Wednesday, April 06, 2005

ARMs Madness Continues

I've posted a lot of adjustable rate stories, but I hope to keep pushing the issue as long as stories like this AP bit are published. Titled "More Are Seeking Adjustable-Rate Mortgages", it reports on the trend with a dash of concern but overall is a feel-good whitewash.

"The Mortgage Bankers Association says adjustable-rate mortgages have accounted for more than a third of home lending activity in recent weeks. Families look to ARMs to keep their early monthly mortgage payments low. But because the rates on their loans can move up with the market, sometimes adjusting monthly, families risk having to pay considerably higher payments in the future."

"I think consumers are approaching home mortgages the way they approach buying cars, focusing just on the lowest possible payment. It's understandable, given the extremely high housing prices we're seeing across the country." Hello! It is crazy to take out ARMs in a rising rate environment! Especially for houses that are probably over-valued.

Here's the dash; "Hsieh worries that as ARMs proliferate, home buyers may be exposed to risks they don't fully understand. 'The older generation remembers when interest rates were in the teens and remembers how much that can hurt when you have an adjustable-rate mortgage,' he said. 'The younger generation has only known the low interest rates, in the single digits, since the mid-1990s. There could be a sharp learning curve here.'" Thanks to the reader for the link.

9 Comments:

At 3:51 PM, Blogger Ben Jones said...

Hey John,
They believe the RE hype that buyers will surround them with bushels of money. Can you imagine the default rates when this turns sour?
Thank you for your thoughtful posts..Ben

 
At 6:34 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

This is my first post, but I wanted to chime in and say how much I enjoy this blog...

In January, my fiancee and I were a day away from making an offer on a condo in LA with an ARM. Fortunately, a delay caused by a two week business trip made us reconsider. Since then I've been with you guys - we'll buy the same condo for half the price in a couple years. In the meantime, we're sticking our down payment money in 3 year CD's with E*Trade at ~4 percent interest (well over what the real estate market will make the next 3 years!!!)

Unbelieveable about the $14,400 a year increase. Really makes you stop and think about what these crazy buyers are doing.

Keep up the good work!

 
At 7:19 PM, Blogger Ben Jones said...

John,
(there are going to be many many companies that go down)

I'm afraid your right. The consumer will pull back on spending with obvious effect on the economy.

(Corporate loans were once tightly held by banks. But over the last decade or so, the riskiest form of the business, known as leveraged lending, has been transformed to an actively traded market)

I have a post on another blog about that. It is something like 50% of corporate profits.

Jim,
(a day away from making an offer on a condo in LA with an ARM)

Caution is definitely called for in LA. Thanks for posting! Ben

Ms. P.
(you do want to be ready when the fun begins)
Thats what I'm interested in!

Thanks all..Ben

 
At 10:19 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

The foreclosures are starting because of interest rates. They are up 50% over last month.

http://www.inman.com/inmannews.aspx?ID=45616

 
At 10:26 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

here is the rub, how do you know when to buy? down 20%, 30% or 90%? it was posted on here how RE in Japan has been falling for 15 years. I don't want to buy a house in 3 years and have it fall for another 12, unless I'm locking in a portion of serious gains in other investments.

I don't think it is going to take years to shake out this market. I think that most of the decline will happen in the first year and the next 10 will be flat, if it goes that long. I think this because of the high leverage that has been employed, the massive amount of speculation and the fact that the US is going to go into recession. People are going to be flat out broke when real estate starts falling.

I worried that as this nation ages, the boomers are going to sell their vacation homes and their primary residence. remember, the next generation of buyers are less numerous than the boomers. I fear the same for US stocks and bonds.

I fear the same thing for housing, but not for stocks and bonds. We all only need one house and thus there will be a surplus, but we can all hold many, many, stocks and bonds.

I do expect the price of stocks and bonds to fall because of generally more selling when the BBs retire. They need income ! However, that is what stop losses are for. I do expect P/Es to fall. Think about it: for the last 20 years BBs have been socking money into savings plans and stocks and now they are going to start drawing it out to live on. Before they were net purchasers and now they will be net sellers. It could be a long term tough market. But all that means is lower P/Es, which generally means better dividends. One can experience wealth growth with low or high P/E stocks. Back in the 60s the P/Es were really low.

 
At 11:08 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Unsold houses are starting to pile up in some areas:
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111283477034900337,00.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal

 
At 11:09 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Chinese required to pay off mortgage before selling their house !

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/050407/china_real_estate.html?.v=2

This is done to cool down their housing market.

 
At 11:12 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm impressed. They've got a ton of ways to defeat speculative trading of RE in that article. Way to go, China, for being proactive. Why couldn't our leaders do at least some of these things to prevent a bubble ?

 
At 6:10 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

To Dave F.:

You should buy when you can 1. afford the payment and 2. still make the payment even if you loose your job, ie make sure you have a low payment. That's the way I tend to think about it. Everything else kind of doesn't matter if you plan to be around for a while.

On ARM loans; I read an article on CNN a day or so ago( sorry no link, If I can find I will post )that seemed to suggest that ARM loans are only 20% of the total of all the loans in the US. This is certainly nowhere near the 50% or 80% numbers being thrown around for places like CA. Goldman Sachs also had a piece on ARM loans that suggested much the same thing as the CNN article. Maybe they are not as big a problem as lots of us think?

 

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