Author: Brad Beckett

A new report from RentCafe says built-to-rent homes are expected to hit all-time highs in 2022, fueled by a need for space & privacy.  They say that 2021 was a record year for single-family rental home construction, with 6,740 new built-to-rent homes completed and nearly 14k set to open their doors to renters in 2022.  Indeed… “Cleverly described by some as “horizontal apartments,” communities of houses built for the sole purpose of renting are becoming the hottest topic in residential living. But, single-family rentals are not a new concept. Although they proliferated in the aftermath of the 2008 housing crisis,…

The U.S. government is reporting that the national vacancy rates for Q4, 2021 were 5.6% for rental housing and 0.9% for homeowner housing.  The national homeownership rate for Q4, 2021 was 65.5% (about the same as Q3).  In addition, approximately 89.5% of the housing units in the United States in Q4 were occupied and 10.5% were vacant. Owner-occupied housing units made up 58.6% of total housing units, while renter-occupied units made up 30.9% of the inventory. Click here to read the full release at the U.S. Census Bureau.

The U.S. government is reporting that total construction spending in December was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $1,639.9 billion, which is up 0.2% from November’s revised estimate.  Residential construction came in at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $810.3 billion in December, 1.1% above November’s revised estimate. Click here to read the full report at the U.S. Census Bureau.

You may be familiar with Mike Rowe’s dirtiest jobs in America on TV…it’s a pretty cool show.  However, the folks over at Statista recently crunched the numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics to illustrate the “most dangerous jobs” in the U.S, based on fatalities.  On that note, stay safe and have a Happy Friday!! “Taking a step back, in the entire year of 2020, 4,764 people were killed on the job in the U.S. That’s an average of 13 people dying each day, or one worker dying every 111 minutes.” Hat tip to Statista.

According to the NAHB’s Q4 Housing Trends Report, the share of adults planning to buy a home within 12 months fell for two consecutive quarters, going from 17% in Q2, to 16% and 15% in Q3 and Q42021, respectively.  The goal of the quarterly report is measure prospective home buyers’ perceptions about the availability and affordability of homes for-sale in their markets. Click here to read the full report at the NAHB.

Rental information site Zumper recently released their latest monthly National Rent Report showing that their median national rent for 1-bedroom apartments in January, 2022 was $1,374, up 12% year-over-year and the median two-bedroom rent was $1,698 up 14.1%, year-over-year.  Be sure to check out their list of the top 100 metro areas. Click here to read the full report at Zumper.

According to Black Knight’s “first look” report for December, 2021, the national delinquency rate ended the year at 3.38%, which report is just 0.1% above February 2020’s near record-low of 3.28% (right before the pandemic).  However, they point out that over half a million excess serious delinquencies remain (borrowers 90+ days past due) including those in active forbearance – more than twice pre-pandemic levels.  Likewise, Black Knight says that given the large volume of borrowers who’ve exited forbearance in recent months, the industry must keep a very close eye on the foreclosure metrics moving forward in 2022.  Indeed… Click here…

As many have suggested, the housing market will remain hot well into 2022.  With that in mind, Zillow says that the number one driver of hot markets will be in the south, and leading the way will be none other than Tampa, Florida.  In addition, they suggest that Jacksonville, Raleigh, San Antonio and Charlotte will fill out the list of the top five hottest markets for 2022, each having a strong combination of forecasted home value growth, economic fundamentals and fast-moving inventory with plentiful likely buyers.  Indeed…however, they do offer a cautionary note: “There are two large known risk factors…

The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis is reporting that America’s real gross domestic product (GDP) increased at an annual rate of 6.9% in Q4 2021.  That figure is 4.6 percentage points higher than Q3’s annualized increase. “The increase in real GDP primarily reflected increases in private inventory investment, exports, personal consumption expenditures (PCE), and nonresidential fixed investment that were partly offset by decreases in both federal and state and local government spending.” Click here to read the full report at the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.

According to the latest Federal Housing Finance Agency’s (FHFA) House Price Index (HPI), U.S. house prices in November were up 1.1% from the previous month.  In addition, home prices were up 17.5% from one year ago.  The FHFA produces the nation’s only public, freely available house price indexes (HPIs) that measure changes in single-family house prices based on data that cover all 50 states and over 400 American cities and extend back to the mid-1970s. Click here to read the full report at FHFA.gov.