10 interesting real estate charts

Donut effects; Austin prices; what do families really want? Refi-rejection; FHA, but really VA, foreclosures on the march

• Texas donut effects

• ppl love the burbs, and hate density

• what do families want? it’s not urbanism, that’s for sure

• rejection rates on refi applications soar. why?

• FHA VA mortgage foreclosures spike

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Another day, another capitulation to the fact that There is No Housing Shortage.

This time, a research paper, Supply Constraints do not Explain House Price and Quantity Growth Across U.S. Cities.

I didn’t have time to dig through the whole thing, but here’s the gist of it:

from 2000 to 2020, we find that higher income growth predicts the same growth in house prices, housing quantity, and population . . . [w]e find the same pattern when we expand the sample to 1980 to 2020 . . . Using a general demand-and-supply framework, we show that our findings imply that constrained housing supply is relatively unimportant in explaining differences in rising house prices among U.S. cities . . . and suggest that easing housing supply constraints may not yield the anticipated improvements in housing affordability.

Welcome to the party.

10 interesting real estate charts

In no particular order, rhyme or reason, just 10-ish charts that are interesting. Random Walk will be light(ish) on narrative today, as well.

Texas Donuts & Austin Flight

My friend

Aziz Sunderji

made a neat visual of the “donut effect” in Texas (i.e. the livable rings around the emptying city cores):

Home Economics

Domestic migration grows around, but not in, the cities.¹

Random Walk has made this point many, many, many times before (and will make it again within this post): there is a strong revealed preference for ex- and suburban life. People hate density.²

If you observe spiking suburban home values, and your takeaway is “we must make the suburbs more dense because zoning,” well, I’m not sure you’ve thought it all the way through, to put it mildly.

Families want house, not housing

I can’t remember where I heard it or read it (so I can’t give proper credit, unfortunately), but I really like it: “people don’t want housing—they want house.”

That’s exactly right. Whoever came up with that, you’re spot on.

In fact, the Institute for Family Studies just did a big survey (with lots of interesting charts) demonstrating precisely that: there is enormous demand for SINGLE FAMILY HOMES.

Read the whole thing, but here are some snapshots:

1. Detached single family house is by far the ideal residence:

IFS Housing Survey

~80% of respondents said detached SF was “ideal,” while only ~60% lived there.

2. People care a lot about safety, and very little (relatively) about diversity or public transit: