent and invest. Question is does anyone really do that most of the time? Likely no in either scenario.

10, 15, 20 and shortly 30! But now 50!!
So 100 year (multi-generational) mortgages is not too far off at this rate 🤡
Congratulations to fiat currency and Ponzi scheme laws like CA prop 13 and derivatives for rich comrades 😂
The alternative is going back to caves! 😜

Banks will likely charge an extra 1% for a 50 year mortgage, so if the 30 yr rate is now 6% than the 50 year rate will be 7%.

A nice tour of Pacifica ocean erosion. Those expensive concrete sea walls are even being covered by landslides.

Many areas of Santa Cruz don't look much different although the cliffs aren't as high. If this winter is a Pacific pile driver, we'll see what happens. Winter storms plus a temblor over 5 would be a double whammy that could wreck a lot of expensive ocean front real estate. Even a modest tsunami would also put the nails in a few real estate coffins.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGg73CvDkmA&t=432s


Remains of concrete sea wall up above with crumbled sea wall below exposing mud cliffs again.

https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/make-america-affordable-again

America has plenty of housing. The reason it has become unaffordable is due to unsustainable immigration and crime levels. ~300 million Americans must compete with ~50 million legal and illegal immigrants for homes. Vast swaths of neighborhoods within and suburbs surrounding every city are no-go zones. They are overrun by criminals, drug addicts, and foreigners concentrated in ethnic enclaves that don’t speak English. Skid Row (LA) and Tenderloin (SF) are the two most prominent examples of prime locations ruined by leftist policies. Areas that were livable for middle class families a generation ago are now unrecognizable and undesirable.




Everyone knows these brutal realities, but can’t say them out loud. Real estate brokers steer clients to the few remaining patches that resemble a first world country. Those places require over $1 million for a starter home or $5,000/month of rent for a 2-bedroom apartment. The cost of living pressure keeps rising as corporations continue to cut well-paying American jobs, while replacing them with cheaper H1-B indentured servants or outsourcing. On the revenue side, protect the American workers’ wages above all else. “Affordable housing” is leftist doublespeak for seizing land as patronage slums for their voters and enrich their developer cronies. Let the local markets decide where to build new homes. If we keep criminals in jail and deport illegals, millions of existing residential real estate units can boost viable inventory. For good measure, ban foreign and institutional investors from buying up single family homes. Supply rises, demand drops, and prices fall.

MolotovCocktail says

I ran a side-by-side comparison of a 30-year vs. 50-year mortgage on a $500,000 loan at 6% interest.

Add to that the 50 year loan will be at a higher interest, just likes today's 30 year loan is at a higher interest than a 15 year loan.

You could always consider it a 50 year hedge against hyper-inflation.

Misc says

You could always consider it a 50 year hedge against hyper-inflation.

A 30 year mortgage is already sufficient for that.

https://x.com/JoshuaSteinman/status/1988262909412339875

@JoshuaSteinman
Remember, mass deportations will immediately solve the housing crisis:

Replying to @JoshuaSteinman and @Geiger_Capital
“At the municipality level, an immigration influx equal to 1% of the local population caused about a 6% increase in rents and an 11% increase in house prices within five years”.

Pulte is a homebuilder.

I have no problem with his company arranging and holding private, non-fed backed 50-year mortgages.

Of course, like the car dealers with 60/72 months, he wants it to become standard.

DemoralizerOfPanicans says

Pulte is a homebuilder.

I have no problem with his company arranging and holding private, non-fed backed 50-year mortgages.

Of course, like the car dealers with 60/72 months, he wants it to become standard.

It would become standard if it became popular.

DemoralizerOfPanicans says

Pulte is a homebuilder.

I have no problem with his company arranging and holding private, non-fed backed 50-year mortgages.

Of course, like the car dealers with 60/72 months, he wants it to become standard.

Actually, he is not a homebuilder Pulte. He went into investment banking or some such.

This and the 15 year auto loan are desperate measures by R/E and auto companies to leep propping up prices that are under pressure to fall. He's their 'guy' in the WH, you see. He doing his job even though everyone knows how ridiculous it all is.



As for Trump, he's a commercial R/E guy who has used all kinds of whacky debt arrangements in that sphere. So when this was pitched to him I bet Pulte framed it all in that way. Trump is not used to thinking in terms of residential R/E as it pertains to the Little Guy.

So I think that's how all this got through. Better hope so. Because my alternate working hypothesis is that Trump is starting to go all Dementia Joe on us.

The 15 year car loan...I can't figure out how Trump approved that one. Another worrying sign.

The housing issue:

1. the high cost of a house in a safe area prevents family formation, killing our future

2. truly lowering the cost of housing would alienate pretty much everyone who owns a house, and damage the banks

You think you have money in the bank? You don't. Your money was loaned out, mostly for mortgages, and lower house prices would evaporate your money as loans go underwater, causing the Fed to step in and print new cash to buy up mortgages at full face value. Again.

And the most brutal reality is that housing equity of owners is exactly the power to make young couples pay and suffer to take over ownership. The pain of buyers IS the owner's equity. To take away the pain of buyers is to take away the equity of owners.

But it must be done. All policies so far have shifted yet more wealth to current owners by making it possible for buyers to get deeper and deeper in debt without actually expanding SUPPLY. The mortgage interest deduction is a great example, since it screws buyers with more debt. The stupid idea of 50 year mortgages is another example.

The best solution is a to dramatically increase the SUPPLY of housing, both by making it far easier to build and by deporting the tens of millions of illegals who force down wages and force up the cost of housing.

There's a way to instantly expand the supply of safe housing: openly address the extremely disproportionate share of violence committed by black men, especially the repeat offenders. Just a couple percent of the US population is committing the majority of violent crime, and they keep getting released by Democrats, over and over, resulting in preventable murders like that of Iryna Zarutska. The media is also complicit in these murders by refusing to talk about the fact that it's mostly black men.

My sister and brother-in-law moved with their baby into a beautiful and extremely cheap house in Detroit. Then my brother-in-law's father was beat up on their front lawn by a couple of "youths" as the corporate media likes to say to obscure the race of the offenders.

That, and the nightly gunfire which sometimes landed on their roof convinced them that a beautiful house and low price are not enough. Safety comes before all that. So they sold and left.

Americans are not racist. They are simply afraid of the eternal epidemic of black violence that we are not allowed to talk about.

MolotovCocktail says

Actually, he is not a homebuilder Pulte. He went into investment banking or some such.

He did, thanks to his Grandfather founding a big Georgia builder that expanded in the postwar.

But the font of his wealth is indeed Home building and his investments are weighted towards construction.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PulteGroup

Biggest Rent drop in 15 years



US average rents fell to $1,708 in October, a 0.3% month-over-month drop — the steepest October decline in over 15 years, according to Apartments.com.
Rent growth has slowed to 0.8% annually, down from 1.5% at the start of 2025, as elevated supply continues to pressure pricing across all regions.
Denver, Austin, and Seattle saw the steepest monthly rent declines, while cities like San Francisco and Chicago posted strong year-over-year gains.
All four US regions experienced monthly rent decreases, with the West seeing the largest drop at -0.53%.
https://www.credaily.com/briefs/rent-decline-drives-steepest-october-drop-in-15-years/

Noooooo!

-0.X% is just symbolic to confuse people 😜
Perhaps to hide the real inflation 🤡

DemoralizerOfPanicans says

Biggest Rent drop in 15 years

Deport enough illegals and that will happen.

zzyzzx says

DemoralizerOfPanicans says

Biggest Rent drop in 15 years

Deport enough illegals and that will happen.

Only 99% more to go.

Glock-n-Load says

zzyzzx says

DemoralizerOfPanicans says

Biggest Rent drop in 15 years

Deport enough illegals and that will happen.

Only 99% more to go.

https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/talking-sense-on-housing-affordability

the last 4 years have seen a big spike in housing unaffordability.

but many of the claims this is being used to support are just plain fantasy.

consider:




this is simply not true and never was. it’s just sentimental revisionism. the home pictured is NOTHING like an average new home in the 1950’s.

the house above is nearly four times that size.

the average new home in 1955 was 983 square feet. that’s the size of most new 1 br apartments. it had one bathroom, no dishwasher, no garbage disposal, and no AC. 40-50% of people owned a washing machine. only 10% had a dryer.

and keep in mind that’s the average. many were considerably smaller.

a typical home today is nearly 3 times that size.




small starter homes were the answer to demand.

in fact, the 50’s saw a meaningful drop in home size vs the 30’s and 40’s (close to 20%)

what that was was the housing boom for starter homes for baby boomer families. they needed places to live and to meet demand, home size dropped to keep them affordable.

the “housing development suburb” was being born with massive numbers of smallish bungalow-style dwellings.

the “tiny home” idea today seems unable to get traction. many places forbid them with zoning. and zoomers raised in big houses do not want to live in small ones.

but they work. it’s a great solution.

you can see the massive spike in home ownership rates.

prior to the late 1940’s, less than half of americans owned their home.

it rose to nearly 2/3 by 1980 and remains there today.

I like this idea of tiny houses.

But owners of big houses don't like it at all, because it would reduce demand for their own house, and therefore their equity.

Solution is to not have government subsidizing debt. Remove Fannie out of the picture and housing goes back to normal.

We created economy that lives on debt and inflation. Rates drop = house prices up. Inflation up = house prices up. Fake economy, this will not end well.

When average first time buyer is 40 yo, that’s a sign we are doing it wrong. Communism from r builders and lenders is nice though, they can’t complain. Now shut up and get a HELOC you wonderful consumer debt slave.

Santa Cruz is going down, even the sacrosanct 100 yard zone from the beach. It has to be one of the most bullet proof markets in the country due to oligarchs always getting richer while the riff raff are inflated and taxed to death.

Of course, a lot of illegals aren't struggling workers and welfare rats. They do that but many also manage the cartel business so they can have lots of under the table cash. They use that cash to buy houses, often down long streets that have no outlets for cross traffic. Prepare to be scrutinized if you go down there.

A couple of years ago, a large home close to the corner of Portola and 41st (rabid richfuck beach area) was invaded to discover a large weapons cache and drug inventory. Dealers work through social services and corner vendors of flowers etc. and they have some ties to certain police but not all.

My blue collar father, bought this as his FIRST house. Stay at home mother and there were 5 of us kids.

Oh, and this house is valued at $1,275,000 now. Show me anything close to a blue collar worker with 5 kids and a stay at home wife who can purchase this at any time in his life, let alone as his FIRST house. I believe it was 2x his income.

Not very many 2-income households make enough to afford that.

AND he already had 5 kids BEFORE he bought that house.

Patrick says

I like this idea of tiny houses.

Plan on buying one? No? Well neither does anyone else. It is like mass transit - lots of folks are for it but never plan to ride. Those folks just want others to ride to free up the road for their own cars. Besides, on rural and small town areas, there already are homes affordable to low local wages. Homes that are referred to in terms like "single and double wide."