A few weeks ago, researchers from the University of Amsterdam and Erasmus University released a paper outlining the effect a landlord ban had on housing supply and affordability. On January 1st, 2022, the Dutch government approved a law granting municipalities the authority to prohibit renting previously owner-occupied homes below a predetermined value.

Consequently, real estate investors were prohibited from purchasing rental properties. Numerous cities, including Rotterdam and Amsterdam, followed suit and implemented their own local bans.

For instance, Amsterdam introduced an investment ban on homes valued up to €512,000 (which accounted for approximately 60% of all owner-occupied homes). The Hague and Rotterdam also enacted a similar ban, targeting homes valued below €355,000. Utrecht also implemented a ban, covering homes with a listed value under €487,000. Here are a few key takeaways from the data:

• Properties that were part of the ban saw minimal impact on housing prices, with only a slight increase of 0.1%.
• In Rotterdam neighborhoods where the ban was implemented, there was a significant decrease in the availability of rental properties, resulting in a 4% increase in rents.
• Unfortunately, this rent rise unintentionally led to the displacement of lower-income individuals from these neighborhoods while attracting higher-income individuals to move in.

Taylor Anderson of Inman reports on this landlord ban, noting that investors provide access to rental housing for lower-income segments, which decreased due to the ban. Further, the city of Rotterdam will now use these findings to reassess its policy later in 2023.

Housing market trends

Dana Anderson of Redfin reports on new housing market data showing the average home is selling for only $4,000 less than last year’s all-time highs. 

Source: Redfin (July 2023)

The median U.S. home-sale price is down just 0.9% year over year, the smallest decline in nearly four months. That’s due to a lack of homes for sale, with a mismatch between supply and demand. New listings are down 27% from a year ago and pending sales are down 15%. 

Danielle Hale of Realtor.com reports on its June 2023 Housing Market Trends Report, outlining a number of key findings:

• The number of homes actively for sale increased by 7.1% compared to last year.
• The total number of unsold homes, including those under contract, decreased by 4.6% compared to last year.
• Home sellers were less active this June, with 25.7% fewer new homes listed for sale than last year. 
• The median price of homes for sale decreased by -0.9% annually in June, the first decline seen in our data trend history since 2017.
• Homes spent 44 days on the market, 13 days longer than last year but shorter than before the pandemic.

Source: Realtor.com (July 2023)

As the issue of affordability persists, it will continue to create barriers to homeownership, leading to weakened demand in the housing market and dampened competition. As a result,  home price growth is expected to decline at a modest rate of 0.6% for the year as a whole. Despite the decline in prices, the ongoing challenges in housing markets and stagnant buying power are anticipated to result in a 15.8% decrease in home sales for 2023. 

Finally, Fannie Mae’s Housing Weekly Note outlines that the month’s supply of homes declined to 6.7 due to higher sales volume and fewer new homes available for sale (down 0.9%). “The decline in the pending home sales index is supportive of our forecast for ongoing weakness in the existing home sales market stemming from an extremely limited inventory of homes for sale. Tight inventories continue to be supportive of prices, though, as evidenced by another strong gain in the FHFA house price index. It is also causing would-be buyers to turn to new construction as new home sales were stronger than our recent forecast, though this comes as little surprise after last week’s reported surge in housing starts.”

#LocalNews

Jesse Wade of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) reports on North Carolina, whose population grew by 1.3% between 2021 and 2022, the ninth fastest growth of any state. Further, nominal population growth (+133,088) was the third largest increase in the country and was only one of four states with growth above 100,000 between 2021 and 2022.

CoreLogic issued its most recent Loan Performance Insights report outlining the best and worst mortgage performance metros. Louisiana and Mississippi have the highest mortgage delinquency rates in the U.S., at 5.3% each. The states with the largest declines in delinquencies were Alaska (-0.7%), Hawaii (-0.5%). and New York (-0.4%). 

“Although almost a dozen states and more than 150 metro areas posted year-over-year increases in overall mortgage delinquency rates in April, U.S. loan performance remains resilient, with delinquencies and foreclosures continuing to hover near record lows.”

In a separate NAHB article, Jesse Wade reports on single-family home construction, which turned negative in larger metros but declined less in smaller markets.

Source: NAHB (July 2023)

Nancy Watkins and Carmen Balber join CNBC to discuss how insurance agencies are reconsidering issuing policies in disaster-prone states like California and Florida due to increasingly severe weather storms.