Aziz Sunderji
@AzizSunderji
Followers
2,443
Following
1,661
Media
784
Statuses
2,444
Analyzing American housing at 14 years of Strategy Research at Barclays Investment Bank (credit/macro/EM). Formerly reporting @WSJ
Brooklyn, NY
Joined March 2009
Don't wanna be here?
Send us removal request.
Explore trending content on Musk Viewer
Florida
• 285638 Tweets
Oakland
• 111856 Tweets
#虎に翼
• 103598 Tweets
Giants
• 103095 Tweets
#GHGala4
• 80534 Tweets
Angela
• 68456 Tweets
Peñarol
• 50302 Tweets
Cowboys
• 45858 Tweets
Lali
• 44349 Tweets
Onana
• 42232 Tweets
Category 4
• 37936 Tweets
Serhat Akın
• 32042 Tweets
Flamengo
• 28208 Tweets
#911onABC
• 27838 Tweets
クック先生
• 26597 Tweets
John Fisher
• 24907 Tweets
ES UN ESCÁNDALO
• 23132 Tweets
Nabers
• 21094 Tweets
Lanata
• 20301 Tweets
Maite
• 17034 Tweets
Athena
• 13934 Tweets
Chelsie
• 13508 Tweets
Big G
• 10888 Tweets
Pinned Tweet
If you work in the business of housing and you love data, I want to introduce you to Home Economics. It’s my newsletter where I analyze residential real estate through a macro lens using data visualization. I’d love your support:
2
6
29
Feel like the main conclusion from the
@NYFedResearch
's DSGE model is...forecasting is hard. The economy will...exist next year. Probably.
7
39
336
Does it make more sense to buy or rent your home? Many people say renting is more economical because of lower monthlies. That's 100% wrong: it doesn't account for capital gains from owning. Our model shows that, under most conditions, ownership is the better option. 🧵 ...
53
40
190
In conclusion: The median American household now spends 37% of its budget on housing. It’s by far the largest—and the fastest growing—pressure point on household finances. (10/10)
4
22
61
@Liv_Boeree
Kinda bad manners to screenshot a figure from an academic paper, tweet it, and not even provide a link to the study ()
0
0
54
While debunking the myth that high-earning households are renting more, I stumbled across the real story: the homeownership rate amongst the lowest-earning households is soaring.
Coming soon at .
11
7
50
What's the main reason people move out of high cost states, like New York or California, to lower cost ones? Jobs jobs jobs...
22
11
48
A disproportionate amount of the housing affordability discussion centers on homeowners. In reality, it's renters that are far more burdened—and the situation is worsening for them much faster.
8
5
43
We are spending more on housing even though we are not consuming more of it. Moura et al. show that square feet per capita has risen, but square feet per household has remained surprisingly steady over centuries. (9/10)
1
9
37
In theory, construction boosts supply and should lead to more affordable homes. But the data suggests otherwise: over the past 50 years, a flip from declining to rising construction presages rising—not falling—prices.
3
4
34
We wrote about this a few months ago, arguing that the spread should decline to 2%. Long ways to go, but it’s moving in the right direction.
6
3
33
@jayparsons
Agree! 95% of top flight economists surveyed by U. Chicago disagreed that "local ordinances that limit rent increases for some rental housing units...have had a positive impact over the past three decades on the amount and quality of broadly affordable rental housing..."
2
3
31
Is housing more like a banana 🍌 or a bond 💵? If a 🍌, then boosting supply will lower prices. But if housing is more like a 💵, then boosting supply won't lower prices because prices will revert to a level that keeps housing yields in line with other investable assets.
12
10
26
2023 was a big year for Home Economics (our data driven housing newsletter). We rebranded, grew our subscriber base by 500%, and published dozens of articles. As the year winds down, we're taking a look back at 5 of our analyses that helped differentiate us from the consensus.
4
2
29
The $16k gain may actually be an underestimate. If we use PCE instead of CPI to adjust 1984 dollars to 2021 dollars, the gain has been over $22k. And—households are 0.25 humans smaller—so the higher income is being shared across fewer people. (4/10)
1
4
27
Despite stagnant wages, income are higher:
1: We are working more: unemployment is lower, participation is higher, and we are working longer hours.
2: Non-wage income: bonuses/benefits/pension contributions are up.
3: More favorable taxes and government transfers.
(3/10)
3
3
27
But these pale in comparison to the drag from housing. In 2021, the avg household spent more than $20k on housing (+$5k vs 1984). The next largest item—transportation—is half the size (about $10k). Housing dwarfs healthcare (less than $5k) and education ($534). (8/10)
2
9
27
The conventional story about
#housing
is that affordability is awful and nobody is buying. This couldn't be further from the truth. The analysis we published this morning shows 10,000,000 new owning households since 2015. Many are young and middle class. 🧵 ...
5
8
24
The rise in incomes has been the main tailwind for household finances. In 1984 the median household (middle quintile) earned just under $45k (2021 dollars). In 2021, the median household earned almost $61k. (2/10)
1
3
27
Part of the reason we have such little housing inventory for sale is that aging boomers are staying in their homes for longer, even as Millennials are trying to buy. Across all ages, people are staying in their homes longer, but it's population aging that has the largest effect.
7
4
24
Many stories re: rising NUMBER of "millionaire renters". Even if preference for renting was constant, # of millionaire renters would still rise due to population growth and rising nominal incomes. Millionaires are a tiny fraction of the US population, and few of them rent.
4
6
26
A 🧵 about mortgage lock-in and how it could be resolved...
American homeowners don’t want to move and lose their cheap mortgages. This “mortgage lock-in” effect has frozen the real estate market.
1
3
25
This isn’t to say middle class households are not struggling / that there aren’t incendiary problems like income and wealth inequality. But the data shows some substantial gains that belie the conventional narrative of the middle class running on a financial hamster wheel (5/10)
2
4
25
I've come across many articles about high earners pivoting from owning their home to renting (supposedly because rents are cheap while home prices and mortgages are expensive, amongst other reasons).
My analysis based on census data suggests this is not true.
5
4
23
There are many online 'Buy v Rent' calculators (eg from
@UpshotNYT
). We didn’t want to reinvent the wheel. But the wheel people have been using sucks. So we built a better one. It's more detailed (captures the upside of refinancing, for eg) and gives more realistic results.
3
1
24
Nice note from
@OddLots1
/
@TheStalwart
/
@tracyalloway
— re: how economy went from
@kylascan
's Vibecession to "rolling expansion". I'd add: a reason tight policy isn't hitting economy: monetary policy hits a wall at housing, since mortgages are fixed.
1
2
24
For 80 years, the pace of homeownership in the US has grown steadily—through wars, economic crises, and social upheaval. Can it continue? ...[1/3]
3
3
23
Millennials are competing with Boomers for housing—I wrote about this for
@FTAlphaville
today:
Key points (🧵)...
2
7
23
On the other hand, many services, like healthcare and education, are more expensive. Why? Like all services, they are resistant to technological efficiencies. It’s no coincidence that we describe insufficiently empathic doctors as having a robotic bedside manner. (7/10)
1
3
23
New York City has added a lot of housing per capita over the past decade (population is declining and the stock of homes is rising, albeit slowly). Yet, home prices are way up. I wonder: does supply explain home prices? Or might incomes—which have been rising in NYC—dominate?
18
5
22
Is the data not showing the rebound you want it to? No problem—just draw an arrow pointing in the direction you want the data to go! 😂
This gem courtesy of
@apolloglobal
0
4
19
The
@nardotrealtor
and others report that Boomers are "baby chasing"—moving to be closer to their kids and grandkids. But the data doesn't really bear this out. Millennial and Boomer hotspots don't overlap.
9
4
21
The impact of lower mortgage rates will be tempered by this...
9
3
21
Do we have a national housing crisis, or a big city housing crisis?
@ConorDougherty
in the
@nytimes
argues the problem has spread to even small places like Kalamazoo.
4
4
21
By the 2050s, the Census Bureau forecasts the population barely growing, and only due to immigration.
5
4
20
If a shocking number of people fall below some reasonable threshold of what we deem fair to spend on housing—whether that’s 30% or 50%, or some other figure—then that is a problem primarily to do with the unequal distribution of incomes.
8
6
20
Some prominent commentators said lower rates would intensify housing market tightness. But we’ve had the opposite effect.
Lots of open house signs when driving around today. It’s the byproduct of more listings and properties taking longer to sell today compared to 2021. So many sold during the first weekend back then. Now properties need weeks instead of days (or longer).
9
8
58
8
5
20
A recent
@WSJ
article suggested high earners are shifting to renting (they're "searching for luxury without commitment."). Is that true?
My analysis of census data suggests, if anything, high earners are moving even further towards owning.
2
2
15
@KathyParkPrice
Infuriating behavior. Sadly, not uncommon these days in BK. Only solace: people like that drive around angry all day, everyday. Imagine how bad that must feel.
12
0
18
We have also benefitted as prices for manufactured goods have not just risen more slowly than overall inflation, but have actually declined. This is partly a result of technology and globalized supply chains. (6/10)
1
2
18
Yes it must be regulation. After all, there’s nothing else NYC, LA, and SF all have in common (couldn’t possibly be high incomes)…
5
7
17
My (non-economist) wife has been editing my newsletter drafts for a few months. Looking over something I’m publishing tomorrow, she turned to me and asked, “is this adjusted for inflation?”. This cub has grown teeth!
1
0
18
Why is housing so unaffordable? In a seminal paper about high home prices in Manhattan, Ed Glaeser argued:
"If we are confident that we are not missing any technological barriers to construction, then the gap between market value and the cost of supply must reflect the impact
7
2
17
You know what I would pay a lot for? Journalism about what's happening in the economy and markets, by people who have actually worked in finance. That's it. That's the entirety of the business idea. Like, a stable of
@matt_levine
s. Why doesn't it exist?
4
0
17
This is exactly right,
@conorsen
—gradual, below-inflation rates of home price gains, ongoing income gains, and lower mortgage rates are the ingredients that will, over time, restore affordability. More building will be the marginal contributor, though.
3
2
16
Home prices have increased by more than 50% since the end of 2019. But when we look at housing cost as a proportion of after-tax income, most households aren’t spending anywhere near 50% more. Why?
My latest for
@HousingWire
...
3
2
16
Incredibly prescient article from Oct 2022 by
@MarcRuby
. "To the extent liquidity is locked in held-to-maturity portfolios, that could present a problem."
0
3
13
Where do home prices go in 2024? Many forecasts call for growth near the historic avg (eg:
@AEIecon
: +4%). I'll take the under on that: prices are stretched vs anchors like rents and incomes. Likelier: we'll get years of sluggish gains, allowing rest of the economy to catch up.
6
6
14
How long will housing remain extremely expensive? One the one hand, the population growth rate is tanking. Prices should fall. On the other hand, expensive housing is a global phenomenon, and has been around for centuries. Will it really reverse?
5
6
14
The
@UpshotNYT
Buy or Rent calculator—updated today—has long been a terrific tool. But even with the update, it lacks some important features, like the probability of refinancing at a lower rate in the future (my site, Home Economics, hosts a model that accounts for refinancing)
1
2
14
There is a new dimension to American political polarization: Homeownership...[1/3]
➖Owners twice as likely to identify as "strongly Republican" than renters
➖Renters identify far more frequently as "strongly Democrat"
➖Renters also identify more often as independents
5
4
14
Not to say some people aren't struggling, but it's hard to square this (below) with the notion of a worsening housing crisis...
5
5
14
3
0
14
But it's quite nuanced, and this is where the power of the microdata really shines: I was able to calculate what kind of New Yorker (in terms of age, income) each destination attracts.
3
1
14
As a New Yorker and (hopefully) future parent, I got obsessed with this question over the past couple of weeks: what's the relationship between the quality of elementary schools and home prices in their zoned area? Finding 1 of 6: there's a massive range of school quality! 🧵...
1
3
12
Home prices and rents are moving in different directions. Since the summer of 2022, home prices are up over 1%. Rents are down almost 4%. What's going on? 🧵...
1
2
13
Conclusions: Olds chase the sun. For young movers, 2 kinds: (a) high income people going to jobs-laden, pricey cities (SF, LA); (b) lower income people going to the South (Dallas, Atlanta). Affordability is a driver, but jobs is the main one. TX, FL adding more of them than NY.
1
3
13
Guys, I just read the newspaper and apparently people predicted a recession but it didn’t happen. I’ll investigate and come back to you.
3
0
13
We are awash in "content", even as aggregate human waking hours are unchanged. Pouring your energy into work, sharing it, and hoping people notice it (let alone pay you for it) is a ludicrously ambitious thing to do. Consider: 25% of songs on Spotify have had 0 listens. 0!
2
1
13
From my article for HousingWire: "We wonder why young people are foregoing traditional rites of passage into adulthood: marriage, or getting a driver’s license, for example. But when it comes to homeownership, the explanation is simple: striking out on your own is expensive, so
1
6
13
Does buying still beat renting if home prices grow more slowly than usual? Yes: buying is more economical than renting if home prices rise by 3.15% per year on average. This is very achievable: in almost 70% of the years since 1970, house prices have risen by at least this much.
2
4
12
Boomers are the biggest owners of large homes. Not entirely surprising, since they are a huge generation, but I guess one might have expected to see more downsizing by now... (from
@WSJRealEstate
)
3
4
13
Who knew remodelers are one of the largest segments of construction employment?...
US residential construction employment reached another post-2008 high last month, with employment in housing remodelers hitting record highs and employment in single-family construction picking up in February
2
20
98
4
3
11
I think the real estate world is poorly served by mortgage rate forecasters who lay out very specific targets but don’t share their reasoning. Markets are efficient. It’s less useful to know the forecast than understanding what’s driving rates.
3
1
13
I also found that the young movers earn a lot more than people at the same age who stayed in New York.
1
1
12
Can't help but feel this is the bust following the boom of new business growth during the pandemic.
3
2
12
The
@WSJ
: “the number of renters earning over $200,000 a year is up fourfold since 2010”. I reverse engineered their analysis. Yes, the number of renter households earning over $200k rose by 762,000. But also: at that same income level, the number who own rose by 4.4 million.
1
0
12
🚨 We published an article in
@EconoFactOrg
this morning—myself along with co-authors
@LounganiPrakash
from
@JohnsHopkins
and
@karanbhasin95
from
@ualbany
—where we identify and discuss the multiple drivers of deteriorating housing affordability.
0
5
12
Pretty odd moment we are in right now. Coincident indicators look peachy. Forward looking indicators look brutal. Are we headed for a Wile E Coyote situation?
U.S. Credit Growth Update: This is looking deflationary into 2024....doesn't look like inflation will be sticky.
2
10
40
2
2
12
Amidst a worsening housing affordability crisis, especially for renters, the *decline* in state and local spending on housing assistance is perplexing...great work here
@urbaninstitute
1
3
12
Read our analysis and download our customizable model here: .
2
1
12
This is why the subtleties of data visualization matter. All this hard work, and the pattern, if any, is impossible to decipher. Bad. Choice. Of. Colors.
2
0
9
Every few weeks my wife sees a cockroach in our Brooklyn apartment and loses her sh*t.
I keep telling her it could be WAY WORSE.
I finally have the data to back it up...🪳
1
2
11
Re: the
@WSJ
article about "Forever Renters": I have issues with their presentation of the data. But there is a story here—just a slow brewing one that doesn't fit into the fashionable idea that renting—suddenly, and for the long term—makes more sense than it has historically.
1
1
11
1. Something weird is happening in the labor market: both unemployment and job openings are high. In other words, workers can’t seem to find jobs, and companies can’t seem to find workers.
3
3
9
Permits to build don't lead actual starts. The two are coincident.
2
1
11
@MosesSternstein
@bencasselman
@BLS_gov
Yep—you have to take into account retiring housing stock too—and by this measure, square feet per housing unit has been stable (since the 1800s!).
1
0
10
“The stringency of regulation also is strongly positively correlated with measures of community wealth, so that it is the richer and more highly-educated places that have the most highly regulated land use environments,” say the creators of the Wharton index used here…
3
4
11
Neat housing/climate change research here, from
@Redfin
,
@LilyKatz
,
@FairweatherPhD
,
@S_Olascoaga
:
"Redfin users who viewed homes with severe and/or extreme flood risk prior to a Redfin experiment proceeded to bid on homes with 54% less risk after gaining access to risk data."
2
1
11
@jayparsons
@NickTimiraos
Nice post. I do sense a conflict within the narrative between the protagonist being the builder/landlord vs renter. This is unmitigated good news for the latter.
1
2
10
Rents are falling. House prices are rising. Weird! They've moved in the same direction 84% of the time since 1970. Many say it's heavy multifamily (MF) supply. But the avg pace of MF completions since Jan '20 has been lower—as a fraction of housing stock—than for single family.
2
1
10
How long before Fed hikes hit the economy? Normally, it would take years (those 'long and variable lags'). But the Fed is hiking at the fastest pace since 1981. Famous last words—but this time could be different.
My article in today's
@WSJ
:
2
3
10