Instead of President Ronald Reagan saying ““Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall” we need someone to tell President Biden and Federal Reserve Jerome Powell to “Stop driving up prices and making housing unaffordable.” Unfortunately, The Fed thinks that raising interest rates will temper price increases — it won’t. But it could tamper home price growth.
So what we are left with is soaring home prices AND soaring mortgage rates, leaving this scary chart. The housing cost index has risen 114.5% under Biden.
Its only going to get worse from here.
Today’s jobs report for May showed that the U-3 unemployment rate remained the same as April, 3.60%. However, that is lower than the NATURAL rate of unemployment of 4.445% indicating that the labor market is overheated. Historically, The Fed has tightened monetary policy by raising rates when this has happened. So, look for The Fed to keep raising rates.
As I have mentioned before, REAL hourly wage growth is negative since March 2021, just after Biden signed his executive orders canceling drilling on Federal lands and cancelling the Keystone Pipeline. Later, he canceled off-shore drilling permits and Alaska drilling. Now we have REAL average hourly wages declining at -2.8% YoY as The Fed has been reducing M2 Money supply YoY.
Listings of homes is up 11% YoY, the highest in several years.
Let’s see how the housing market does with soaring mortgage rates.
How do you spell stagflation? M-O-N-E-Y … tightening.
The Federal Reserve Board of Governors playing “Hurting housing two times.”
