The following article appeared on Bloomberg Businessweek on Wednesday of this week. The author is Peter Coy.
“So much for President George W. Bush’s ‘ownership society.’ The real rate of homeownership—subtracting people who are about to be ejected for not paying their mortgage—has fallen to lows not seen since the mid-1960s, according to a new analysis.
The decline in the Census Bureau’s official measure of homeownership is bad enough. It slid to 65 percent this year from 69 percent in 2005 and 2006, at the peak of the housing bubble, when buying a home was universally considered a sensible way to secure one’s fortune. But things look even worse when you strip out homeowners whose homes are in foreclosure or who are headed for foreclosure because they are 90 days or more delinquent on mortgage payments.
The ‘real’ homeownership rate, adjusted for foreclosures and serious delinquencies, stood at just 62.1 percent in the second quarter of 2012, down from a peak of 68.3 percent reached during a couple of quarters in 2004 and 2005, according to an analysis by Sean Fergus, manager of research at John Burns Real Estate Consulting. That sets it back to levels last seen in 1965.
The adjusted figures for years before 1991 are approximations, because statistics on foreclosures and delinquencies from the Mortgage Bankers Association of America go back only to that year. Still, Fergus says he is confident that the pattern is accurate, as there were no serious downturns in housing prices before 1991 that would have caused a major spike in foreclosures and delinquencies.”
This is very sad. I may have more to say about it in the E-Letter on Tuesday.
Finally, I suppose I should comment on the Republican convention. Overall, I thought it was very good. With the help of his wife, a couple of very good personal videos and a good closing speech, I think Mitt Romney accomplished what he needed to do. Even the talking heads on MSNBC and CNN agreed.
Many conservatives wished Romney had been tougher on President Obama, but apparently he and his advisers felt it was better for him to stay above the fray and hope to convince undecided voters that he is human after all. Spencer and I expect that Romney will get a bounce of 3-4 points in the polls. We’ll see. In any event, the race should remain fairly close.
The bigger question is, what do the Democrats do for four days? Without a record to run on, the Obama campaign has spent almost all of its money trying to demonize Romney, which hasn’t worked. If they try to do that for four days on national TV, the relatively few viewers that are watching these conventions will tune out early-on.
So it will be most interesting to see what they come up with. The speaker line-up is not impressive. Most notably, Hillary Clinton will not make an appearance, much less a speech. Hmmm….
Have a great Labor Day weekend everyone!