Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Did this in Housing seem an obvious bubble?

I don’t think I’m going to be continuing yesterday’s post from just where I left off, but hopefully over the course of the next few posts it should become clear why I hold such bizarre beliefs. In this post I’m updating one from last year, in which I argued two points:
  1. It is still reasonable to believe that the housing boom was not a bubble; and

  2. Even if one believes that, one can still be ultra-bearish on housing today.
The argument, essentially, is that the fundamental value of housing depends inversely on real interest rates, which fell dramatically between 2000 and 2005 and then rose in 2006. Since the peak of interest rates in 2006, nominal interest rates have fallen, but most of the fall appears to be the result of a fall in inflation expectations; real long-term interest rates, as represented by TIPS yields, have fallen only slightly since their 2006 peak.

In this chart (an update of the earlier one), I plot an index of actual housing prices (the OFHEO Index, standardized to 1997Q2=100) and a crude estimate of the fundamental value of houses (CPI owner’s equivalent rent, capitalized at the 10-year TIPS yield plus a 2% risk premium, and expressed as an index standardized to 1997Q2=100).



My valuation method is crude, but it is not contrived. That is, I used what I considered the most obvious set of numbers, not some cherry-picked set designed to generate a certain result: I used the 10-year TIPS yield because it’s the most liquid market-determined long-term real interest rate for the US; I used 1997 as the base year because that is first year for which those yields are available; I added 2% because it’s an integer, and 1% was clearly too little, and 3% was clearly too much (at least prior to the last two weeks), and I used CPI-OER and OFHEO because those are first relevant indexes that I found for rents and house prices.

If you are willing to accept my crude approximation of the fundamental and my implicit (arbitrary but, I think, reasonable) assumption that prices in 1997Q2 were close to the fundamental, my results imply that there was no bubble this decade, but that housing prices now have to make a large downward adjustment due to a change in the fundamental. Actually, it is a conservative (that is, on the low side) estimate of how much adjustment prices have to make, because the relevant risk premium has clearly risen very recently, which would drive the fundamental values of houses down even further.

Some people have pointed out that, historically, interest rates do not explain most of the changes in aggregate housing prices, and that, in fact, if you model housing prices empirically using interest rates as one of the predictors, the results show that prices in late 2005 (where my two lines cross) were already far above the predicted value. People interpret this empirical finding to mean that housing prices must have been in a bubble. I see several problems with this argument:
  1. This is one of those situations in economics where theory matters. If you want to argue that prices have moved far above the fundamental, you need a theory of what the fundamental value is; you can’t simply fit a bunch of possibly relevant variables empirically in a linear model and assume that the fitted value is the fundamental value. For example, if housing markets have become more efficient over time, then housing prices could have been deviating from the fundamental in all those past years and only now following the fundamental. And even if prices in the past did follow the fundamental, you would need to choose the exact right set of variables in order to get the correct fit, and you would need to choose the right functional form; otherwise, the coefficients on your variables will be biased, and, in particular, you may be underestimating the importance of interest rates.

  2. If real interest rates are the most important variable, how do you represent them prior to 1997? There is no available series: you have to start with nominal rates and make some assumption about what expected inflation rate is applicable.

  3. In an empirical fit, how do you account for the price adjustment process? Everyone knows that housing prices adjust slowly, so to make a meaningful empirical fit, you need a theory (explicit or implicit) about the adjustment process. If you ignore the adjustment process, you’re implicitly assuming that adjustment is instantaneous, which is obviously wrong. In particular, you will run into problems when there are dramatic changes in the fundamental, as for example, with the very low real interest rates in the late 1970s followed by the very high real interest rates in the early 1980s.
My approach avoids these problems because it doesn’t attempt to use historical data to ascertain fundamental values; it just asks whether the recent pattern of price changes is consistent with a theory of the fundamental. And it is. And if interest rates remain where they are, a lot of pain in the housing market over the next few years will be consistent with that same theory of the fundamental.

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21 Comments:

Blogger xtoph3r said...

How do you factor in the never-before-seen financing? The 105% LTV, negative-amortizing loans with the 1% teaser rates handed out to anyone with a pulse without any documentation of income, job, or assets?

If this kind of financing wasn't available historically, are your data still meaningful?

Thu Aug 23, 02:04:00 AM EDT  
Blogger Karl Smith said...

I actually agree with your hypothesis pretty strongly.

Accept in a few pockets it didn't look like a bubble on the way up and it doesn't look like a pop on the way down.

Individuals who got 2001 prices but 5.5 fixed mortgages made out like gang-busters.


Not to mention it was hard to look at real estate at the turn of the century and not think that it was ludicrously under-priced.

I was thinking of moving to LA at the time and found that I could afford to live almost on the beach in Santa Monica. That made no sense.

Its probably one of the most desirable locations in the world and I, some kid with good but not astronomical income prospects, could afford to live there?

The only real explanation that I have is that amenities were not properly priced because of social externalities. People wanted or needed to live in the communities that they were familiar with and so they didn't all flock to cheap amenities.


Also, given that there was easy money, fixed exchange rates, and skittish commercial investors, massive investment in durable consumption seems like the appropriate economic response.

Building a factory is iffy when you threatened by technological change that you don't understand and foreign competition. However, barring disaster a shinny new house is going to provide a return to someone long into the future.

Thu Aug 23, 10:05:00 AM EDT  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Who knew Alan Greenspan had a blog?

Thu Aug 23, 10:15:00 AM EDT  
Blogger knzn said...

I regard the lax credit standards and financial innovation as being partly endogenous. Low interest rates produced a very strong underlying demand for houses, and there was accordingly a strong incentive to figure out ways of facilitating the satisfaction of that demand.

Granted, it's also true that regulatory oversight was weak, investors were willing to accept more risk than in the past, and financial innovations were proceeding faster than people could figure out what they meant (e.g. the rating agencies never really figured out how to rate CDOs, and investors mistakenly assumed the senior tranches would behave like high-quality corporate bonds).

No question there was, as Sir Alan said, some froth, and I think my chart actually represents pretty well the fact that price appreciation got ahead of the fundamental in 2006. Once rapid appreciation got going, it wouldn't easily slow down. I wouldn't call that a bubble, though; it was just a case of people following a trend a little too far. (That happens all the time with stock market; doesn't it? Stock prices often need to correct, and usually the overshoot is not called a bubble.)

And then there was Sir Alan's "call to ARMs" (though I don't think he was Sir Alan yet at the time). To the extent that it was interpreted as personal financial advice, it was obviously imprudent. As I sort of implied in my last post, AG was apparently looking for help implementing monetary policy, because the bond market wasn't cooperating.

Thu Aug 23, 11:24:00 AM EDT  
Blogger reason said...

You mean that everybody was assuming that absurdly low real interest rates would stay that way, and are now surprised when their odd hypothesis turned out to be false? Doesn't anybody realise that long term debts are .. well .. long term?

I know Americans are world famous for credulity but I still find that hard to believe. I find it easier to believe the greater fool theory.

Thu Aug 23, 11:31:00 AM EDT  
Blogger Monkey In Chief said...

Like some of the other commentors, my problem with your analysis is that people were not buying homes in the boom, they were speculating on them using 2/28 mortgages with teaser rates.

Under your analysis, a house is a real interest rate dervative. I seriously doubt so many people would have bought house they can not affor even at the ultra low interest rates on 30 fixed loans if they understood they were speculating on an interest rate derivative in a bet they were almost sure to lose.

My take is that perhaps the run in prices started with low real interest rates but became temporarily self sustaining because momentum speculators entered the market and assumed 20% YOY gains were permanent.

It's far too early to tell if the decline looks like a bubble popping since the drop off in sales means the market is not clearing. We don't know the market clearing price. One indication is the recent San Diego foreclosure auction where REOs took 33% haircuts over previous sales prices.

Thu Aug 23, 12:13:00 PM EDT  
Blogger Karl Smith said...

You mean that everybody was assuming that absurdly low real interest rates would stay that way, and are now surprised when their odd hypothesis turned out to be false? Doesn't anybody realize that long term debts are .. well .. long term?

I am still baffled by this type of response.

Risk is well, risky. It doesn't always pan out. That doesn't mean its a mistake.

No one knew for sure where the top was, no one knew for sure when easy money would dry up. So you take a risk. Some people did really well.
Some speculators did well.

And let us not forget some sub-prime borrowers are living in houses that they otherwise never would have gotten and are making there payments.

On the one hand I think that some of the commentators who are still saying sub-prime is no big deal are understimating the danger of a credit crisis.

However, I think people who are calling the housing boom irresponsible are overlooking the gains.

There are worse things in the world than lowering employment during a global slump in demand and increasing the residential capital stock.

At least we didn't spend it all on digging ditches and filling them back up again.

Sure, as KNZN mentioned this would have been a great time to rebuild the national infrastructure but we all knew that was a non-starter.

By the bye I live in 100% financed, interest only, no doc mortgage home that was built during the boom.

Thu Aug 23, 12:50:00 PM EDT  
Blogger knzn said...

monkey in chief, Speculation is a normal part of the process that helps prices move toward the fundamental. I agree with you to some extent that the run-up in prices became self-sustaining at the end. As I suggested in my previous comment, markets have a tendency to overshoot by a little once a trend becomes clear. But a modest overshoot does not constitute a bubble. I would still argue that the current oversupply of housing has more to do with changes in real interest rates than with irrational speculation. If interest rates had stayed where they were 2 years ago, and if mortgage credit had remained easy, I think that most speculators who bought before 2005 would have seen enough final demand to give them a profit, because the interest rate would ultimately determine the buy/rent decision for people who buy houses to live in. Those who bought in 2005 would perhaps have broken even, and those who bought in 2006 would probably have taken losses, but not such large losses as they are likely to take now. So, yes, people who bought after 2005 with teaser-rate mortgages were taking a speculative bet that they were very likely to lose. That was the “froth” to which Alan Greenspan referred, but I think the run-up ended before it had a chance to become a real bubble.

Thu Aug 23, 05:51:00 PM EDT  
Blogger reason said...

Karl,
your quote of me excludes the most important second part. We are talking about the difference between fundamental value and bubble prices. Nothing that you have said suggests to me that you are really thinking of the former and not the latter.


And let us not forget some sub-prime borrowers are living in houses that they otherwise never would have gotten and are making their payments.


But they have a huge debt. It is the buildup in debt that is a burden for future growth. I see a vast number of retirees with small net worth in my (admitedly cloudy) crystal ball. Where is the advantage to them as against having rented? You as someone who's earnings may yet soar in the future are perhaps an exception.

Fri Aug 24, 04:18:00 AM EDT  
Blogger knzn said...

Borrowers who got fixed-rate loans before 2006 are mostly doing better than they would have by renting comparable houses (except that they may have better buying opportunities in the future -- but delaying a purchase for that reason is just as much speculation as buying for the purpose of selling).

Fri Aug 24, 09:54:00 AM EDT  
Blogger Karl Smith said...

We are talking about the difference between fundamental value and bubble prices. Nothing that you have said suggests to me that you are really thinking of the former and not the latter.

So let me be more specific. Fundamental values are not known with certainty. The future of interest rates is not known with certainty.

Therefore, it is all together reasonable that even investors who only think about fundamental values will over shoot the mark simply because they mistakenly estimated the time path of interest rates.

Lets not forget that long term rates were stubbornly low even as the FED raised short term rates.

There was a reasonable argument that the aging of China and the stagnation of Europe and Japan had created a low rate world for as far as the eye could see.

More importantly, however, as I tell everyone think of your house as a place to live.

That is, what matters is your willingness to pay, which could differ dramatically from that of potential buyers.

Moreover, your willingness to pay will change with time. This is by far the biggest reason not to rent even if renting is cheaper.

Renting exposes you to the risk that you could be priced out of a place you have grown to treasure. That risk is potentially much greater than the risk that you won't be able to liquidate your home.


The bottom line, is that there is absolutely nothing wrong with housing prices spiking when money is cheap and going down when money is expensive. Nor does that mean that the people in those houses have "taken a loss."

If you have a good mortgage and a house you love then that is a win.

Now of course some people will not be able to refinance their way out of their ARMs. That is unfortunate.

However, if you started out with no house and no credit then the worst that could happen is that you end up with no house and no credit. The best that could happen is that you get in the house of your dreams and then manage to find a way to stay.


Thats a risk worth taking.

Fri Aug 24, 10:48:00 AM EDT  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I am sure that there is an obvious answer and I am just not seeing it, but how do you explain the drop in fundamental value? If I understand correctly, you took OER, then took TIPS + 2% and found the value where TIPS+2% equals annual OER. Is that true?

TIPS and OER aren't changing too much, so are you assuming that the risk premium is rocketing and therefore the value that produces the same OER for a higher TIPS+premium must adjust down to compensate? If so, then the risk premium must be getting huge in order to drive prices down so much, no?

Thank you

Sun Aug 26, 02:27:00 AM EDT  
Blogger knzn said...

I divided OER by TIPS+2% (and then indexed to 100 at the beginning). That's the capitalized value assuming a perpetual interest rate of TIPS+2% and a housing stock that appreciates at the inflation rate. (Obviously, since this is 10yr TIPS, it's not really quite perpetual, but it is long-term enough to seem like a reasonable estimate for the perpetual.)

An important point is that real interest rates have been low the whole time, and when the denominator is already low, relatively small changes in the denominator can cause significant changes in the fraction. So, while it may appear that "TIPS...aren't changing much," they have changed enough to change the capitalized value materially. As an example, take the reciprocal of today's TIPS yield of 2.38, and compare that with 1.67 from 6/30/2005 and 4.32 from 12/31/1999.

(Note: Each observation uses the closing yield from the end of the previous quarter, and the OER value for the last observation is an estimate, since the third quarter isn't over yet.)

Mon Aug 27, 12:35:00 PM EDT  
Blogger knzn said...

Actually, in the examples in the last comment I forgot to add the 2%. The corresponding discount rates would be 4.38%, 3.67%, and 6.32%. The reciprocals are 23, 27, and 16, respectively, so you can see how the fundamental changes with this number in the denominator.

(Of course, to be a little more realistic, we would probably want to add a larger risk premium to today's yield, but I'm keeping this simple by sticking with 2%. But note that today's yield would otherwise imply a small step up from the last point on the chart, becuase the TIPS yield has fallen from 2.65 on 6/30/3007.)

Mon Aug 27, 01:06:00 PM EDT  
Blogger Unknown said...

What's your reasoning for assuming that the capitalized equivalent rent represents the "fundamental" value of houses that can be used as reference for house prices to determine whether there is a housing bubble?

As far as I can see you only compare two variables which are not independent on each other, but highly correlated. In markets in which prices of houses strongly increase also equivalent rents will strongly increase. Both variables will show a similar pattern in a housing bubble. Your comparison is just an approximate empirical confirmation of this correlation (as far this is possible from such a short time series). But it is of no use to estimate whether house prices are significantly above a fundamental value. Thus, I would say your argument fails to show what it is supposed to show.

Wed Aug 29, 03:01:00 AM EDT  
Blogger knzn said...

The thing is, the market for renting is competitive and has little if any speculative element. (Landlords don't like to have many vacancies, so even if they expect rents to go up in the future, they set the rent at a level that allows them to rent out properties today.) So rents are pretty much immune to the possible “bubble” element. Rising house prices won’t cause rents to rise unless they alter supply and demand in the rental market. To the extent that the housing boom takes place by people leaving the rental market to buy houses, it reduces demand in the rental market. Since the housing boom is demand-driven, this reduction of demand should at least offset the reduction in supply due to conversion of properties from rental to owner-occupancy. So I think rents are a good representative of the fundamental value of housing services. When rents go up, that can’t be attributed to a bubble; it just means that there are a lot of people who need places to live. Therefore, to the extent that rising house prices can be explained by rising rents, the rising house prices are not a bubble.

Wed Aug 29, 11:38:00 AM EDT  
Blogger Unknown said...

@knzn:

"The thing is, the market for renting is competitive and has little if any speculative element. (Landlords don't like to have many vacancies, so even if they expect rents to go up in the future, they set the rent at a level that allows them to rent out properties today.) So rents are pretty much immune to the possible “bubble” element."

You don't need landlords speculating on a future rise of rents to have an effect of the housing bubble on current rental prices. It's just not plausible that in a market in which house or apartment prices sky rocket the rental prices for same quality houses/apartments won't follow at all. Here in the Manhattan market, not just apartment prices have become unaffordable, to rent an apartment has become increasingly unaffordable too.

You make following assumption for your argument:

"Rising house prices won’t cause rents to rise unless they alter supply and demand in the rental market. To the extent that the housing boom takes place by people leaving the rental market to buy houses, it reduces demand in the rental market. Since the housing boom is demand-driven, this reduction of demand should at least offset the reduction in supply due to conversion of properties from rental to owner-occupancy."

You apparently assume that the total demand summarized over the housing and rental market is an independent parameter, but not dependent on the house prices itself, and that demand mainly shifts from the rental market to the house market.

I question the validity of this assumption. I rather suspect total demand is a function of the house prices, better, it depends on the profit expectation from an investment in the real estate market, which is fueled by the past price gradient in time. An expectation for high profits from price increase will lead to a capital flow into the real estate market from other sectors of the economy, adding to the demand for houses in addition to the demand from people looking for places to live. This actually could even squeeze people out of the housing market who can't afford the high prices anymore. Thus, the increase in demand for houses might even increase the demand on the rental market leading to higher prices on the rental market also, particularly if there is a shift of the supply from rental to owner.

"When rents go up, that can’t be attributed to a bubble; it just means that there are a lot of people who need places to live."

Where do all the people suddenly come from?

Prices of a good in a market economy aren't a function of the number of people who need this good. Prices will depart from the average price when there is a disturbance of demand and supply until the disturbance is eliminated, but the average price itself isn't a function of demand. Thus, the number of people looking to rent a place must have suddenly increased in the past decade so that the supply of apartments available for rent must have lagged behind. That contradicts your own assumption about a shift of demand from the rental to the housing market. You cannot have both, more demand and less demand in the rental market.

Wed Aug 29, 07:16:00 PM EDT  
Blogger knzn said...

It's just not plausible that in a market in which house or apartment prices sky rocket the rental prices for same quality houses/apartments won't follow at all.

It may not be plausible that there would be a housing boom in a place where rents are not rising, but the causation goes in the other direction.

Here in the Manhattan market, not just apartment prices have become unaffordable, to rent an apartment has become increasingly unaffordable too.

Of course, because Manhattan has a limited supply of real estate, little if any room to build, and a booming economy (until a few weeks ago, anyhow) that draws in new demand. I bet you’ll find that the average income of Manhattanites has risen even faster than rents, as the middle class has been gradually forced out, and incomes at the high end have risen rapidly.

You apparently assume that the total demand summarized over the housing and rental market is an independent parameter, but not dependent on the house prices itself, and that demand mainly shifts from the rental market to the house market.

Total demand could depend on feedback from prices, to some extent, if people buy second homes that they don’t live in, but I don’t think that “bubble” demand could increase demand in the rental market, whereas it surely can, and does, reduce rental demand because renters leave rental properties to become owners.

An expectation for high profits from price increase will lead to a capital flow into the real estate market from other sectors of the economy, adding to the demand for houses in addition to the demand from people looking for places to live.

To the extent that it’s real capital flow and not just financial book entries, it would increase the supply of houses (by building new houses) rather than the demand.

This actually could even squeeze people out of the housing market who can't afford the high prices anymore. Thus, the increase in demand for houses might even increase the demand on the rental market leading to higher prices on the rental market also,

Despite rising house prices, houses, in aggregate over the US, did not become significantly less affordable between 1997 and 2005, because mortgage rates went down, and mortgage terms became more lax.

Prices of a good in a market economy aren't a function of the number of people who need this good. Prices will depart from the average price when there is a disturbance of demand and supply until the disturbance is eliminated, but the average price itself isn't a function of demand.

Not if there are constraints on the creation of the good. In the case of real estate, there is a limited supply of land and there are statutory constraints on the way that land can be used.

the number of people looking to rent a place must have suddenly increased in the past decade so that the supply of apartments available for rent must have lagged behind. That contradicts your own assumption about a shift of demand from the rental to the housing market. You cannot have both, more demand and less demand in the rental market.

There is always some demand flowing into the rental market and some demand flowing out. The increase in rents (to the extent that there is such an increase) is evidence that the inflow exceeds the outflow. The inflow presumably comes from the growth of the adult population (and probably increasing concentration in specific areas with limited supplies of rental housing, and an increasing preference for smaller households). The housing boom tended to increase the outflow, so the inflow must have increased even more.

As an empirical matter, the CPI-OER actually hasn’t risen much faster than the general CPI over the past 10 years – the average annual difference is only around 0.4%. Even if you think rents are in a bubble, it’s implausible that the fundamental value of rents has risen significantly more slowly than the CPI, and if you want to assume constant real rents, it won’t make much difference in my result.

But the timing of the changes in rents doesn’t fit with your theory either. The rapid increases in rent took place during 2001 (before the rapid rise in house prices) and 2006 (after the rise in house prices had started to slow), so it would appear that rising rents are negatively correlated with the boom in house prices.

Wed Aug 29, 11:48:00 PM EDT  
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