The Real Estate News Brief: New Conforming Loan Limits, Longer Hours to Pay Rent, SFR Rent Growth Slows

In this Real Estate News Brief for the week ending December 3rd, 2022... new limits for 2023 conforming loans, the hours tenants need to work to pay rent, and a single-family rent growth slowdown that’s still good news for landlords.   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. The inflation gauge favored by the Fed showed a bigger drop in price growth, but a report on job creation and wage growth showed that the economy is still running too hot. The Personal Consumption Expenditures Index or PCE shows a .2% increase for the October core rate which is down from a .5% rate of growth in September. The current annual rate is now 5.2% for the PCE core rate which excludes food and gas prices. The improvement suggests that inflation is stabilizing. (1)   The government also released a report that shows stronger-than-expected job growth in November and a sharp increase in wages. That’s good for workers, but a hot job market contributes to inflation. The report shows that companies added 263,000 new jobs in November – Wall Street had forecast around 200,000 – and that wages surged .6% to an average of $32.82. As MarketWatch reports, that’s the largest increase in 13 months. The unemployment rate was unchanged at 3.7%. (2)   Initial jobless claims were lower. There were 16,000 fewer applications to a total of 225,000 initial claims. That was also a surprise. Economists had expected a much bigger decline. The number of ongoing claims did move higher, however, to the highest level since last February. They rose 57,000 to a total of 1.61 million. Economists say that unemployment numbers can also be difficult to interpret during the holiday season. (3)   Meantime, Fed Chief Jerome Powell spoke at the Brookings Institution on Wednesday. He said that the central bank may decide to slow the pace of interest rate hikes at the upcoming meeting but he also warned that the terminal rate may go higher than originally anticipated which means smaller rate hikes for a longer period of time. He said the Fed needs to see clear evidence that inflation is declining, including lower prices for housing.   Some economists are now predicting a half-point rate hike at the December meeting, followed by three (3) quarter-point rate hikes next year. That would bring the short-term rate to a range of 5 to 5.25%. Powell said during his speech: “The truth is that the path ahead for inflation remains highly uncertain.” (4)   The housing market continues to cool, with existing home sales down 4.6% in October. According to the National Association of Realtors, it’s the fifth month in a row they’ve been down. Year-over-year, pending home sales are down 37%. Home sales have stalled for several reasons including high prices and rising mortgage rates. (5)   Home prices have started to come down. The S&P; CoreLogic Case-Shiller national  price index was down .8% in September. Year-over-year prices still show a 10.65% rate of appreciation however. (6)   Mortgage Rates   Mortgage rates are coming back down. Freddie Mac says the average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage dropped 9 points to 6.49%. The 15-year was down 14 points to 5.76%. Freddie attributes the decline to optimism that the Federal Reserve will move more slowly with the rate hikes. (7)   In other news making headlines…   Conforming Loan Limits for 2023   The government released new higher limits for 2023 conforming loans. The new amount that borrowers can get for loans guaranteed by either Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac will run from a base amount of $726,000 to more than one million dollars. More expensive counties will qualify for higher amounts with the highest tier at $1,089,300. (8) The Federal Housing Finance Agency regulates Fannie and Freddie and has published a county-by-county list with conforming loan limits. (9)   The limits are based on average home prices in each area. If home prices fall, the loan limits will not be reduced but they will not be increased again until home prices move above the current conforming loan amounts.   Hours Worked by Tenants to Pay the Rent   A new analysis shows that tenants are working more hours to pay their rent. Research by Zillow shows that a typical full-time employee must work about 63 hours to pay the average rent of $2,040. That’s about 36% of the average tenant’s paycheck. Anything above 33% is considered “rent-burdened.” (10)   The situation is the result of robust rent growth and wages that are not rising as fast as rents. Labor statistics show the average hourly wage has grown 23% over the last five years and that rents have gone up about 37%.   Rent Growth is Slowing for SFRs   Data shows that rent growth is slowing down. According to CoreLogic, which tracks single-family rent growth, year-over-year rents were down for a fifth month in a row but were still at double digits.   The data shows the annual single-family rent growth was 10.2% in September from a high of 13.9% in April of last year. CoreLogic economist Molly Boesel says that SFR rent growth is coming down, but it’s still more than twice what it was before the pandemic. (11)   That’s it for today. Check the show notes for links. And please remember to hit the subscribe button, and leave a review!   To find out more about rental real estate, go to newsforinvestors.com. You can join for free and get access to our market data and our curated list of real estate resources. That includes our experienced investment counselors and other real estate professionals that can help you get where you want to go with real estate.   Thanks for listening. I'm Kathy Fettke.   Links:   1 - https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/01/key-inflation-measure-that-the-fed-follows-rose-0point2percent-in-october-less-than-expected-.html   2 - https://www.marketwatch.com/story/u-s-adds-263-000-jobs-in-november-and-wages-rise-sharply-still-too-much-for-the-feds-liking-11669988407?mod=economic-report   3 - https://www.marketwatch.com/story/u-s-weekly-jobless-claims-retreat-in-latest-week-11669902096?mod=economic-report   4 - https://www.marketwatch.com/story/powell-says-pace-of-interest-rate-increases-can-slow-as-soon-as-december-meeting-11669833150?mod=economy-politics   5 - https://www.marketwatch.com/story/u-s-pending-home-sales-drop-for-fifth-straight-month-in-october-11669820442?mod=economy-politics   6 - https://www.spglobal.com/spdji/en/indices/indicators/sp-corelogic-case-shiller-us-national-home-price-nsa-index/?utm_medium=next_gen&utm;_source=google&utm;_campaign=paid_campaign&utm;_term=home&price;&index;&utm;_content=Intl_Indicators&gclid;=Cj0KCQiA4aacBhCUARIsAI55maGtTBygJMpl-CDDyORMbYFhSWa8LQMT5KwodBWyhjCuvr2tjC4rUFIaAoG8EALw_wcB#overview   7 - https://www.freddiemac.com/pmms   8 - https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/news/11292022-conforming-loan-limits-loan-limits-fhfa-case   9 - https://www.fhfa.gov/DataTools/Downloads/Documents/Conforming-Loan-Limit/FullCountyLoanLimitList2023_HERA-BASED_FINAL_FLAT.pdf   10 - https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/01/realestate/rising-rent-us-cities.html 11 - https://calculatedrisk.substack.com/p/rents-falling-faster-than-seasonality