All Things in Moderation

Vital Statistics:

Stocks are rebounding after yesterday’s bloodbath.  Bonds and MBS are down small.

CNBC reported that Quicken Loans is planning an IPO. I guess the S4 was filed confidentially, so we can’t tell much about the company’s financials. The company said that it originated $52 billion in the first quarter. Certainly the timing for a sale is right, with what looks to be a record period for refinances as far as they eye can see.

Realtor.com reports that the summer house shopping season is in full swing, with prices up about 5%. “The big surprise of the housing market is that prices have remained quite resilient,” says realtor.com Senior Economist George Ratiu. He doesn’t expect prices to drop over the next few months. “The summer housing market will be better than expected, but far off the normal pace.” The inventory situation is even worse than before – listings are down 25% from a year ago. That said, it is a bifurcated market, with multiple offers for lower priced homes, and little demand for higher priced ones. “For most people it will be a competitive buying market,” says Lawrence Yun, chief economist of the National Association of Realtors®. “For lower-priced and medium-priced homes, multiple offers will be fairly common. On the luxury end, some price reduction will be required because there’s plentiful inventory.”

More evidence that people are fleeing the cities: May rentals in Manhattan are down 62%. “The supply of available rental units continues to accumulate,” UrbanDigs said in its report, which looked at all five New York City boroughs, “hinting that renters will have the upper hand in negotiability when the market finally reopens.”

Mark Calabria said that the forbearance rates for the GSEs is manageable. “We’ve seen over the last few weeks those numbers start to stabilize,” Calabria said. “Within the GSE portfolio, you see as many borrowers canceling their forbearance programs as you see rolling on. I certainly over the last few months have been concerned about what the direction of the housing market would be coming out of COVID-19,” Calabria said. “I’ve been very pleasantly surprised.”

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