- Gas was $1.36/gallon
- “Friends” was still on TV
- The iPod was Apple’s latest gizmo
- Tom Brady won his 1st Super Bowl
But what’s also drastically different compared to 2002 is our real estate market. 20 years ago, the median price for a Sacramento home was $187,000. That was relatively affordable even with rates at 7%. Today with rates at 7%; not so much. Let’s compare the then & now numbers.
Today, home values are almost 200% higher than they were 20 years ago while income is only marginally up 62% higher. All that translates to is instead of 34% of a household income going to a mortgage payment, it is now standing at an unsustainable 57%. Something has to give.
Let’s compare this percentage of income to what the market was at the last peak of the real estate cycle in 2005.
Home values were less & annual income was less but as a percentage, today’s household’s monthly income going towards a mortgage payment is higher than the levels in in 2005. That is a very troubling statistic. Something is going to break. Something has to change from these 2022 numbers. They are not sustainable. 1 of 2 things is going to happen: home prices have to come down or interest rates have to come down. Let us show you by how much.
How about a middle-of-the-road number of 45% as an acceptable mortgage payment-to-income ratio. To get to that number, home values need come down to $420K in Sacramento County. That’s a 21% drop from where they are right now. Keep in mind from 2005 to 2011, home values in Sacramento County decreased by more than 50%. To have a 21% correction, its not quite as deep of a crash as what we saw, but its very certainly possible to see them come down quite a bit if interest rates stay at these elevated levels at 7%.
Now, if interest rates come down then affordability is obviously aided by paying less in interest & you can pay more for a house. For home prices to remain at their current levels, 30-yr rates will need to fall down to 4% to get that percentage of income to acceptable 44-45% range.
Which is going to happen? We don’t know. We’re going to have to see as we go into Q4 here and see what happens with inflation. See what happens with buyer demand. There’s so many factors that go into impacting the health of the real estate market. But in the present moment right now with prices where they are at, with interest rates where they are at, we are at an unhealthy level.
If we had to guess, its going to be a combination of both prices and interest rates falling in the next 3-6 months for us to find a little bit more of a healthy footing for our real estate market. We know we just showed you Sacramento numbers, but this is an issue statewide and, arguably, nationwide.
What do you think, though? We’d love to see some comments down below. Tell us what your forecast is & we’ll all be on the edge of our seats here as we go into Q4 of 2022. As always, we appreciate you taking the time to watch our videos & read our posts.
Look out for more. We’ll keep you updated with market analysis.
Thanks again!