Weekly News (November 22, 2023)

Mortgage Interest Rates Review

United Mortgage Nation  11/22/2023

                  Federal Fund Rate: 5.25% -5.50%        Prime Rate: 8.25%-8.50%  

Illegal basement dwelling is still popular

불법 반지하 거주, 아직도 성행

Korea  Daily   11/21/23 

• While rent market becomes soft, basement dwelling demand is still strong.  Korean community portal sites have many such listings and it can be many more in real because many of these will not published in the portal sites. 
• Rent for these basements is between $1200 – $1700 in Queens, and it comes down to $900 range in Palisades Park, NJ.
• NYC has attempted legalization of this basement dwellings, but it was not that successful due to high modification costs. According to city ordinance, 50% of the unit has to be above the ground and bathroom, tube, sink and separate entrance door have to be equipped to be legal.

Buyers are looking into more new construction homes

매물부족에 신규주택 바이어 몰려       

Korea Times  12/21/2022

• According DOC reports on 17th, new home construction increased 1.9% in October to 1,372,000from the previous month under even higher costs to build. It was higher than WSJ’s forecast (1.35M)
• The permits also increased 1.1% to 1.487M which was higher than the forecast(1.45M) 
• On 16th, HMI(Housing Market Index) by HAHB and Wells Fargo came down 6 points to 34 and this index has shown the decline in 4 consecutive month.  

Mortgage Interest rates picked, might be 6% in Spring

모기지 이자 ‘피크’… 내년 봄 6% 대 하락 

Korea Times  11/20/23

• NAR forecasted that inflation is weakened due the Fed’s strong policy raising rates and home prices and rents are become more stable in Oct.
• Lawrence Yun said The Fed is contemplating lowering the rates and bond market is responding toward lowering rates as well. He also forecasted the rates will be low 7% and becomes 6% range in Spring. 
•  Meantime, house sales declined and it is worst in California: the median price is $833,340 and single family house sales declined 5.4% from the previous month to 240,940, and 21.5% from a year ago. 

Homes sales in Oct is lowest in 13 years

10월 주택거래 13년 최저

WSJ   12/21/22 

• NAR reported on 21st  that home sales declined 4.1% from the last month to 3.79M which is the lowest in 13 years(2010), and 14.6% decline from a year ago same period.     
  
• The Federal Fund rate is 5.25- 5.5% which is highest in 22 years.      
• Meanwhile the median home price increased 3.4% from a year ago to $391,800 due to persistent low inventory in the housing market. 

U.S. Real-Estate Fees Among the Highest

미국 부동산 비, 가장 높은  나라에 속해

WSJ  11/20/23 

• The commission on a home sale here is typically around 5% to 6%, usually split between the seller’s and buyer’s agents. In most countries, the commissions are substantially smaller. 
• One reason commissions here remain high is the use of buyer agents, Buyer agents aren’t nearly as common in other parts of the world.
• “A comparison of rates around the world is very misleading because it often doesn’t give accurate comparisons of value and the numerous other costs consumers have to pay as part of transactions abroad, just cost,” said NAR.
• About 1.6 million of those roughly three million licenses are held by Realtors, dues-paying NAR members who abide by its code of ethics.
• With the typical commission clocking in at around 5.5%, U.S. agents are only bested by those in Japan, 6.2%, and Argentina, roughly 6%, Norway (1.8%) and the U.K. (1.3%) have among the lowest rates in the world.
• In the U.K., which has far fewer agents, a typical one might be involved in 40 or 50 transactions annually, Miller said. In the U.S., Real-tors do about 12 transactions a year, according to NAR.
• One reason commissions are higher in Japan is because both the buyer and seller pay the commission to their own agent, Miller said.

Houses Too Costly to Buy Underpin Jump in rents

집값 상승이 렌트 상승의 요인     

WSJ  11/22/23

• Big public companies that rent out single-family homes are beating the rest of the rental market this year, thanks to tenants who are paying large rent increases on the sorts of homes they increasingly can’t afford to buy.
  
• Landlords Tricon Residential, Invitation Homes and AMH , which  together own about 180,000 rental homes, each posted rent increases greater than 6% for the third quarter over the same period a year prior.
• That was about twice as much as the average increase for rental homes in September, compared with the same month last year, according to CoreLogic and online-listing company Zillow. 

Median rent increase/decrease and Housing Affordability

WSJ 11/22/23

The Unfinished-Homes Problem In China Keeps Getting Bigger

중국,끝내지 못한 주택들 문제 점점 확대

WSJ  11/20/23 

• China’s housing market has a big problem: millions of unfinished homes that were sold but not delivered.  The problem keeps getting bigger. More property developers are defaulting on their debt and adding to the logjam of construction delays and stalled residential developments across the country.
• In the ensuing months, China’s central government earmarked the equivalent of $48 billion in funding, through its policy banks and local governments, to help cash-strapped developers finish construction of projects they presold. On top of that, the country’s central bank said it would provide large commercial banks with up to $27 billion of interest-free funding if they made loans to developers for the same purpose.

Contract Liability of 5 large developers in China

WSJ 11/20/23

HyunDai to be First Carmaker Selling New Models on Amazon

현대, 처음으로 새모델 차를 아마존에서 판매 계획 

WSJ  11/17/23

• Hyundai Motor customers who want to skip the dealership will have a new option next year: shopping on Amazon. com .   Starting in 2024, U.S. auto dealers will be able to sell new vehicles on the tech company’s platform, making Hyundai the first automotive brand to offer such an option for customers. Hyundai will include Amazon’s Alexa technology in cars beginning in 2025.
• Prospective buyers will be able to search on Amazon’s website for available vehicles in their area by model, color and features, and then complete the process using their chosen payment and financing options.
• Consumers in recent years have warmed to the idea of skirting the car dealer, particularly when it comes to newer electric-vehicle models.