Page 4 Friday, March 19, 2021
THE GARDEN ISLAND
RISING EQUITY
www.thegardenisland.com
Hot housing market fuels a rise in homeowners’ equity
Alex Veiga ASSOCIATED PRESS
US mortgage rates edge higher; 30-year at 3.09% ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON — U.S. long-term mortgage rates continued to edge higher this week as the benchmark 30-year loan stayed above the 3% mark. Rates remain near historic lows, however. Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac reported Thursday that the average rate on the 30-year fixed-rate home loan rose to 3.09% from 3.05% last week. By contrast, the benchmark rate stood at 3.65% a year ago. The average rate on 15-year fixed-rate loans, popular among those seeking to refinance their mortgages, increased to 2.40% from 2.38% last week. The prospect of massive pandemic aid, following Congress’ recent enactment of the nearly $2 trillion relief package, has helped lift uncertainty about the economic recovery and likely coaxed mortgage rates higher. The government reported Thursday that the number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits rose last week to 770,000, a sign that layoffs remain high even as much of the economy is steadily recovering from the coronavirus recession.
US housing construction tumbled 10.3% in February ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON — Severe winter weather in much of the country pushed home construction down a sharp 10.3% in February while applications for new construction fell by 10.8%. The decline pushed home and apartment construction down to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,42 million units last month, compared to a rate of 1.58 million units in January when housing starts had fallen 5.1 percent, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday. Even with the two months of declines, economists are optimistic that housing will bounce back in coming months, helped by ultra-low mortgage rates and rising demand by American who have been cooped up for the past year as the coronavirus pandemic rages. However, even with the expected rebound, the growth in housing will likely slow from last year’s sizzling pace given a series of restraints from a lack of building lots to surging lumber prices. Oxford Economics reports that random length lumber prices have more than tripled since last April. The National Association of Home Builders said the lumber price surge is adding $24,000 to the average price of a newly built home. That may be playing out in the plans this year for homebuilders. On Wednesday, the U.S. reported the first drop in applications for new building permits, considered a good indication of future activity, since October, and left applications at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.68 million units The severe weather last month included a prolonged period when millions of Texans were without electricity because freezing temperatures over-burdened the Texas power grid. Despite deadly weather patterns and sky high lumber prices, it’s highly likely that housing construction will remain one of the stand-out performers for the economy again this year.
LOS ANGELES — The red-hot U.S. housing market is paying off for many homeowners, even those who aren’t looking to sell their home. On average, homes with a mortgage gained $26,300 in equity in the last three months of 2020 versus a year earlier, according to real estate information company CoreLogic. That average gain is the highest since 2013, the firm said. CoreLogic said homes with a mortgage account for about 62% of all U.S. properties. Taken together, the home equity for those properties surged to more than $1.5 trillion, an increase of 16.2% from a year earlier. The surge in homeowners’ equity can potentially make a positive impact on borrowers’ finances; for one thing, it creates a buffer against potential financial hardship, such as job loss. And homeowners could opt to put some of the gains to use, giving a boost to the economy. “In our view, these strong equity gains are a clear positive for homeowner balance sheets, as well as for overall additional consumer spending, should homeowners be desirous of tapping a portion of their equity gains,” Jonathan Woloshin, a real estate and lodging analyst at UBS, wrote in a research note last week. Rising home values and low mortgage rates spurred many U.S. homeowners to refinance and cash in some of the equity in their home last year. Homeowners pulled out $152.7 billion in equity, an increase of 41.7% from 2019 and the highest refinancing cash-out dollar amount since 2007, according to mortgage buyer Freddie Mac. Homeowners also tapped into the equity in their home via a home equity line of credit, or HELOC. The volume of HELOCs more than doubled in 2020 from a year earlier to $74.9 billion. Low mortgage rates, strong demand and a record low inventory of homes for sale nationwide have fueled home sales and
MELISSA PHILLIP/HOUSTON CHRONICLE VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS
A real estate sign is shown at a home for sale, in Houston. pushed home prices higher since last summer. Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes climbed 5.6% in 2020 from a year earlier to 5.64 million, the highest level since 2006 at the height of the housing boom, according to the National Association of Realtors. The national median home sales price jumped 12.9% to $309,800. The strong demand for homes continued in January, with sales ticking up 0.6% from December and almost 24% from a year earlier. By the end of January, however, the supply of homes on the market nationally was down to a record-low 1.04 million units. That amounts to a 1.9 months’ supply. A balanced housing market tends to have a 6-month supply. The Realtors group issues its February home sales data next week. When home equity rises, it reduces the risk that a homeowner with a mortgage will end up “underwater” on their loan, meaning they owe more on their mortgage than their home is worth. That can happen when a home’s value
declines, or when the size of the mortgage increases, say when someone takes out a home equity loan. Homes in California, Idaho and Washington saw among the biggest average increases in annual equity gains in the fourth quarter: $54,500 in California, $48,500 in Idaho and $47,000 in Washington state, CoreLogic said. Even a robust housing market with rising prices can’t limit the risk of a homeowner ending up underwater on their home loan entirely. In the fourth quarter, some 410,000 U.S. residential properties were underwater on their mortgage, according to CoreLogic. That’s a 21% decline from the same period in 2019, when 1.9 million homes, or 3.6% of all properties with a mortgage, were in negative equity, the firm said. The underwater mortgages at the end of December represent roughly $280.2 billion in mortgage debt, down 2.6% from a year earlier, CoreLogic said.
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