Housing Market

There are roughly 19 million vacant dwellings in the U.S., of which around 4 million are second homes and a million or two are on the market. Let's stipulate that several million more are in areas with very low demand (i.e. few want to live there year-round). Let's also stipulate that several million more are in the "shadow inventory" of homes that are neither on the market nor even officially in the foreclosure pipeline, i.e. zombie homes. Even if you account for 9 million of these homes, that still leaves 10 million vacant dwellings in the U.S. which could be occupied. That means 1 in 12 of all dwellings are vacant. Even if you discount this by half, that still leaves 5 million vacant dwellings that could be occupied. Given that the total rental market is 40 million households, that constitutes a very large inventory of supply that remains untapped. Lastly, it is important to note that the ratio of residents to dwellings is rather low in the U.S., with millions of single-person households and large homes occupied by one or two people. The potential pool of existing homeowners who could enter the "informal" rental market by offering bedrooms, basements and even enclosed garages for rent is extremely large, and that is a difficult-to-count "shadow" inventory of potential rentals.

In a no-holds-barred interview with Bloomberg TV's Francine Lacqua, the increasingly droopy-faced George Soros remains as sprite-minded as ever in his clarifying thoughts on Europe. His diagnosis is spot on: "Basically there is an interrelated problem of the banking system and the excessive risk premium on sovereign debt - they are Siamese twins, tied together and you have to tackle both" and summarizes the forthcoming Summit 'fiasco' as fatal if the fiscal disagreements are not resolved (and as of this afternoon, we know Germany's constant position on this). His solution is unlikely to prove tenable in the short-term as he notes "Merkel has emerged as a strong leader", but "unfortunately, she has been leading Europe in the wrong direction". His extensive interview covers what Europe needs, the Bund bubble, GRexit, post-summit contagion, and Mario Monti's impotence.

The no frills summary of the past week's key bullish and bearish macro events.

The middle class has a gut feeling they are being screwed by somebody, they just can’t figure out who to blame. The ultra-wealthy elite keep up an endless cacophony of propaganda and misinformation designed to confuse an increasingly uneducated and willfully ignorant public while blurring the facts for those educated few capable of understanding the truth. They have been able to keep the masses dumbed down through government run education; distracted by sports, reality TV, Facebook, internet porn, and igadgets; lured by mass media messages of materialism; and shackled with the chains of debt used to acquire the goods sold by mega-corporations. We’ve become a society oppressed by a small faction of ultra-wealthy masters served by millions of impoverished, uneducated, sedated slaves. But the slaves are getting restless and angry. The illegally generated wealth disparity chasm is growing so large that even the ideologue talking head representatives of the elite are having difficulty spinning it. Even uneducated rubes understand when they are getting pissed on.

• German court may delay ESM bailout fund ratification (Reuters)
• New dangers lurk for rudderless Spain (Reuters)
• SEC Said to Depose SAC’s Cohen in Insider-Trading Probe (Bloomberg)
• With Europe broke, Asia is Wall Street's new dumb money: Riskier Bets Pitched To Asia's Rising Rich (WSJ)
• Spain expected to request bank aid after debt test (Reuters)
• Lawmakers Push for Overhaul of IPO Process (WSJ)
• Israel: "all options" open after Iran talks fail (Reuters)
• Canadian housing boom to grind to a halt (Financial Post)
• Italians Dodge Property Tax in Test for Monti’s Austerity (Bloomberg)
• ORCL earnings must have been good: Oracle CEO Ellison to Buy Most of Hawaiian Island Lanai (Bloomberg)

All you can read.

Just read.

All you can read.

For all the news out of Spain: tumbling sovereign bonds, bailed out banking sector, there really is just one driver of everything: the same one many have been warning about for years: the artificially inflated valuation of the Spanish housing sector. Because the only reason why banks are suddenly finding that their assets are worth much less than previously expected, is because it is now impossible for local banks to keep the real-estate "assets" on their books at marks-to-model (read par) as the bulk of them have long since become impaired, delinquent or outright defaulted.... Which is the worst news for holders of Spanish bonds, now that the entire banking sector is effectively pari passu with the sovereign debt courtesy of priming ESM debt: recall that every incremental dollar, or in this case, euro, of bank capital deficiency will be one more priming bailout euro behind. Effectively there is now an inverse relationship between the Spanish housing sector and the country's sovereign bonds. And for those who are still naively are clutching to Spanish bonds, even as they tumble to all time lows (that's the local law, as opposed to the legal arbitrage trade we have been promoting and which today is making even more money), we have some bad news: that perpetual of optimists, S&P, just said that the Spanish housing sector has, wait for it, another 25% to drop!

This means a comparable drop in store for Spanish bonds and all the related securities in Europe, which courtesy of the bailout are all now daisy-chained.

All you need to know.

• Greek Banks Under Pressure (WSJ)
• France Seeks Eurozone Stability Package (FT)
• Germany Dashes Eurozone Expectations (FT)
• Geithner Says European Leaders Know They Must Do More (Bloomberg)
• In Athens, Party Aims to Delay Austerity (WSJ)
• Rajoy Battles ECB for Loans; Monti Appeals for EU Action (Bloomberg)
• Nokia Slashes 10,000 Jobs, Cuts Outlook (WSJ)
• H-1B Visas Hit the Cap, Sending Companies to Plan B (Businessweek)
• Swiss National Bank Vows to Defend Currency Floor (WSJ)
• Euro Crisis Deeper With Moody’s Downgrading Spain, Cyprus (Bloomberg)
• When all else fails... Truckers As Leading Indicator Show Stable U.S. Economic Growth (Bloomberg)

All you need to know.

At the high level, our global economic plight is quite simple to understand says noted Australian deflationist Steve Keen.  Banks began lending money at a faster rate than the global economy grew, and we're now at the turning point where we simply have run out of new borrowers for the ever-growing debt the system has become addicted to. Once borrowers start eschewing rather than seeking debt, asset prices begin to fall -- which in turn makes these same people want to liquidate their holdings, which puts further downward pressure on asset prices.

 What is going on with the housing market?

Fed governors regurgitate it time and again to rationalize their policies.