The Real Estate News Brief: Fed’s Rate Hike Plan, Record High Home Equity, Land Rush for Autonomous Trucks

In this Real Estate News Brief for the week ending March 5th, 2022... you’ll hear about the Fed’s rate hike plan, new figures on record high home equity, and why there’s a land rush for autonomous trucks. Hi, I'm Kathy Fettke and this is Real Estate News for Investors. If you like our podcast, please subscribe and leave us a review. Economic News We begin with economic news from this past week, and more aggressive talk about rate hikes to control inflation. Fed Chief Jerome Powell spoke before Congress and said he will support a quarter percent hike on the Federal Funds rate at the next policy meeting. He also anticipates that this will be one of a series of rate hikes this year, and that one or two of them would be more than a quarter point. (1) One big concern is the impact the war in Ukraine will have on prices. We’re already seeing higher gas prices than we’ve ever seen before. Realtor.com also reports that high heating bills are giving many homeowners sticker shock. A PG&E; spokesperson said in a TV interview that natural gas prices are 90% higher this winter, than last. (2) And Powell doesn’t think inflation will go away anytime soon. He said during his testimony before the Senate Banking Committee: “We’re going to see upward pressure on inflation, at least for a while.” He also said this is not going to help supply chain issues. The unemployment report was good news. Jobless claims were down to a two-month low of just 215,000 applications. As MarketWatch reports, “the economy appears to have regained some momentum” after a slowdown at the end of last year, thanks to a big drop in COVID cases and the lifting of coronavirus restrictions. (3) Job growth was also impressive. The Labor Department reported a gain of 678,000 jobs in February. Most of them were for leisure and hospitality jobs, along with education, health, and professional services, but the construction industry also saw big gains. The official unemployment rate is now 3.8%. (4) Builders started pouring money into projects in January. The Commerce Department says that construction spending was up 8.2% year-over-year, after a 1.3% increase from December to January. Spending for single-family construction was up 1.2% in January and “down” .1% for multi-family. There was also a big jump in private non-residential construction such as gas and oil well drilling. But the biggest gain was 13.8% for federal government projects. (5) Mortgage Rates Mortgage rates were down again last week, as investors moved more money into bonds because of the war in Ukraine. Freddie Mac says the average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage was 3.76% while the 15-year was 3.01%. (6) In other news making headlines… Homeowners Tapping Into Home Equity Homeowners are seeing record amounts of equity as home prices continue to rise. Black Knight says the average equity is $185,000 for people with a mortgage. That does “not” include the 20% amount that lenders want mortgage holders to retain. (7) Urban Institute’s Karen Kaul says we’ll probably see more people tapping into that equity this year, but due to rising interest rates they probably won’t be doing a cash-out refi. She says many will opt for second lien products such as a HELOC, which many people use to remodel a home. Heating & Cooling Supply Chain Issues If higher energy costs aren’t enough to make you cringe, it’s growing more difficult to get parts to fix a broken furnace or air conditioner. The Wall Street Journal reports that HVAC companies are struggling to get parts for both residential and commercial buildings. Those bottlenecks add to the challenge of getting other necessary construction materials like windows, garage doors, and paint. (8) One thing that is increasing the demand for heating and cooling upgrades is the rise in remote work. The Journal says that many remote workers want new climate control technology and that HVAC backlogs are becoming “very, very disruptive.” Land Rush for Autonomous Trucks? There’s another interesting twist to our high tech future, and possibly something that will help with supply chain issues. The Journal reports that a land grab is beginning for the parking of self-driving trucks near big cities. It reports that Philadelphia-based investor Alterra Property Group is teaming up with autonomous-truck company Embark Trucks to buy properties across the country. (9) Embark plans to launch its first trucks in Sunbelt states like California and Texas. That’s expected to take place in 2024. The trucks would be autonomous on highways and taken over by humans on city streets. Vacant Properties in the U.S. While the real estate market operates with a very tight inventory, you might be curious to know how many homes are sitting vacant. According to LendingTree, there are 16 million of them, with the most number of vacant homes in Vermont, Maine, and Alaska. The vacancy rate in those three states is between 20 and 22%. The states with the least number of vacant homes are Oregon, Washington, and Connecticut. If you are wondering, California is fifth from the bottom on that list with a vacancy rate of 8.68%. (10) Vacant homes are not necessarily a bad thing. LendingTree’s Jacob Channel says: “Homes can be vacant for a variety of reasons, and just because an area has a high vacancy rate doesn’t necessarily mean that there’s something wrong with its housing market.” Although some may be uninhabitable, he said vacancies might be due to the rapid building of homes that are not yet occupied, a high number of second or vacation homes, and for-sale homes that are still on the market, among other reasons. That’s it for today. Check the show notes for links. And please remember to hit the subscribe button, and leave a review! You can also join RealWealth for free at newsforinvestors.com. As a member, you have access to the Investor Portal where you can view sample property pro-formas and connect with our network of resources, including experienced investment counselors, property teams, lenders, 1031 exchange facilitators, attorneys, CPAs and more. Thanks for listening. I'm Kathy Fettke. Links: 1 -https://www.marketwatch.com/story/powell-says-ukraine-war-is-adding-to-inflation-fears-11646324667?mod=federal-reserve 2 -https://magazine.realtor/daily-news/2022/03/04/high-heating-bills-stun-homeowners 3 -https://www.marketwatch.com/story/jobless-claims-drop-to-two-month-low-of-215-000-as-omicron-wanes-and-firms-hire-more-workers-11646314574?mod=economy-politics 4 -https://www.marketwatch.com/story/coming-up-u-s-jobs-report-for-february-11646399014?mod=mw_latestnews 5 -https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/construction-spending-soars-in-january%3A-4-stocks-to-buy 6 -https://www.freddiemac.com/pmms 7 -https://magazine.realtor/daily-news/2022/03/01/homeowners-tempted-to-use-equity 8 -https://magazine.realtor/daily-news/2022/03/04/add-furnace-parts-to-growing-list-of-material-bottlenecks 9 -https://www.wsj.com/articles/self-driving-trucks-start-to-propel-land-rush-near-major-cities-11646053200?mod=hp_featst_pos5 10 -https://magazine.realtor/daily-news/2022/03/02/16-million-homes-vacant-in-us