New Jersey Real Estate Report

From Bloomberg:

Recession in U.S. More Likely in 2008, Economists’ Survey Finds

The proportion of economists who forecast a U.S. recession this year more than doubled in three months, to 45 percent, according to a survey by the National Association for Business Economics.

Of those, a majority expect the downturn to be “relatively muted,” according to the poll of 49 professional forecasters taken Jan. 25 to Feb. 13. Less than 20 percent predicted a downturn in the previous poll completed Nov. 6.

The spillover from the biggest housing slump in a quarter century, turmoil in financial markets and higher energy prices will cause growth to slow to an annual pace of 0.4 percent this quarter and 1 percent in the second quarter, the survey found.

“U.S. economic growth is expected to slow to a crawl in the first half,” Ellen Hughes-Cromwick, the group’s president and chief economist at Ford Motor Co., said in a statement.

The economy will expand 1.8 percent in the year ending in 2008’s fourth quarter, according to the survey. That compares with predictions of 2.6 percent in November.

The survey’s median forecast for fourth-quarter growth compares with 2008 forecasts of 1.7 percent in a Bloomberg News survey taken this month.
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The housing slump and credit availability were cited by forecasters as hurting growth this year. More than 60 percent of the economists said the housing recession will have a major negative effect on consumer spending.

From Bloomberg:

Homebuyer Patience Triumphs in a Waiting Game: John F. Wasik

With no bottom in sight for the U.S. housing market, buyers are in game-show mode.

There are plenty of deals out there, yet you have to make some decisions if you are buying a new home. Choices flash in front of you as if a host is badgering you to decide your next move. Do you wait for prices to fall further? Or do you buy now and take the builder’s incentives or their financing?

Whatever strategy you adopt, you will need to ignore some of the bells and whistles being offered and focus on price. You don’t want to be caught buying a home today that may be marked down $50,000 next month.

With more than 4 million unsold homes on the market, the buyer with good credit and cash for a down payment can do well.

Builders are doing whatever they can to move properties. In February, almost half surveyed said they cut prices, according to the National Association of Homebuilders, a Washington-based trade group. More than half “reported offering optional items at no charge and 44 percent said they paid all or some of the closing costs.”

Itching to buy? Let’s say you are considering a second or vacation home. You are confident that the market has bottomed and you don’t want to miss out on the best prices.
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Playing the waiting game? If you delay your purchase, you may be rewarded. Home prices are forecast to fall 12 percent this year, according to Richard Syron, chief executive officer of Freddie Mac, the second-largest provider of money for U.S. home loans. Housing starts may plunge 22 percent in 2008 and remain at their lowest level in 16 years, he said in a speech to the homebuilders association on Feb. 13.
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Prices are going to fall a lot more than Freddie Mac’s forecast 12 percent in the most overpriced areas, which may experience 50 percent declines or more.

Patience is a virtue in this market. It will also net you a better deal if you can turn off your game-show impulses.

From the Wall Street Journal:

Our Economic Dilemma
By MARTIN FELDSTEIN
February 20, 2008; Page A15

Although it is too soon to tell whether the United States has entered a recession, there is mounting evidence that a recession has in fact begun. Key measures of economic activity stopped growing in December and January or actually began to decline. The collapse of house prices and the crisis in the credit markets continue to depress the real economy.

The sharp reduction in the federal funds interest rate and the new fiscal stimulus package may, of course, be enough to avert a downturn. Many forecasters still predict that the economy will just slow in the first part of this year and then rebound after the summer. But the hope that monetary and fiscal policies would prevent continued weakness by boosting consumer confidence was derailed by the recent report that consumer confidence in January collapsed to the lowest level since 1992.

If a recession does occur, it could last longer and be more painful than the past several downturns because of differences in its origin and character. The recessions that began in 1991 and 2001 lasted only eight months from the start of the downturn until the beginning of the recovery. Even the deeper recession of 1981 lasted only 16 months.

But these past recessions were caused by deliberate Federal Reserve policy aimed at reversing a rise in inflation. In those cases, the Fed increased real interest rates until it saw the economic slowdown that it thought would move us back toward price stability. It then reversed course, reducing interest rates and bringing the recession to an end.

In contrast, the real interest rate in 2006 and 2007 stayed at a relatively low level of less than 3%. A key cause of the present slowdown and potential recession was not a tightening of monetary policy but the bursting of the house-price bubble after six years of exceptionally rapid house-price increases. The Fed therefore will not be able to end the recession as it did previous ones by turning off a tight monetary policy.

The unprecedented national fall in house prices is reducing household wealth and therefore consumer spending. House prices are down 10% from the 2006 high and are likely to fall at least another 10%. Each 10% decline cuts household wealth by about $2 trillion, and this eventually reduces annual consumer spending by about $100 billion. No one can predict the extent to which the coming fall in house prices will lead to defaults and foreclosures, driving house prices and wealth down even further. Falling house prices also discourage home building, with housing starts down 38% over the past 12 months.

But the principle cause for concern today is the paralysis of the credit markets. Credit is always key to the expansion of the economy. The collapse of confidence in credit markets is now preventing that necessary extension of credit. The decline of credit creation includes not only the banks but also the bond markets, hedge funds, insurance companies and mutual funds. Securitization, leveraged buyouts and credit insurance have also atrophied.

The dysfunctional character of the credit markets means that a Fed policy of reducing interest rates cannot be as effective in stimulating the economy as it has been in the past. Monetary policy may simply lack traction in the current credit environment.