Liberty Street Economics

Liberty Street Economics

Look for our next post on November 3.

February 17, 2017

A Close Look at the Decline of Homeownership

Andrew F. Haughwout, Richard Peach, and Joseph Tracy

The homeownership rate—the percentage of households that own rather than rent the homes that they live in—has fallen sharply since mid-2005. In fact, in the second quarter of 2016 the homeownership rate fell to 62.9 percent, its lowest level since 1965. In this blog post, we look at underlying demographic trends to gain a deeper understanding of the large increase in the homeownership rate from 1995 to 2005 and the subsequent large decline. Although there is reason to believe that the homeownership rate may begin to rise again in the not-too-distant future, it is unlikely to fully recover to its previous peak levels. This is a disconcerting finding for those who view homeownership as an integral part of the American Dream and a key component of income security during retirement.

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Posted at 7:02 am in Demographics, Housing | Permalink | Comments (2)

The FRBNY DSGE Model Forecast—February 2017

Marco Del Negro, Marc Giannoni, Abhi Gupta, Pearl Li, and Erica Moszkowski

This post presents the latest update of the economic forecasts generated by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s (FRBNY) dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model. We introduced this model in a series of blog posts in September 2014 and published forecasts twice a year thereafter. With this post, we move to a quarterly release schedule, and highlight how our forecasts have changed since November 2016.
Readers should keep in mind that the DSGE model forecast is not an official New York Fed forecast, but only an input to the Research staff’s overall forecasting process. For more information about the model and the variables discussed here, see our DSGE Model Q & A.

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Posted at 7:00 am in DSGE, Forecasting, Macroeconomics, Monetary Policy | Permalink
February 16, 2017

Just Released: Total Household Debt Nears 2008 Peak but Debt Picture Looks Much Different

Andrew F. Haughwout, Donghoon Lee, Joelle Scally, and Wilbert van der Klaauw

The latest Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit from the New York Fed’s Center for Microeconomic Data showed a substantial increase in aggregate household debt balances in the fourth quarter of 2016 and for the year as a whole. As of December 31, 2016, total household debt stood at $12.58 trillion, an increase of $226 billion (or 1.8 percent) from the third quarter of 2016. Total household debt is now just 0.8 percent ($100 billion) below its third quarter 2008 peak of $12.68 trillion, and 12.8 percent above the second quarter 2013 trough. But debt looks very different in 2016 than it did the last time we saw this level of indebtedness.

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Posted at 11:10 am in Household Finance | Permalink | Comments (2)

The Homeownership Gap Is Finally Closing

Andrew F. Haughwout, Richard Peach, and Joseph Tracy

The homeownership rate peaked at 69 percent in late 2004. By the summer of 2016, it had dropped below 63 percent—exactly where it was when the government started reporting these data back in 1965.

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Posted at 7:00 am in Household Finance, Housing, Inequality | Permalink
February 15, 2017

Houses as ATMs No Longer

Andreas Fuster, Eilidh Geddes, and Andrew F. Haughwout

Housing equity is the primary form of collateral that households use for borrowing. This makes it a potentially important source of consumption funding, especially for younger households. In a previous post we showed that owner’s equity in residential real estate has finally, thanks to increasing home prices, rebounded to and essentially re-attained its 2005 peak level. Yet in spite of a gain of more than $7 trillion in housing equity since 2012, so far homeowners haven’t been tapping this equity at anything like the pace we witnessed during the housing boom that ended in 2006. In this post, we analyze the changes in equity withdrawal.

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Posted at 7:00 am in Credit, Household Finance, Housing | Permalink
February 14, 2017

The Evolution of Home Equity Ownership

Andreas Fuster, Eilidh Geddes, and Andrew F. Haughwout

In yesterday’s post, we discussed the extreme swings that household leverage has taken since 2005, using combined loan-to-value (CLTV) ratios for housing as our metric. We also explored the risks that current household leverage presents in the event of a significant downturn in prices. Today we reverse the perspective, and consider housing equity—the value of housing net of all debt for which it serves as collateral. For the majority of households, housing equity is the principal form of wealth, other than human capital, and it thus represents an important form of potential collateral for borrowing. In that sense, housing equity is an opportunity in the same way that housing leverage is a risk. It turns out that aggregate housing equity at the end of 2015 was very close, in nominal terms, to its pre-crisis (2005) level. But housing wealth has moved to a different group of people—made up of people who are older and have higher credit scores than a decade ago. In today’s post, we look at the evolution of housing equity and its owners.

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Posted at 7:00 am in Household Finance, Housing, Inequality | Permalink
February 13, 2017

How Resilient Is the U.S. Housing Market Now?

Andreas Fuster, Eilidh Geddes, Benedict Guttman-Kenney, and Andrew F. Haughwout

Housing is by far the most important asset for most households, and, not coincidentally, housing debt dwarfs other household liabilities. The relationship between housing debt and housing values figures significantly in financial and macroeconomic stability, as events during the housing bust of 2006-12 clearly demonstrated. This week, Liberty Street Economics presents five posts touching on various aspects of housing, from the changing relationship between mortgage debt and housing equity to the future of homeownership. In today’s post, we provide estimates of housing equity and explore how vulnerable households are to declines in house prices, using methods introduced in our paper “Tracking and Stress Testing U.S. Household Leverage.”

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Posted at 7:00 am in Financial Institutions, Household Finance, Macroeconomics | Permalink | Comments (1)
February 10, 2017

Historical Echoes: The Legacy of Freedman’s Savings and Trust

Julie Sager

Freedman’s Savings and Trust Company, often referred to as the Freedman’s Bank, was created specifically for former slaves and African-American soldiers. It was established by legislation signed by Abraham Lincoln on March 3, 1865, only weeks before his assassination. Groundwork for the bank was laid during a meeting in January of that year by abolitionist preacher John Alvord, who met with a number of others to discuss the possibility of founding a system to assist freed African-Americans in their savings, financial development, and integration into American economic society. In the ten years of its existence, the Freedman’s Bank brought hope and then heartbreak to the African-American community.

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Posted at 7:00 am in Historical Echoes | Permalink
February 8, 2017

Beyond 30: Long‑Term Treasury Bond Issuance from 1957 to 1965

Kenneth D. Garbade

As noted in our previous post, thirty years has marked the outer boundary of Treasury bond maturities since “regular and predictable” issuance of coupon-bearing Treasury debt became the norm in the 1970s. However, the Treasury issued bonds with maturities of greater than thirty years on seven occasions in the 1950s and 1960s, in an effort to lengthen the maturity structure of the debt. While our earlier post described the efforts of Treasury debt managers to lengthen debt maturities between 1953 and 1957, this post examines the period from 1957 to 1965.

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Posted at 7:00 am in Treasury | Permalink
February 6, 2017

Beyond 30: Long‑Term Treasury Bond Issuance from 1953 to 1957

Kenneth D. Garbade

Ever since “regular and predictable” issuance of coupon-bearing Treasury debt became the norm in the 1970s, thirty years has marked the outer boundary of Treasury bond maturities. However, longer-term bonds were not unknown in earlier years. Seven such bonds, including one 40-year bond, were issued between 1955 and 1963. The common thread that binds the seven bonds together was the interest of Treasury debt managers in lengthening the maturity structure of the debt. This post describes the efforts to lengthen debt maturities between 1953 and 1957. A subsequent post will examine the period from 1957 to 1965.

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Posted at 7:00 am in Treasury | Permalink
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Liberty Street Economics features insight and analysis from New York Fed economists working at the intersection of research and policy. Launched in 2011, the blog takes its name from the Bank’s headquarters at 33 Liberty Street in Manhattan’s Financial District.

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