Home prices up, inventory down, mortgage rates iffy

The Florida real estate industry is healthy, though several thorny challenges confront residential sales, one of the nation’s leading economists told a gathering of about 80 agents and brokers.

Lawrence Yun, chief economist and senior vice president of the National Association of Realtors, covered the proverbial waterfront during his presentation at the 12th annual Global Conference, a production of the Realtor Association of Sarasota and Manatee and the Global Business Council held at RASM’s Sarasota headquarters.

The daylong conference focused on the international real estate market, though Yun incorporated many domestic points in his presentation, “Economic and Real Estate Market Outlook.”

Foreign buyers and Florida

On the tax reform law, “We’ll have to wait and see whether this impacts home buying in the future or not,” Yun said. But he echoed a sentiment expressed by many: The Florida market will be a “big beneficiary of net migration” from Americans fleeing such high-tax states as New York and New Jersey as the tax law chews into their income-tax deductions. “We’re already seeing that.”

Last year, foreign buyers bought $23.8 billion in Florida real estate, more than double the figure from a decade ago. Seventy-three percent of those 2017 purchases were all-cash, Yun said, because wealthy international buyers don’t need mortgages. The foreign property purchases account for 11 percent of the value but only 6 percent of the sales volume, indicating those purchases were primarily high-end homes.

The top international buyers of U.S. real estate last year came, in order, from China, Canada, Mexico, India and the United Kingdom.

Although most of the Chinese purchases were in California, “the Florida market certainly has a larger share of foreign investors,” Yun said. “We have greater contact with people of other nationalities.”

The state, he said, is also “raising the confidence of foreign buyers” with safe property investments that are bound to appreciate.

National economic picture

During the first quarter of 2018, a rising number of households expressed more confidence in the economy and their financial position, but only 68 percent of consumers felt now is a good time to buy a house, the lowest percentage in two years. That’s according to NAR’s first-quarter Housing Opportunities and Market Experience survey.

Income, debt and anxiety are stopping some from buying.

“They need to believe things will turn out well after buying,” Yun said. The “very, very competitive” nature of the current residential market — with inventory down 13 percent, prices up 9 percent and mortgage rates expected to rise again — is being met with caution. “They’re feeling rushed to buy.”

From 2011 to 2017, income grew by 15 percent but housing prices surged by 48 percent, Yun said. “This is a big concern for renters,” he said, and an obstacle to converting to home ownership.

Consumers should not wait for mortgage rates, at 4.5 percent now, to fall, not with the Federal Reserve forecast to raise its benchmark interest rate two more times this year and three in 2019.

“Two years from now, mortgage rates could be 6 percent,” Yun said. “Don’t take the current rates for granted.”

While national existing home sales rose last year to their highest level in 11 years, the pending home sales index has stalled and inventory continues to fall, he said. “Builders have been under-producing,” Yun said, and the annual increases in construction since the subprime disaster have been “very minimal.”