Tag Archives: Johnson

Investing in Homes

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photo by Pictures of Money

TheStreet.com quoted me in Investing In Your Home Remains a Sound Financial Decision for 2018. It reads, in part,

Homeowners are still pouring money into their homes as renovations and upkeep are generating a large portion of sales for Home Depot as demand for purchasing homes rose in September and the three massive hurricanes in the U.S. boosted revenue.

Home Depot’s third-quarter sales surged in the aftermath of a robust hurricane season that spanned from Texas to Puerto Rico, increasing demand from homeowners who faced immense rebuilding as homes were destroyed by relentless floodwaters.

The Atlanta-based home improvement retailer reported an impressive 7.9% increase in comparable-store sales in the third quarter, which exceeded the Wall Street estimate of 5.8%. Home Depot also beat on earnings, reporting $1.84 a share, 2 cents ahead of forecasts. The company’s total revenue was $25.03 billion, up 8% from the same period last year.

 Home Depot’s third-quarter earnings rose 15% from a year ago and its comparable sales in the U.S. increased at a 7.7% clip.

“Though this quarter was marked by an unprecedented number of natural disasters,” said CEO Craig Menear in a statement, “the underlying health of our core business remains solid.

The company was able to raise its fiscal 2017 guidance due to its stellar earnings and now estimates comp sales growth of 6.5% and earnings per share of $7.36, which reflects its $8 billion buyback program this year.

Home Depot shares rose 2.7% to $168.06 on Nov. 14.

 Interest from first-time home buyers remains strong and home sales rose in September — new home sales increased to a seasonally adjusted rate of 667,000, which is up 18.9% month over month and 17% year over year.

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“When an individual buys a share of stock they can monitor the value of the investment on a minute-to-minute basis,” Johnson said. “People can see the fluctuation in value. With real estate, however, no one is quoting you a price instantaneously on your real estate purchase. Absent a market price, people tend not to worry about the value of their real estate purchase and assume that it is very stable in the short run.”

Millennials tend to be conservative with their investment choices and are “drawn to this seeming stability in the value of residential real estate,” he said.

Nevertheless, purchasing a home can often be a very poor financial decision and potential home buyers need to be aware of the additional costs and potential pitfalls.

“People fall prey to the stories of individuals realizing substantial gains by buying a home and selling it at a much higher price years down the road,” Johnson said.

Noble laureate economist and Yale University professor Robert Shiller had made a compelling case that real estate, especially residential homes, are a much inferior investment when compared to stocks. He found that on an inflation-adjusted basis, the average home price has increased only 0.6% annually over the past 100 years.

The stock market’s average return on a large stock index such as the S&P 500 has been about 10% while inflation has averaged around 3% from 1926 through 2016 while the inflation adjusted return of the stock market over the past 90 years has been approximately 7%.

The rate of homeownership still remains much lower than the 1998 rate of 9.5% and the rate has remained stable since the commencement of the financial crisis — hovering around 5% since 2008.

So should you own or rent?

Renting can be a better deal for many consumers, depending on the city and region, said David Reiss, a law professor at Brooklyn Law School in N.Y.

“This is a better question to ask yourself than whether owning is a sound investment choice because you are going to need to live somewhere no matter what,” he said. “It is not too helpful to look at national numbers to answer this question – you should look at the figures in the communities you are considering living in.”

Reiss on Privatization of Fannie and Freddie

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BadCredit.org profiled an article of mine in Brooklaw Professor Pushes for Privatization of Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac. The profile opens,

Since the end of the Great Recession, policymakers, academics and economists have been struggling with a very difficult question — what should we do with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? Should the government continue its role in providing mortgage credit to millions of American?

Fordham University Associate Professor of Law and Ethics Brent J. Horton made a proposal in his forthcoming paper “For the Protection of Investors and the Public: Why Fannie Mae’s Mortgage-Backed Securities Should Be Subject to the Disclosure Requirements of the Securities Act of 1933“:

“The best way to reduce risk taking at Fannie Mae is to subject its MBS offerings to the disclosure requirements of the Securities Act of 1933,” Horton writes.

However, Brooklyn Law School Professor of Law David Reiss believes “the problems inherent in Fannie Mae’s structure are greater than those that increased disclosure can address.”

In his response, titled “Who Should Be Providing Mortgage Credit to American Households?” Reiss points to increased privatization as one way to address the question of what to do with Fannie Mae and Freddi Mac.

Reiss on Who Should Be Providing Mortgage Credit to American Households?

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I have posted a short Response, Who Should Be Providing Mortgage Credit to American Households?, to SSRN (as well as to BePress).  The abstract reads,

Who should be providing mortgage credit to American households? Given that the residential mortgage market is a ten-trillion-dollar one, the answer we come up with had better be right, or we may suffer another brutal financial crisis sooner than we would like. Indeed, the stakes are as high as they were in the Great Depression when the foundation of our current system was first laid down. Unfortunately, the housing finance experts of the 1930s seemed to have a greater clarity of purpose when designing their housing finance system. Part of the problem today is that debates over the housing finance system have been muddled by broader ideological battles and entrenched special interests, as well as by plain old inertia and the fear of change. It is worth taking a step back to evaluate the full range of options available to us, as the course we decide upon will shape the housing market for generations to come. This is a Response to Brent Horton, For the Protection of Investors and the Public: Why Fannie Mae’s Mortgage-Backed Securities Should Be Subject to the Disclosure Requirements of the Securities Act of 1933, 89 Tulane L. Rev. __ (forthcoming 2014-2015).

Housing Goals and Housing Finance Reform

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The Federal Housing Finance Agency issued a proposed rule that would establish housing goals for Fannie and Freddie for the next three years. The Federal Housing Enterprises Financial Safety and Soundness Act of 1992 required that Fannie and Freddie’s regulator set annual housing goals to ensure that a certain proportion of the companies’ mortgage purchases serve low-income households and underserved areas. Among other things, the proposed rule would “establish a new housing subgoal for small multifamily properties affordable to low-income families,” a subject that happens to be near and dear to my heart.(54482)

This “duty to serve” is very controversial, at the heart of the debate over housing finance reform. Many Democrats oppose housing finance reform without it and many Republicans oppose reform with it. Indeed, it was one of the issues that stopped the Johnson-Crapo reform bill dead in its tracks.

While this proposed rule is not momentous by any stretch of the imagination, it is worth noting that the FHFA, for all intents and purposes, seems to be the only party in the Capital that is moving housing finance reform forward in any way.

Once again, we should note that doing nothing is not the same as leaving everything the same. As Congress fails to strike an agreement on reform and Fannie and Freddie continue to limp along in their conservatorships, regulators and market participants will, by default, be designing the housing finance system of the 21st century. That is not how it should be done.

Comments are due by October 28, 2014.

Reiss in Bloomberg Industries Q&A on Frannie Litigation

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Bloomberg Industries Litigation Analyst Emily Hamburger interviewed me about The Government as Defendant: Breaking Down Fannie-Freddie Lawsuits (link to audio of the call). The blurb for the interview is as follows:

As investors engage in jurisdictional discovery and the government pleads for dismissals in several federal cases over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac stock, Professor David Reiss of Brooklyn Law School will provide his insights on the dynamics of the lawsuits and possible outcomes for Wall Street, the U.S. government and GSEs. Reiss is the author of a recent article, An Overview of the Fannie and Freddie Conservatorship Litigation.

Emily questioned me for the first half of the one hour call and some of the 200+ participants asked questions in the second half.

Emily’s questions included the following (paraphrased below)

  • You’re tracking several cases that deal with the government’s role in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and I’d like to go through about 3 of the major assertions made by investors – investors that own junior preferred and common stock in the GSEs – against the government and hear your thoughts:
    • The first is the accusation that the Treasury and FHFA’s Conduct in the execution of the Third Amendment was arbitrary and capricious. What do you think of this?
    •  Another claim made by the plaintiffs is that the government’s actions constitute a taking of property without just compensation, which would be seen as a violation of the 5th Amendment – do you think this is a stronger or weaker claim?
    • And finally – what about plaintiffs asserting breach of contract against the government? Plaintiffs have said that the Net Worth Sweep in the Third Amendment to the Preferred Stock Purchase Agreement nullified Fannie and Freddie’s ability to pay dividends, and that the two companies can’t unilaterally change terms of preferred stock, and that the FHFA is guilty of causing this breach.
  • Is the government correct when they say that the section 4617 of the Housing and Economic Recovery Act barred plaintiff’s right to sue over the conservator’s decisions?
  • Former Solicitor General Theodore Olson, an attorney for Perry Capital, has said that the government’s powers with respect to the interventions in Fannie and Freddie “expired” – is he correct?
  • Can you explain what exactly jurisdictional discovery is and why it’s important?
  • Do we know anything about what might happen if one judge rules for the plaintiffs and another judge rules for the government?
  • Is there an estimate that you can provide as to timing?
  • Are there any precedents that you know of from prior crises? Prior interventions by the government that private plaintiffs brought suit against?
  • How do you foresee Congress and policymakers changing outcomes?
  • What do we need to be looking out for now in the litigation?
  • How does this end?

You have to listen to the audiotape to hear my answers, but my bottom line is this — these are factually and legally complex cases and don’t trust anyone who thinks that this is a slam dunk for any of the parties.

 

Stealing Fannie and Freddie?

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Jonathan Macey and Logan Beirne have posted a short working paper, Stealing Fannie and Freddie, to SSRN. It advocates a position similar to that taken by the plaintiffs in the GSE shareholder litigation. They argue,

Politicians are running rough-shod over the rule of law as they seek to rob private citizens of their assets to achieve their own amorphous political objectives. If we were speaking of some banana republic, this would be par for the course – but this is unfolding in the United States today.

“The housing market accounts for nearly 20 percent of the American economy, so it is critical that we have a strong and stable housing finance system that is built to last,” declares the Senate Banking Committee Leaders’ Bipartisan Housing Finance Reform Draft. The proposed legislation’s first step towards this laudable goal, however, is to liquidate the government sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – in defiance of the rule of law. This paper analyzes the current House and Senate housing finance reform proposals and faults their modes of liquidation for departing from legal norms, thereby harming investors and creditors, taxpayers, and the broader economy.

Under proposals before Congress, virtually everyone loses. First, the GSEs’ shareholders’ property rights are violated. Second, taxpayers face the potential burden of the GSEs’ trillions in liabilities without dispensing via the orderly and known processes of a traditional bankruptcy proceeding or keeping the debts segregated as the now-profitable GSEs seek to pay them down. Finally, the rule of law is subverted, thereby making lending and business in general a riskier proposition when the country and global economy are left to the political whims of the federal government. (1)

I found a number of unsupported assertions throughout the piece. For instance, they assert, without support, that Fannie and Freddie “never reached the point of insolvency.” (3)  Badawi & Casey convincingly argue that without “government intervention, [Fannie and Freddie] would have defaulted on their guaranty obligations and more generally on obligations to all creditors.” (Badawi & Casey at 5) All in all, I don’t find this short working paper to be compelling reading — perhaps a more comprehensive one is in the works.

Reiss on FHFA Leadership of Housing Finance Reform

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Law360.com quoted me in FHFA Set To Take The Lead In Housing Finance Reform (behind a paywall). It reads in part,

With hopes for a legislative fix for the U.S. housing finance market fading after six key Democrats reportedly refused to support a reform bill pending in the Senate Banking Committee, the Federal Housing Finance Agency will become the central player in reshaping the market and set the terms for any future changes.

The Banking Committee’s leaders — Chairman Tim Johnson, D-S.D., and ranking member Mike Crapo, R-Idaho — were unable to scare up the overwhelming support their housing finance reform bill needed in a last-gasp effort at getting a vote from the full Senate. That leaves the bill’s prospects of getting to President Barack Obama prior to the midterm elections at near zero and the FHFA, the conservator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac since 2008, as the biggest player in reshaping the U.S. housing market.

“It was always my operating assumption that it was going to be exceedingly difficult to get congressional consensus. Most of the action was going to take place by way of the actions at the FHFA,” said former Republican Rep. Rick Lazio, now a partner at Jones Walker LLP.

The lack of legislation also throws a wild card into the equation, since FHFA head Mel Watt has essentially been silent about his intentions for the FHFA since he won Senate confirmation in December.

“Hopefully, Watt will have a positive vision of the future of the two companies,” said Brooklyn Law School professor David Reiss.

More than five years after Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were placed under FHFA conservatorship after receiving a more-than-$187 billion taxpayer bailout in the fall of 2008, Congress has yet to act on creating a new system for home purchases and eliminating the two companies.

And then, beginning last spring, Congress kicked into gear.

First, Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., introduced a bill that Johnson and Crapo would use as the basis for their own legislation, leaving a limited role for government in guaranteeing the mortgage market.

Soon after, the House Financial Services Committee passed its own housing finance reform bill looking to eliminate the government’s role in the housing market entirely.

Johnson and Crapo released their bill, which would eliminate Fannie and Freddie within five years and replace it with a mortgage insurance agency modeled on the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., in March. They scheduled a markup and vote on the bill for late April.

But the two senators delayed the vote at the last minute when it became clear that while they had the 12 votes needed to pass the bill out of the 22-member committee, they lacked the 16 to 18 votes needed to force Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to bring it up for a vote.

Johnson and Crapo said they would continue negotiations with six undecided Democrats, but according to media reports, those negotiations foundered on worries about access to affordable housing in the bill.

Undeterred, Johnson vowed to bring the bill up for a vote next week.

“Those involved in the negotiations have indicated they are interested in continuing to work together to try and find common ground, so the Banking Committee will keep working after favorably reporting out the bill next week,” Sean Oblack, a Democratic spokesman for the committee, said in a Thursday statement.

Still, the failure to get overwhelming support for the Johnson-Crapo bill essentially dooms the prospects for housing finance legislation this year, Lazio said.

“The administration will probably wait until early next Congress to make a decision about whether they think reform is possible,” he said.

But reform efforts will not stop, since the FHFA has a large amount of discretion over the futures of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

“The regulator here is very powerful,” Reiss said.

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