Ted’s Tweets March 13 2015 – April 1 2015

For those of you that do not Tweet – you should consider doing so. If you want to talk about effective bang for the buck, the 140 total characters, letters, numbers and spaces of a Tweet on Twitter certainly qualifies. Who knew you could say so much in so little?

It reminds me of Mark Twain who wrote, “I would have written you a shorter letter but I didn’t have the time.” You need to pack a lot in a little space.

My Twitter followers now total 993 – please tell at least seven friends to follow DrTCJ.

This is one of the periodic Jones on Real Estate blog postings covering the latest Tweets.

While you may recognize some of the data from my blog postings, there are always items that just get Tweeted. I am always looking for “I did not know that” information

DrTCJ Tweets March 13 2015 – April 1 2015

• Half of retiring Americans will be forced to accept a reduced standard of living due to income shortfall – Center for Retirement Research
• A 55 year old couple retiring at 65 is projected to spend 90% of their Social Security benefits on health care costs – HealthView Services
• U.S. trade deficit was just $35.4 billion in February 2015, the lowest since 2009 as the labor dispute at the ports impeded flow of goods
• Single family rentals now make up one out of every eight occupied single family dwellings and show strong lease renewal rates – MBA
• Nonbank residential lending since November 2012 has risen to 51% from a then 24% – American Enterprise Institute
• The market share for residential lending of large banks has plunged from 61% in November 2012 to 33% today – American Enterprise Institute
• Single family construction spending rose 9.7% in the 12 months ending February 2015 with multifamily up 31.5% to a combined $254B SAAR – NAHB
• Total absorption of US office space in 2014 hit 57.2 million square feet, the highest level seen since 2007 – CBRE
• US vacation home sales made up one in five house transactions in 2014 (21%), the most recorded by NAR since survey commenced in 2003
• 2014 vacation home sales hit an all-time record level (2003 data collection commenced) at 1.13 million properties, up 57.4% vs 2013 – NAR
• San Francisco February 2015 median home prices are close to nudging $1 million at $979,750, up 16.2% from a year ago – Redfin
• The average first-mortgage loan completed in Q4 2014 was $233,655 up from $231,914 in Q3 2014 – MBA
• Total loan production expenses in Q4 2014 were $7,000, up from $6,769 in Q3 2014 – MBA
  Purchase loans (versus refi) made up 65% of total lending volume in Q4 2014 down from 72% in Q3 2014 – MBA
• The average profit per residential loan originated in Q4 2014 was $744, up from $150 a year ago but down from $897 ion Q3 2014 – MBA
• The largest home price increases for the 12 months ending January 2015 in the Case-Shiller 20-city index were Denver +8.4% and Miami +8.3%
• The U.S. Housing market overall is healthier than any time since 2001 (earliest data) – Nationwide’s Leading Index of Health Housing Markets
• Americans will pay a total $4.8 trillion in federal, state and local taxes in 2015 of which $3.3 trillion is federal taxes – Tax Foundation
• Tax Freedom Day (date in which the typical American pays all of their federal, state & local taxes) occurs on April 24th – Tax Foundation
• Americans will spend more in 2015 on federal, state and local taxes than combined spending on food, clothing and housing – Tax Foundation
• February 2015 pending home sales for contracts signed in February JUMPED 12% from a year ago and grew 3.1% sequentially from January – NAR
• There are 7.4 square feet of rentable storage space per capita in the US – Marcus & Millichap
• The median 401(k) is just $18,433 and almost 40% all plans have less than $10,000 – Employee Benefit a Research Institute
• The average tuition, room and board at private colleges this year is $42,419 – The College Board
  Fed Chair Yellen said today gradual rate hikes are likely this year, “but not too many.” MarketWatch
• 59% of residential buyers in Miami last month paid cash – more double the National rate of 26% – Miami Association of Realtors
• California pending home sales jumped 15.6% from a year ago, the largest gain since April 2009 – California Association of Realtors
• Despite low oil prices, Houston added 8,100 net new jobs (preliminary) in February and is up 3.4% in the prior 12 months
• Prior to the implosion in housing, average annual loan servicing cost was $55 – now at $208 per year or more – MBA
• Since 2009, direct production costs for larger residential lenders has increased 562 bps per year or $400 annually – STRATMOR Group
• A survey of 740+ HR professionals found that ACA caused 14% of companies to reduce work hours for part-timers & 6% planning the same – WSJ
• The three fastest growing metros in the 12 months ending July 2014 were The Villages FL, Myrtle Beach SC and Austin TX – US Census Bureau
• The Villages, a senior community of 114,000, is the fastest-growing metro (+3.2%) for the second consecutive year – US Census Bureau
• QE efforts which lowered interest rates cost savers an estimated $470 billion in lost interest revenues – Swiss RE|
• With looming interest rate increases, US corporate bond issues of $656 billion in 2014 just shy of the $686 billion record – FitchRatings
• Residential foreclosures sold at a 17% discount when compared to non-distressed sales in February 2015, short sales discounted 15% – NAR
• Buyers paid all-cash in one out of every four existing home sales transactions (26%) down from 35% a year ago – NAR
• Investors bought one-out of every six transactions in February (17%), down from 21% a year ago – NAR
• First time homebuyers accounted for 29% of all transactions in February 2015 – NAR
• At the current home sales rate there is a 4.6 month inventory of homes available for sale, with 6 months considered normal – NAR
• 401(k) plan investments totaled $4.6 trillion at the end of 2014 & Government defined benefit plans $5.2 trillion – ICI
• 48% of IRA investments are in mutual funds ($3.5 trillion) at the end of Q4 2014 – investment Company Institute as reported in EBN
• IRAs make up $7.4 trillion of the $24.7 trillion total in retirement accounts, or 30% – Investment Company Institute reported in EBN
• US retirement account assets grew by 6% from 2013 – 2014 and now total $24.7 trillion making up 36% of all household financial assets – EBN
• Oakland, California posted the greatest 12-month apartment rent increase in the U.S. at 15.5% – Axiometrics in MultiFamily Executive
• Average apartment rents in the US rose 5.05% in the 12-months ending February 2015, the biggest increase in 44 months – Axiometrics & MFE
• Federal agencies would be required to cut their real estate footprint under a directive from the White House – Federal Times
• When asked if they knew what closing costs are, 2 out 3 Millennials responded either Not At All or Not Very in a survey by ClosingCorp
• Home price appreciation has outpaced wage growth by a factor of 13 to 1 in the past two years – RealtyTrac
• Mexico was number 1 for foreign-built car parts for assembly of US built cars in 2014 at 34% of imports followed by China at 13% – WSJ
• February new home sales (defined as newly signed contracts) hit a SAAR of 539,000, up 7.8% from January, the most since early 2008
• New Jersey has the most expense auto insurance at $1,220 annually on average (2012 data, latest available) NAIC
• Existing home sales up 4.7% in February vs a year ago, median price up 7.5% to $202,600 – National Association of Realtors
• Foreclosure starts in February 2015 at 79,700 were down 13.37% vs a year ago and down sequentially 15.48% from January – Black Knight
• Residential foreclosure inventory drops below 800,000 for the first time since December 2007 – Black Knight Financial Services
• As oil prices have plunged, oil companies have slashed capital spending by 39% from a year ago – Tudor, Pickering, Holt – Houston Chronicle
• Oil & gas companies, in the face of plunging prices, are protecting liquidity by issuing $8 billion in new shares & $5.5 billion in bonds
• With 458.5 million barrels of oil in storage in the US, supply has hit a multi-decade high portending further oil price cuts – Houston Chron
• Ireland posted the largest home price increase in the world in 2014 with values up 16.62% – Global Property Guide
• Montgomery, TN is ranked as the top market in the country for first-time homebuyers with an average downpayment less than 14% – RealtyTrac
• Homebuyers in lower-priced markets downpayment was an average 12% vs 24% downpayment in higher-priced markets – RealtyTrac
• The average US homebuyer downpayment was $32,141 last year, or 14% of the sales price – RealtyTrac
• The U.S. has the 4th highest estate tax in all of the industrialized world at 40% – The Tax Foundation
• 1.2 million U.S. Homeowners regained positive equity in 2014, with 89% of all homes now in positive territory – CoreLogic
• February’s challenging weather pushed down housing starts 17% to an annualized rate of 897,000 private dwellings in February 2015
• Highest paid professors in the country are tenured law profs earning a median $143,509 in 2014 vs a median $100,087 for all tenured profs
• New home prices in China fell for the 6th consecutive month, now down 5.7% in February compared to a year ago – MarketWatch
• China produces as much steel as the rest of the total world combined and four times that of US peak production in the 1970s – WSJ
• The U.S. current official unemployment rate of 5.5% is at the top of the 5.2 to 5.5% range the Fed considers full employment
• US homeowners saw the value of their homes increase $356 billion in Q4 2014 and their stocks jump $742 billion – Federal Reserve
• Rising stock prices and home values combined to increase American household net worth by 1.9% in Q4 2014 to $83 trillion – Federal Reserve

If you have the time to wait, these will be aggregated periodically here on the blog. If however, you wish to receive these real-time as they happen, then follow my account at DrTCJ.

Better yet, get your own Twitter account and Tweet away — and of course re-tweeting the ones of mine you found interesting.

Want to see all of my tweets or follow? Click https://twitter.com/drtcj

If a 60-year old can Tweet, so can you.

Ted