February 4, 2004

WHICH AMERICA DO YOU LIVE IN? (via mc):

  Home ownership rate hits new record: NAH economist says low mortgage rates spurred record home buying surge in 2003. (Reuters, February 3, 2004)

Home ownership climbed to a record high late last year as low mortgage rates made buyers out of renters, a government report showed Tuesday.

The Census Bureau said 68.6 percent of homes were occupied by their owners in the fourth quarter of 2003, up slightly from a 68.3 percent home ownership rate in the fourth quarter of the previous year.

Economists said mortgage interest rates that slid to four-decade lows in June and hovered not much higher for the rest of the year put ownership within the reach of many renters. When interest rates slip, some monthly mortgage payments become comparable to rents. [...]

The home ownership rate for all minorities -- everyone except non-Hispanic whites -- reached a record high for the quarter and the entire year. President Bush has made increasing minority home ownership a policy priority.


Here's the big question for the Democrats: When we hear these guys complain about two America's, and we realize that the overwhelming majority of us live in the good America, why should we believe that this time they mean to raise up the other America, instead of destroying our America as they did in the 60's and 70's?

MORE:
-Service sector jumps (CNN/Money, February 4, 2004)

Growth in the U.S. service sector accelerated in January, the nation's purchasing managers said Wednesday, beating analysts' expectations.

The Institute for Supply Management's index of non-manufacturing activity came in at 65.7, compared with a revised 58 in December. Any reading above 50 indicates growth in the sector.

It was the highest reading for the index since the ISM started keeping track of service-sector activity in July 1997. Economists, on average, expected a reading of 60, according to Briefing.com.


Factory orders top estimates (Reuters, February 4, 2004)
Orders of U.S. manufactured goods rose in December, the government said Wednesday in a better-than-expected report on the health of the troubled factory sector.

Factory orders climbed 1.1 percent in December, the Commerce Department said, after falling a revised 0.9 percent in the previous month. The increase was far stronger than analyst expectations for a gain of just 0.2 percent.

Posted by Orrin Judd at February 4, 2004 12:28 PM
Comments

"non-hispanic white?"

Who falls into that category?

Posted by: Sandy P. at February 4, 2004 1:30 PM

The democrats want to improve our lives by making everything more expensive, especially government. There's got to be a catchy slogan in that that will win this election.

Posted by: some random person at February 4, 2004 2:01 PM

Sandy - Asians

Posted by: BJW at February 4, 2004 2:58 PM

Vote for Kerry - lobbyists love him! He loves them!

But watch out for those Chinese communist colonels.

Posted by: jim hamlen at February 4, 2004 4:02 PM

You don't really have much home "ownership" if you put nothing down, which is expect is where most of the gain is coming from.

That works fine as long as employment stays high, but since Bush and Orrin are working their best to reduce the workforce, what you get is what we had already -- people walking away from homes in which they have no equity and for which they can no longer make the payments.

Posted by: Harry Eagar at February 4, 2004 8:51 PM

Odd that the economic situation is as bleak as you think yet home ownership rises?

Posted by: oj at February 4, 2004 9:10 PM

The economic situation is not especially bleak right now, but it will turn down sooner or later. It always does.

I saw what happened in my country in the 1990s. Hundreds of people got mauled.

I figure I "own" about 50% of my home. The other half is owned by the mortgage lender.

These people are, to a great extent, signing papers that pretend to show ownership but do not reflect reality.

It happens that I was interviewing real estate brokers last week, and they are happy to be raking in commissions but every single one I talked to ran up a warning flag about risky lending and what some call illegal lending practices.

I have not yet had time to look into the charges of illegal lending, but I plan to.

Posted by: Harry Eagar at February 5, 2004 12:24 AM

Mauled? It was hard to find a job within a few miles of where some people were for a few months. That's hardly a mauling.

Posted by: oj at February 5, 2004 8:50 AM

People who are wise will stretch to buy a home, and they will do what is necessary to keep it. People who are not will over-extend themselves and lose their homes. Looser credit is not really the problem, unless the argument is that there is a slice of the population unfit to own a home.

The real issue with housing and credit is the financial stability of Fannie and Freddie, and their pretty blatant attempts to blow smoke and tap-dance away from more intrusive accountability. Whatever happened to Fernand St. Germain?

Posted by: jim hamlen at February 5, 2004 10:32 AM

In this county, the structure was such that it wasn't the primary job but the second job that disappeared.

The market reacted, and the value of the houses (actually, condos) I am talking about went from $150,000 to $60,000.

Since we are talking about 3,000 condos in a county with only 110,000 residents, it was pretty serious.

Those condos today are valued at over $200,000, but none of the people who bought at $150,000 are still around to enjoy it.

Posted by: Harry Eagar at February 5, 2004 4:38 PM

I'm still missing the mauling part.

Posted by: oj at February 5, 2004 6:28 PM

I think the bloom just fell off the tulip, that's all.

Posted by: jim hamlen at February 6, 2004 1:45 PM
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