Location Strategy Chartbook 092824

KB Home Chief Operating Officer Robert McGibney on Tuesday’s earnings call: We're cutting home prices in Austin, San Antonio, Orlando, and Jacksonville

"seen resale inventory start to climb back up. It is become a bigger competitor"

"we've taken steps to find the market [in those regional pockets]"

US mortgage rates are the lowest in 2 years

As rates fall, some homeowners who have rates north of 7% may be re-financing to gain some relief. Others may be doing cash out refinances to tap home equity

US households’ net worth climbed to a record last quarter, propelled in part by swelling property values. But that may not translate into a stimulus for consumer spending, Stephen Stanley cautions.

Homeowners are in fact so well positioned that their equity as a share of values has hit the highest since 1958, Stanley, chief US economist at Santander US Capital Markets, wrote in a note Tuesday. Trouble is, they cannot easily cash out the equity as they once could. That’s because many would lose the rock-bottom mortgage rates they locked in years ago.

The so-called wealth effect “has likely been far more limited than it might have been under a different interest rate profile,” Stanley wrote. That leaves spending reliant on job and real income growth, which he characterizes as “anemic” this year. In short, consumption is set to moderate in coming months, he said.

Multi family vacancies on the rise in many parts of CA, with the exception of the Bay Area

Initial jobless claims show no signs of increasing layoffs, suggesting companies are in a holding pattern-hiring less but not resorting to layoffs either.