Black Knight Inc.’s Data & Analytics division’s latest Mortgage Monitor Report shows that while rising home prices and volatile interest rates continue to compound the affordability pressures in the housing market, the same dynamics have also served to increase the housing wealth of American mortgage holders by a significant margin. Tappable equity – the amount available for mortgage holders to borrow against while retaining a 20% equity stake in their homes – has reached yet another all-time high.
“Home price growth cooled – albeit very slightly – in April,” says Ben Graboske, Black Knight Data & Analytics’s president. “While a downward shift from 20.4 percent to 19.9 percent annual growth is hardly cause for concern, it’s also likely we’ve not yet seen the full impact of recent rate increases. Rather, April’s decline is more likely a sign of deceleration caused by the modest rate increases in late 2021 and early 2022 when rates first began ticking upwards.”
“The March and April 2022 rate spikes will take time to show up in repeat sales indexes,” Graboske adds. “That said, price growth thus far has created a very difficult environment for prospective homebuyers to navigate. The monthly P&I payment required for the average home purchase is up nearly $600 since the start of the year, and factoring in current income levels housing is now within a whisper of the record low affordability seen at the peak of the market in 2006. Even modest increases in either rates or home prices at this point would push us over that line.”
The Mortgage Monitor also looked at another key contributing factor to home prices and affordability: record-low for-sale inventories. Despite seeing a rise of 27,500 from March to April, active listings remain 67% below pre-pandemic levels, with 820,000 fewer listings than would be typical at this point in most homebuying seasons. New listing volumes were up 1% from the same time last year, but remained 11% below pre-pandemic levels for the month of April, suggesting that the number of homes hitting the market remains well below what would be considered “normal” levels.
“There’s another side to this story, though; one of significant equity growth among current homeowners,” continues Graboske. “With the average-priced home up 42 percent in value since the start of the pandemic, current homeowners with mortgages are sitting on an average $207,000 in equity that they could choose to tap while still keeping a 20 percent equity buffer in place. That’s a result of an astonishing $1.2 trillion gain in tappable equity in the first quarter of 2022 alone – the largest such quarterly growth ever recorded. In total, American mortgage holders have more than $11 trillion in tappable equity, also a history-making total.”
The continued lack of supply continues to weigh on home sales and keep prices higher than they might otherwise be given current affordability metrics. In recent years, a 20.5% payment-to-income ratio has been a rough tipping point at which appreciation begins to soften, but given the severity of inventory shortages, home prices continue to rise – even as that ratio has climbed to 33.7%, just shy of the 34.1% high reached in July 2006.
“It really is a bifurcated landscape – one that grows ever more challenging for those looking to purchase a home but is simultaneously a boon for those who already own and have seen their housing wealth rise substantially over the last couple of years,” concludes Graboske. “Depending upon where you stand, this could be the best or worst of all possible markets.”