Those that follow this thread seriously appreciate you taking time to give us your thoughts. Your post may draw a few questions. For the most part, those here have a curiosity about the "future". I, for one, back at the first post thought the recession would hit during the third and fourth quarters of 2022. I underestimated the FED Reserve as far as them leaning to the "transitory inflation"... That, in itself, pushed the recession into 2023. Seems any and all Government schemes only prolong the inevitable.
Any thoughts of the future ? Oil, interest rates, supply chain, IMF (other countries and regions), etc.
Thank you,
Hobo
Like I said, I'm not expert, I don't watch markets closely other than real estate, but I pay close attention to the things going on around me. And I deal with lots of different industries. From concrete and rebar to HVAC and electric, plumbing, lighting, roofing, pavers, landscaping ect...
As for fuel, I don't see any resolve until there is some sort of regime change. What is going on now is on purpose IMO. The oil is here and there's plenty of it. It just needs to be explored, leased, drilled and refined. The government seems to be doing a great job of tying the industry up with holds on leases, cancelations of pipelines ect. They have made it clear they are our to destroy the industry. What better way to stop future investments in any of the things needed to expand production? If the price of fuel would go down, everything else would eventually go down with it, atleast to some extent.
If the fed was serious about inflation, the interest rate would be much higher than it is now. But it would crush the economy and the people in power would rather just kick that can down the road for political purposes. Historically, we aren't at a very high rate, but people my age and many others got spoiled with free money and historically low rates.
The housing market is already starting to fall off in less desireable areas. In the more desireable and wealthy areas, I think you are going to see a plateau in home prices here soon that were growing at 20+% the past year. Houses under 1M will be most affected as the interest rates affect the affordability of the middle class/paycheck people the most. Most home sales, around here anyway, have been cash in the past year or so. I have a theory that most of these people refinance the house after they purchase it with the equity, and use the cash as a purchase incentive only to win the house. As interest rates keep going up, this may start to affect these people too and they may be less willing to buy cash or have to lower their budget. The amount of inventory in my area has risen by about 50% over the last month, but is still historically low. 100% of sellers in the past two weeks got 100% of their asking price. The time on market has almost doubled as well, but it is still historically low. Make of it what you will.
New starts are trending down across the country with an estimated 1.5 - 2M home shortage already. Just a rough guess, but the cost to build a new home is up maybe 20%. So what is that going to do with supply and demand combined with rising interest rates and more expensive homes that take longer to build? Wish I had a crystal ball... I do know some of the bigger builders are starting to shift to more affordable homes and multi family or condo type units.
As long as some of the blue states with people that have money keep shooting themselves in the foot with bad policies and DeSantis keeps winning, I feel confident the stream of people moving to FL is going to continue. If that happens, there is going to need to be more homes built and sold at a profit, or something is going to break somewhere.