US Federal Reserve Policies Re-Inflate US Property Bubble

Team Ben Bernanke’s policies designed to provide support on asset prices, via money printing or digital inputs and through negative real rates, appears to have re-inflated the US property bubble.

Video from Bloomberg (hat tip Zero Hedge)

The property sector has been exhibiting a broad based recovery

Housing starts, building permits, existing home sales and new home sales have all been rising significantly (From Northern Trust)

Builder confidence has also been sharply recovering 

This goes hand in hand with the dramatic recovery in the annual % change in median sales (both charts from AEI’s Carpe Diem by Professor Mark Perry).

The supply side of “Shadow inventory” has been declining. Notes the Daily Beast (hat tip Bob Wenzel) 

The chart shows that the number of delinquent mortgages is finally down to pre-2008 levels. The number of foreclosed real-estate units has also shrunk dramatically in the last couple of quarters. And the number of foreclosed homes repossessed by lenders (REO) is also down. As that colorful mountain of housing pain levels off, housing faces far fewer headwinds.

Finally loans to the real estate sector appears to have reached an inflection point. This could further provide a significant push on the above dynamics.

Annual % change of real estate loans from all commercial banks

Same data but based on nominal value or billions of dollars. Both charts from the US Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

Bubbles account for as artificial recoveries. Eventually all these steroid based booms end up in a bust