RIF News and Press, RMR Mortgage Trust Com From 04/05/19

The combination of falling median new home sale prices and rising median household incomes in the United States has resulted in a sharp decline in the relative unaffordability of new homes since the ratio between the two peaked in February 2018. The following chart shows the history of the r...

Even as the probability of a recession in the near term remains low, we believe investors should look to sectors that are likely to be resilient in periods of higher volatility. One area in which we see a potential opportunity is U.S. housing, where fundamentals remain sound. Demand is outpaci...

How Surging Home Prices & Rents Hammer the Real Economy Home prices that rise faster than wages - as they have done for years now - are not a free lunch for the economy. And now there is no good way out (9 minutes). Editor's Note: The summary bullets for this article were chos...

Posted by Walter Davis, Alternatives Investment Strategist on March 28, 2019, in Alternatives Anyone who has purchased a home is a real estate investor - but there's a big difference between taking on a mortgage and investing in office buildings, malls or industrial parks. In thi...

By Jill Mislinski Friday's release of the February New Home Sales from the Census Bureau came in at 667K, up 4.9% month-over-month from a revised 636K in January. Here is the opening from the report: Data collection and processing were delayed for this indicator release due to th...

Here are some graphs of price/rent ratios, by zip code, for several metro areas. (All x-axes have the same 2013 rental value, while the y-axes represent the estimated price/rent ratio for each year.) The data is from the inestimable Zillow.com. Price/rent ratios before 2010 are based on my e...

By Jill Mislinski This morning the National Association of Realtors released the February data for their Pending Home Sales Index. Here is an excerpt from the latest press release: Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, said February's pending home sales decline is coming off a solid gain i...

By Steve Shigekawa, Senior Portfolio Manager - The REIT Group, Brian Jones, Portfolio Manager - The REIT Group, Anton Kwang, Portfolio Manager - The REIT Group, and Gillian Tiltman, Portfolio Manager - The REIT Group Think listed real estate is dull, defensive and exposed to rising rates?...

By Robert Hughes Housing construction activity slowed in February as starts fell by 8.7 percent. Total housing starts dropped to a 1.162 million annual rate from a 1.273 million pace in January. The dominant single-family segment, which accounts for about three-fourths of new home construc...

San Francisco Bay Area House prices -4.3%, condos -5.7% since July, Seattle house prices -5.9%, most since Housing Bust 1; Los Angeles, San Diego, Denver, Portland, New York condos, even Boston decline. Dallas ticks up. The most obvious one was Seattle. Now it's joined by a second most...