“In the short run, over the next half decade to decade, it’s going to be extremely unlikely, virtually impossible for that to happen because all the programs that created the bubble are outlawed now,” said David Stevens, CEO of the Mortgage Bankers Association. “What really concerns me is how are people going to behave outside the QM protection.”

(Read more: Why shut down Fannie and Freddie now?)

Lenders can still operate outside the QM rules but don’t get the same legal protections in cases of default, and they cannot sell the loans to Fannie and Freddie. They need to hold on to the risk. Still, the non-QM market is growing even before the QM rules take effect in January.

The leader of this movement is Date himself. He formed a firm, Fenway Summer, to launch the new mortgage products.

“I think the best credit models, the ones that really pay for themselves in terms of risk-adjusted returns over time, are the ones where you make great credit decisions and then you actually bear the risk of those decisions working out well or working out poorly,” said Date, adding that he is optimistic about this new market.

Loans outside QM will be more costly but will offer investors greater returns. They will still have to comply with ability-to-repay but not the QM standards. Therefore, borrowers who may have very large assets but little to no income could qualify. Interest-only, adjustable-rate mortgages would also fall into this category.

“I am quite confident that a senior funding market will develop for non-QM loans—I have no doubt about that at all,” Date said. “It is simply too big of a market.”

Wells Fargo will also operate outside QM for some loans.

“When you look at the entire profile of the borrower, we can be comfortable they have the ability to repay even though their income by itself may not fall into the standard dictated by the qualified mortgage,” said Codel, who added that non-QM loans may be an even safer product because lenders will hold more risk and be subject to legal action in the case of a loan failure.

(Read more: Map: Tracking the recovery)

Still, the non-QM market does open the doors for lenders seeking higher returns through higher risk, which is how much of the recent trouble began, at least in the mortgage-backed securities trading space. Regulations for investors in loans are still being finalized, but recent proposals follow the QM standards.

“That is where I think drawing the boundaries around the rules can be a good thing but it can also set up bad behaviors outside those boundaries, and we’re going to see those kinds of institutions being created, I’m confident of it,” said Stevens.

—By CNBC’s Diana Olick. Follow her on Twitter @Diana_Olick.

Questions?Comments? facebook.com/DianaOlickCNBC

Article source: http://www.cnbc.com/id/101036630

Today, far more Americans are renting. In fact, all of the latest household formations, according to the U.S. Census, are in rental units. The home ownership rate, which reached a high of just over 69 percent in 2004, stood at 67.8 percent in the fall of 2007. Today it continues to fall, now down to 65.4 percent.

(Read More: Best US Housing Markets for Buyers and Sellers)

Perhaps the biggest difference in today’s housing market from 2007 is in mortgage rates and activity. In October of 2007, the average rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage was 6.38 percent. Today it is nearly half that at 3.67 percent. In turn, it is a tale of opposites. Refinance volume today is twice what it was in 2007, while mortgage applications to purchase a home are about half what they were.

(Read More: Soaring HousingStocks in Perspective)

In October 2007, the housing market was in the direct path of a massive foreclosure storm. Today, it is still picking up the pieces, with 5.3 million homeowners either delinquent on their mortgages or in foreclosure, according to Lender Processing Services. The good news is that the numbers are coming down, but the clean-up is far from over.

(Read More: How We Got Here, Where We’re Going)

Article source: http://www.cnbc.com/id/100419903

Disclosure: I am long KBH. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article. (More…)

The real estate market, like any other market, is a numbers game. Demand versus Supply. If one is greater than the other, it tips the balance and creates a turn in the market. Did we turn? Let’s look at the numbers.

Demand can be tracked simply by population growth. Using 2010 US census numbers, we can track back 50 years of population growth and get an average compound growth of 1.4% growth per year. Factors such as birthrate and immigration make this demand stable and consistent through the last 50 years.

(click to enlarge)

Secondly, let’s look at Supply. New supply comes onto the market in terms of new homes built each year. The best way to track this is through housings starts. Let’s track back 50 years of housing starts to see our levels of new supply to the market.

(click to enlarge)

From the graph, the average cyclical real estate market is plotted through 10 year cycles. It’s rather clear that the 10 year cycles have been pretty predictable the last 50 years up to 1997. Instead of the cyclical downturn we should had expected in 1997, we accelerate upward mainly due to the dot-com bubble. This continued to after 2001 when the dot-com bubble popped, and was followed upward with historically low interest rates from the Federal Reserve. It’s no wonder why we had a dramatic downturn in 2006, followed by historically low starts the next 5 years to clear the supply. Excluding the bubble period, if you break down these 10 year averages from the last 60 years, the average new housing starts are close to 14M per decade. There are decades where the homebuilders either overbuilt or under-built, but the demand over time remains consistent to level out this supply. More dramatically though, in the last 4 years, the total cumulative housing starts combined to a number barely over 2.2M homes. To reach the historic 14M decade average, there will need to be 2M housing starts per year or a sum of 11.8M starts in the next 6 years.

If we are able to meet 2M homes per year, the homebuilders would need a dramatic spike in housing starts the next 6 years.

(click to enlarge)

From the latest housing report this month, the homebuilders are currently on pace to reach only 894k (revised, Oct 2012) (seasonally adjusted) new starts this year. It is no wonder why new homebuilders are in “catch-up” mode buying any large developed parcel of land to meet the supply shortage. Furthermore, to support this data, inventory in many local markets are experiencing 50 year historic lows. So in principle, the increased demand due to consistent population growth, combined with decreased supply shortage from the last 4 years, will equal price appreciation in the next 6 years. Do you think we hit a bottom now?

Who are the best homebuilders that are position to take advantage of this shortage?

Any homebuilders that survive the downtown of the last 5 years are all in a great position to take advantage of the next 5 years. More specifically, homebuilders with the largest and key coastal land position will benefit the most. I like KB Home (KBH) as my top pick due to its heavy land position in California. They own more than 60% of their total land holdinsg in California, with the majority of the remainder in other hot markets like Texas. Fundamentally, their balance sheet and cash position is solid with moving a large part of their short-term bond holdings ($585M) well out to 2020 and beyond. In addition, they have a meaningful deferred tax asset of $883M that could be used to potentially offset $2.2B future taxable income. All of this combined will just provide them with a significantly large cash position to fill the shortage the next 5 years in housing.

Additional disclosure: John Chiem is a realtor in the SF Bay Area real estate market.

Article source: http://seekingalpha.com/article/1081501-why-housing-will-surge-in-the-next-5-years

The shift in the sales mix is also largely due to a drop in the number of distressed homes for sale. Foreclosures and short sales made up just 22 percent of home sales in November, according to the Realtors, the lowest share in five years. Much of that is due to a lack of supply on the distressed side, as investors continue to compete for these properties to take advantage of the still-lucrative rental market.

The Realtors claim the distressed share of sales will continue to decline in 2013, due to fewer seriously delinquent loans, but banks are now ramping up foreclosures of long-delayed delinquent loans, so there could be another bump in that supply before it finally falls dramatically. Bank repossessionsjumped 11 percent month-to-month in November and saw the first annual increase since 2010, according to RealtyTrac.

Overall, the supply of all homes nationally is at its lowest level in 7 years,, just 4.8 months’ worth at the current sales pace.

(Read More: Best US HousingMarkets for Buyers and Sellers)

“With the homebuyer affordability index near multi-decade highs combined with decent job creation at the same time renting has gotten more expensive — all lead to a continued improvement in sales,” writes Peter Boockvar of Miller Tabak. “This said, sales are still 30 percent below the bubble highs and are still where they were in 1998, both pointing to the degree of possible improvement ahead but also evidence of the damage that was done where historically the pace of recovery takes time.”

(Read More: New Nightmare forHome Builders: Not Enough Skilled Workers)

Article source: http://www.cnbc.com/id/100331527

The last time the spread between Bay Area median prices and Sacramento median prices grew so big was a decade ago, just before tens of thousands of Bay Area transplants arrived in Sacramento, turning a healthy housing market into a bona fide boom.

Since then, that wave of transplants has slowed to a drip, with barely more residents relocating from the Bay Area to Sacramento than heading in the other direction.

At Gay Realty Watch, we look for news to share with you about the gay real estate market – both lgbt real estate news and news specific to gay and lesbian real estate meccas.

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Article source: http://www.gayapolis.com/news/artdisplay-realestate.php?artid=11946