[Inman RE Connect SF] Cutting Through “The Fog of Economy”
Posted by Jonathan J. Miller -Tuesday, August 2, 2011, 8:24 PM
4 Comments
Last week I made the annual pilgrimage to Inman Real Estate Connect San Francisco where I “connected” with some smart people and participated in 3 panel discussions, including the one above: The Economic Outlook: Where’s the Market Heading?
- Doug Duncan, VP and Chief Economist, Fannie Mae
- Kenneth Rosen, Chairman, Rosen Consulting Group and Chair, Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics Professor Emeritus, UC Berkeley
- Gary Zimmerman, Senior Economist, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco
It went well.
I pointed out to the audience (since there was a lot of technology discussed at the the conference) that Apple has more cash on hand than the federal government.
It was agreed that the key issue remains job creation. While we are seeing some positive growth it continues to fall well behind population growth. Need job creation for credit to improve and housing to recover.
Foreclosures need to be allowed to be absorbed. Moratoriums simply delay the problem.
We’ll see at least 3-5 more years of current market conditions.
Low interest rates are keeping credit tight.
Ken has been a long time econ hero of mine and I found out he reads my research – even better! He says “Washington is dumb” – they shouldn’t be reigning in spending when economy is floundering.
Doug and Gary shared some great insights as well. Since the economic news was basically gloom and doom, I asked the panel at the end of the session to provide something encouraging even if they had to extract it from the dark depths of their pysche.
- Mortgage rates at record low and far more impact to lock in a lower rate even if prices slip more.
- Trade deficit dropping by leaps and bounds – helpful for manufacturing jobs.
- Most types of credit (other than residential) is starting to show signs of (nominal) easing.
Note: David Pogue was crushing it with the audience as the keynote before us and we were hunkered down in the green room – 1 appraiser + 3 economists (ie the dismal science) fretting about going on after him. Thankfully there was a short presentation before us to diffuse the enthusiastic audience and I think we even got a few laughs. 
Next up…New York.
3-5 more years isn’t terrible as long as the market conditions don’t get worse. Was there any mention of how election politics would play into housing market policy and unemployment policy?
Is the change in the US Debt rating being discussed? If interest rates do rise over the next few months in a meaningful way, how will that change the outlook for the economists?
It seems everyone says 3-5 years but how is that number determined? Is it purely based on historical numbers? Before banks got more sophisticated after that time of stagflation in modern history the cycles seemed to stretch further than the 3-5 year cycle prior to that stagflation period.
The idea is that the market peaked in 2006 (5 years ago) and that is when foreclosure volume got heavy. In theory foreclosure volume, factoring in robo signing is nearing peak volume so we are looking at at least the same time frame ahead of us before things truly stabilize. Now this S&P downgrade could expand the point of recovery even further.