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- 0:31Speaker 2: Welcome to the Bloomberg Markets Podcast. I'm Paul Sweeney alongside
- 0:34Speaker 2: my co host Matt Miller.
- 0:36Speaker 1: Every business day, we bring you interviews from CEOs, market pros,
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- 0:51Speaker 2: All right, so we're here at the Bloomberg Sustainable Business
- 0:54Speaker 2: sum A part of that is financial inclusions. To find
- 0:58Speaker 2: what financial inclusion is, how we measured Kara who Canson
- 1:02Speaker 2: joins a senior vice president and head of workplace Benefits
- 1:05Speaker 2: at Benefits and Protection Principle. Kara, thanks so much for
- 1:09Speaker 2: joining us.
- 1:09Speaker 3: Here.
- 1:09Speaker 2: We appreciate you coming here to Bloomberg. What is financial
- 1:13Speaker 2: inclusion and how do you measure it?
- 1:16Speaker 4: So, financial inclusion is about giving more people access to tools, products,
- 1:25Speaker 4: services that enable them to ultimately the goal is achieve
- 1:30Speaker 4: financial security, and so making sure that a much broader
- 1:34Speaker 4: group than today has access to all that they need
- 1:38Speaker 4: in order to make those decisions and achieve financial success.
- 1:43Speaker 4: You know, it is partly about measuring the access the
- 1:46Speaker 4: number of people that do have access to those products
- 1:50Speaker 4: and services, but then it's also about their degree of
- 1:55Speaker 4: comfort and security long term, which is a bit subjective
- 1:59Speaker 4: because that's going to look different for everybody. But we
- 2:01Speaker 4: have a huge opportunity ahead of us to make sure
- 2:04Speaker 4: that just that access is taken care of. Principle created
- 2:07Speaker 4: an index called the Global Financial Inclusion Index last year.
- 2:12Speaker 4: We just this week released our second edition of that
- 2:17Speaker 4: and it measures financial inclusion across forty.
- 2:19Speaker 1: Two different markets, markets in terms of countries.
- 2:23Speaker 4: Countries, forty two different countries, and really looks at the
- 2:27Speaker 4: role of three pillars in each of those countries, the government,
- 2:31Speaker 4: the financial system itself, and the role of employers. And
- 2:35Speaker 4: so we can measure each of those pillars by country
- 2:38Speaker 4: and then aggregate that to determine kind of relativeness around
- 2:43Speaker 4: financial inclusion. One of the things that this year's particular
- 2:48Speaker 4: index showed is that those countries that are making the
- 2:51Speaker 4: biggest progress in terms of financial inclusion are the ones
- 2:56Speaker 4: that are making investments to digitally enable access us to
- 3:00Speaker 4: products and services think mobile banking, real time payments, those
- 3:05Speaker 4: types of solutions, which inherently because so many of us
- 3:09Speaker 4: and an ever greater percentage every day, have access to
- 3:12Speaker 4: those computers we hold in our hands, and so that's
- 3:15Speaker 4: a really important component of financial inclusion, the tools at
- 3:22Speaker 4: people's fingertips.
- 3:23Speaker 1: So I imagine we were just talking about holistic systems,
- 3:25Speaker 1: and this isn't something that you're doing because necessarily you
- 3:30Speaker 1: feel sorry for the people who aren't included. It's not
- 3:33Speaker 1: about charity, right, I mean, in some senses maybe, but
- 3:36Speaker 1: really it should be good for the entire society if
- 3:40Speaker 1: you include more people. So do you see a correlation
- 3:44Speaker 1: between those markets that are more financially inclusive and say,
- 3:49Speaker 1: you know, stronger more sustainable growth.
- 3:51Speaker 4: Absolutely? So great, astute question. So not only did we
- 3:54Speaker 4: develop this index, but beyond that, we compare that index
- 3:59Speaker 4: to different indicators of overall economic progress, and there is
- 4:05Speaker 4: a strong correlation there. Countries that have greater financial inclusion
- 4:11Speaker 4: are more resilient, whether it's resilience to climate change, whether
- 4:14Speaker 4: it's resilience to geopolitical risks. They ultimately are more ethical
- 4:22Speaker 4: economies and that leads to happier, more excuse me, more
- 4:27Speaker 4: food secure individuals, and brighter prospects for the future.
- 4:32Speaker 2: How does the US rank on your index?
- 4:34Speaker 4: So the US actually currently ranks number four, sure, four.
- 4:39Speaker 4: We actually dropped a couple of spots from last year's rankings,
- 4:44Speaker 4: and there were a variety of factors that went into that,
- 4:48Speaker 4: one of which is, you know, just consumer sentiment is
- 4:51Speaker 4: an underlying consideration in this research, and consumer sentiment is
- 4:55Speaker 4: changing given you know, all the different factors, whether it's
- 4:58Speaker 4: the economy and concerns related to that, politics, the news cycle,
- 5:05Speaker 4: all of that feeding into overall consumer sentiment.
- 5:08Speaker 2: Who's number one?
- 5:09Speaker 4: Yeah, Singapore is number one. Surprised, Yes, very strong and
- 5:13Speaker 4: on all three.
- 5:13Speaker 1: Pillars, so much easier though it's almost unfair, right, I
- 5:16Speaker 1: mean it's a much smaller market, it is, Yeah.
- 5:19Speaker 4: But there's also been a lot of intentionality around how
- 5:22Speaker 4: those three different pillars all pull their own weight in
- 5:26Speaker 4: order to create a very financially inclusive.
- 5:30Speaker 1: And they have I think a much. I mean, it's
- 5:31Speaker 1: easier with a centrally controlled economy, right, It's probably more
- 5:35Speaker 1: difficult with totally chaotic and broken democracy like they have
- 5:41Speaker 1: here in the US.
- 5:42Speaker 4: There are definitely different sets of challenges when not all
- 5:45Speaker 4: the ores are rowing in the same direction.
- 5:47Speaker 2: What are some of the countries that are, you know,
- 5:50Speaker 2: maybe making big gains or maybe have some real challenges.
- 5:52Speaker 4: In front of them, you know, I would say back
- 5:55Speaker 4: to the comments around you know, digitally enabling, you know,
- 5:59Speaker 4: place is like Taiwan and Vietnam are making some pretty
- 6:03Speaker 4: significant gains because of the infrastructure investments that they are
- 6:06Speaker 4: making to enable their citizens to access financial products and services,
- 6:12Speaker 4: and beyond that, it's also the education that goes with
- 6:17Speaker 4: the use of those products and services.
- 6:19Speaker 1: Are there any big laggards that surprised you, any countries
- 6:22Speaker 1: that you think should be making more headway.
- 6:24Speaker 4: Not specifically country by country. I think, you know, it's
- 6:27Speaker 4: probably not a surprise that developed markets that have more
- 6:31Speaker 4: resources to support their citizens generally rank higher on the index,
- 6:36Speaker 4: and you know, emerging markets tend to fall lower on
- 6:41Speaker 4: the index. But again, the digital component and investing in
- 6:46Speaker 4: infrastructure to support digitization is really key, and those countries
- 6:50Speaker 4: doing that are making the most progress year over year.
- 6:52Speaker 2: I bet for women, I'm not sure if it's just
- 6:54Speaker 2: us or just kind of what generally your findings are women?
- 6:57Speaker 2: Do they feel more or less inclusive relative that maybe
- 7:00Speaker 2: the general population?
- 7:01Speaker 4: Sure, So the short answer to that is they feel
- 7:06Speaker 4: less included, they have less less confidence, and their perceptions
- 7:11Speaker 4: around money management and investing are are different than men.
- 7:18Speaker 4: This is there's recent research that principal did with her
- 7:21Speaker 4: money that just reaffirm that. I think there's very few
- 7:25Speaker 4: people that would say they wouldn't benefit from additional education
- 7:28Speaker 4: and advice, but in particular, women will significantly benefit.
- 7:33Speaker 2: Well, here's a good little story just from yesterday. I
- 7:35Speaker 2: had lunch with my twenty seven year old daughter. We
- 7:38Speaker 2: spent most of lunch talking about investing, like she would,
- 7:41Speaker 2: you know, and you know, she's got that Marcus savings
- 7:44Speaker 2: account and.
- 7:45Speaker 1: She's got a high interest rate there.
- 7:46Speaker 2: Yeah, she's got a high interest rate there. She's just
- 7:48Speaker 2: kind of asking a lot of questions about kind of
- 7:50Speaker 2: what to do, and you know that's great. Yeah, So
- 7:52Speaker 2: I was like.
- 7:53Speaker 4: Nice, and she's listening to da.
- 7:55Speaker 1: Exactly exactly exactly, probably has a head start compared to
- 8:00Speaker 1: most other women in the world, though, right, That is.
- 8:02Speaker 4: Very, very true, and that often is one of the
- 8:05Speaker 4: issues is just this overwhelming feeling of where to start.
- 8:09Speaker 4: They may you know, a lot of people don't have
- 8:10Speaker 4: a dad that can talk with them, you know, over
- 8:13Speaker 4: a meal to you know, answer those questions. And if
- 8:16Speaker 4: you do a search on whatever your browser of choices,
- 8:19Speaker 4: you know, the amount of information that is at someone's
- 8:23Speaker 4: fingertips doesn't make that process easier.
- 8:26Speaker 2: All right, Carols, thanks so much for joining us. Kiro
- 8:28Speaker 2: really appreciate it. Caro Hugginson, she's a senior vice president
- 8:31Speaker 2: and head of workplace benefits at the firm is principal
- 8:35Speaker 2: correct correct, Awesome. So we got it there. So we're
- 8:37Speaker 2: just talking about the financial inclusion. They've got a cool
- 8:40Speaker 2: index there that kind of measures that the US is
- 8:43Speaker 2: ranked num.
- 8:43Speaker 1: Beerfore, we got a little work to do there, folks.
- 8:45Speaker 1: Let's get out there and get it done.
- 8:47Speaker 2: This is Bloomberg.
- 8:49Speaker 5: You're listening to the Team Ken's live program Bloomberg Markets
- 8:53Speaker 5: weekdays at ten am Eastern on Bloomberg dot com, the
- 8:56Speaker 5: iHeartRadio app, and the Bloomberg Business app or listen on
- 9:00Speaker 5: a man wherever you get your podcast.
- 9:03Speaker 2: We got sun beating down on us right coming through
- 9:06Speaker 2: the window here at seven thirty one, like snab we
- 9:08Speaker 2: should use it. We should perfect time. What a great
- 9:11Speaker 2: solar panel. Let's put up a solar let's talk solar energy.
- 9:13Speaker 2: Abigail Ross Cooper joins us. She's a president and CEO
- 9:16Speaker 2: of the Solar Energy Industries Association s E. I A
- 9:20Speaker 2: for the folks in the note. Abigail, thanks for joining
- 9:23Speaker 2: us here talk to us about solar energy. I gotta
- 9:27Speaker 2: think it's a big beneficiary of the you know, the
- 9:32Speaker 2: looking at the green transition. Yeah, the green transition, the
- 9:34Speaker 2: inflation reduction.
- 9:35Speaker 1: Right, We've seen peaks and troughs in terms of investor interests,
- 9:39Speaker 1: but I'm sure the amount of panels out there just
- 9:42Speaker 1: continues to grow to record after record.
- 9:45Speaker 6: Yeah. I mean, first of all, it is hot right here. Yes,
- 9:48Speaker 6: so let's just have a moment. It's working, okay, if
- 9:51Speaker 6: anyone wonder, the technology.
- 9:52Speaker 1: Works, the sun works, Global warming feels real.
- 9:56Speaker 6: It's really real right now. Yeah, it is a ptty
- 10:00Speaker 6: exciting time to be in the solar industry. Our projections
- 10:03Speaker 6: tell us that this year our industry is going to
- 10:05Speaker 6: grow by about fifty two percent, which you were talking
- 10:08Speaker 6: about something growing in half as I was walking up here.
- 10:10Speaker 6: We're going to double, which is an exciting Uh, it's
- 10:13Speaker 6: it's pretty.
- 10:14Speaker 1: We were talking about thirty year treasuries. Yeah, typically a
- 10:17Speaker 1: very safe investment. Yeah, it's been a over the last.
- 10:20Speaker 6: Three not not so exciting. So, yeah, solar is gonna
- 10:23Speaker 6: uh the installations.
- 10:26Speaker 1: What the backlash that Paul has been talking about. You know,
- 10:30Speaker 1: it's become a very political issue ESG in general, the
- 10:34Speaker 1: pain transition obviously, and even though we probably see more
- 10:38Speaker 1: solar panels in Texas than anywhere else in the country,
- 10:42Speaker 1: you've had, especially those people down south, like really pushing
- 10:46Speaker 1: back against ESG.
- 10:47Speaker 6: Yeah. So that's why you're never going to hear those
- 10:50Speaker 6: letters or those come out of my mouth. But you
- 10:52Speaker 6: know what you are going to hear come out of
- 10:53Speaker 6: my mouth at lower prices. Yep, Because yes, it is
- 10:57Speaker 6: true that California is the state with the most solar
- 11:00Speaker 6: in the country.
- 11:00Speaker 1: Right now, California has more than Texas.
- 11:02Speaker 6: Texas and Florida are two and three, and over the
- 11:06Speaker 6: course of the next few years, it's really a race for
- 11:08Speaker 6: which one is going to be number one. Texas and
- 11:10Speaker 6: Florida are not known for their big d politics, right,
- 11:13Speaker 6: but what they are known for is wanting the lowest
- 11:16Speaker 6: energy prices and competitive energy markets. And so that's really
- 11:19Speaker 6: why people are going solar. And when I say people,
- 11:22Speaker 6: I shouldn't say people, I should say customers. And customers
- 11:25Speaker 6: are utilities, customers are corporations, and customers are homeowners, right,
- 11:29Speaker 6: apartment owners, warehouse owners, utilities, co ops, kind of anyone
- 11:34Speaker 6: that wants low energy prices, which is pretty much every
- 11:36Speaker 6: person and every company in the United States talk to.
- 11:39Speaker 2: Us about the efficiency of solar energy versus the other sources,
- 11:43Speaker 2: and sure, and kind of how that I guess maybe
- 11:45Speaker 2: the Eternal mind investment works.
- 11:47Speaker 6: Yeah, So so you sort of ask two different questions,
- 11:51Speaker 6: like breaking news, you guys, the sun does not shine
- 11:54Speaker 6: twenty four hours a day, okay, And so if your
- 11:57Speaker 6: only source of energy is you like unplug from the
- 12:01Speaker 6: grid and you do not have any kind of backup power,
- 12:04Speaker 6: not gonna have power twenty four hours a day. So
- 12:07Speaker 6: you have two choices. You can either not unplug from
- 12:10Speaker 6: the grid and rely on your electric distribution utility for
- 12:13Speaker 6: the other hours of the day, or you can have
- 12:14Speaker 6: a backup battery system, you can have some combination of those.
- 12:18Speaker 6: So we talk about the efficiency or sort of the
- 12:21Speaker 6: capacity factor of a solar system being about you know,
- 12:24Speaker 6: somewhere between twenty and thirty percent. But that's like a
- 12:27Speaker 6: known feature. That's not like shocking news. In terms of
- 12:31Speaker 6: your investment. There's it's a payback period right like it's
- 12:35Speaker 6: and it depends on what your energy prices are to
- 12:37Speaker 6: the payback period. In a high where are we now
- 12:39Speaker 6: New York, your energy prices are a tad bit higher
- 12:41Speaker 6: than Wyoming, right or then South Dakota, and so your
- 12:45Speaker 6: payback period is going to be shorter because your prices
- 12:48Speaker 6: are higher than in those places. So it might be
- 12:50Speaker 6: seven years here, it might be more years in a
- 12:54Speaker 6: lower cost place. It depends a.
- 12:56Speaker 1: Lot many years, is what the payback for you're talking about.
- 12:58Speaker 1: I guess the average family putting solar on that if you.
- 13:01Speaker 6: Put solar on your roof exactly, you know, lots of
- 13:04Speaker 6: lots of factors, but that's around ish.
- 13:07Speaker 1: But how power viewed versus wind nuclear gas.
- 13:13Speaker 6: So so interesting. You know, you can't actually put wind
- 13:17Speaker 6: usually on your home, and you can't have your personal
- 13:19Speaker 6: nuke power.
- 13:20Speaker 1: Right, So those you live in South Dakota.
- 13:24Speaker 6: True, True, and you asked the SMR guys, right, they're
- 13:26Speaker 6: going to tell you could have your own personal SMR.
- 13:30Speaker 6: But so so solar is unique in that you can
- 13:33Speaker 6: have your own like it's scalable in a way that
- 13:35Speaker 6: a lot of other technologies are not. But utilities, right,
- 13:38Speaker 6: they have a choice of different energy prices or energy technologies.
- 13:42Speaker 6: Solar is the number one, number one new energy source
- 13:47Speaker 6: in the country, and it has been for the last
- 13:49Speaker 6: few years. So utilities that are putting on RFPs for
- 13:52Speaker 6: new energy sources, oh sorry, requests for proposals. So they're saying, hey,
- 13:58Speaker 6: you know, we have new load, we have new customers,
- 14:01Speaker 6: we have new towns that are being built, we have
- 14:03Speaker 6: new subdivisions, we have new electric vehicles. Like we are,
- 14:06Speaker 6: we are retiring some assets. We need new capacity to
- 14:10Speaker 6: fuel our system. So we got we were putting out
- 14:13Speaker 6: a request of proposals to build some new electricity. So
- 14:17Speaker 6: who's the best option? And they'll get a whole bunch
- 14:20Speaker 6: of different proposals, and over and over they are choosing
- 14:24Speaker 6: solar and building solar because it's the lowest price and
- 14:28Speaker 6: it's making the most economic sense.
- 14:29Speaker 1: Also, I guess it's easier in places like South Dakota
- 14:32Speaker 1: or Texas right where there's just so much space. Right,
- 14:36Speaker 1: You're not going to build a solar farm in Westchester County,
- 14:41Speaker 1: for example, because everybody is like right next to the goodness,
- 14:43Speaker 1: the Princeton campus for Bloomberg has a massive solar arrangement
- 14:48Speaker 1: down there and everywhere. So does Dennis University's campus. Just
- 14:51Speaker 1: looking at it Grandvillow.
- 14:53Speaker 6: But but your version of massive.
- 14:56Speaker 1: That's you're exactly exactly So do you still see growth
- 14:59Speaker 1: in those big, massive solar farms.
- 15:02Speaker 6: Yes, So the massive version in the West is like, uh,
- 15:08Speaker 6: thousands of acres, thousands of acres. The massive version in
- 15:11Speaker 6: west is some acres.
- 15:14Speaker 2: All right, Abigail, thanks so much for joining us. Abigail
- 15:16Speaker 2: Ross Hooper Hopper, Hopper, hop hopper.
- 15:18Speaker 6: I got that.
- 15:19Speaker 2: I'm sorry, I have to p's a typo here, uh,
- 15:21Speaker 2: President and CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association. Bring
- 15:25Speaker 2: this up to date here on the powers of solar energy.
- 15:29Speaker 2: We're gonna more coming up.
- 15:30Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg.
- 15:31Speaker 5: You're listening to the tape Cat's are Live program Bloomberg
- 15:34Speaker 5: Markets weekdays at ten am Eastern on Bloomberg Radio, the
- 15:38Speaker 5: tune in app, Bloomberg dot Com, and the Bloomberg Business App.
- 15:41Speaker 5: You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our
- 15:44Speaker 5: flagship New York station. Just say Alexa play Bloomberg eleven thirty.
- 15:50Speaker 2: Let's take the discussion of interest rates over to the
- 15:52Speaker 2: world of real estate. You can do that, Soma Hep,
- 15:55Speaker 2: chief economist at core Logic. She can talk about to
- 15:58Speaker 2: fed the rates and the real estate market in general. Selma,
- 16:02Speaker 2: thanks so much for joining us. I just popped up
- 16:04Speaker 2: on the Bloomberg terminal the Bank Greade thirty year fixed
- 16:07Speaker 2: mortgage seven point eight eight percent.
- 16:11Speaker 5: Wow.
- 16:11Speaker 2: What does that mean for the residential real estate market?
- 16:16Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, unfortunately, housing market is really in a low.
- 16:21Speaker 3: We're sitting on a bottom in many ways. When look
- 16:24Speaker 3: at home sales activity, we're at the lowest that we've
- 16:27Speaker 3: been since at least going back to year two thousand
- 16:29Speaker 3: and what's even more sad is that we are lower
- 16:34Speaker 3: than we were coming out of the Great Recession for
- 16:36Speaker 3: the housing market, and that was a really low period
- 16:39Speaker 3: for the housing market. In terms of mortgage activity too,
- 16:43Speaker 3: we are at some forty year low, so we're really
- 16:46Speaker 3: sitting at this bottom right now, trying to figure our
- 16:49Speaker 3: way out. At least now in terms of home sales activity,
- 16:53Speaker 3: what seems to be a little bit of a saving
- 16:56Speaker 3: grace is that we do have a little bit more
- 16:58Speaker 3: of cash sales going on. So cash share has been
- 17:02Speaker 3: on a rise, and that's a function of you know,
- 17:05Speaker 3: baby boomers having more equid in their homes and also
- 17:09Speaker 3: to some extent more investors in the market, particularly smaller
- 17:13Speaker 3: investors in the market. Also in international buyers seem to
- 17:17Speaker 3: be back, so that's helping market a little bit. But
- 17:21Speaker 3: nothing to rave about this point.
- 17:26Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, it's I guess we go back and
- 17:28Speaker 2: look at the last thirty forty fifty years. A seven
- 17:30Speaker 2: percent mortgage market is not the craziest thing. We've seen
- 17:33Speaker 2: that many many times. But I guess the question here,
- 17:36Speaker 2: or the issue here for a lot of folks is, boy,
- 17:38Speaker 2: we moved up in mortgage rates from the really really quickly,
- 17:41Speaker 2: more than doubling, you know, in the space of a year.
- 17:44Speaker 2: That shock presumably will take some time for you know,
- 17:47Speaker 2: kind of the market to absorb.
- 17:48Speaker 3: I guess, yeah, absolutely, I think really for a lot
- 17:52Speaker 3: of buyers it is the shock. I mean affordability, like
- 17:55Speaker 3: I said, is at forty year low, but there are
- 17:56Speaker 3: buyers out there, and there are buyers now even at
- 17:59Speaker 3: the percent rate, you know, first time buyers for example,
- 18:03Speaker 3: So there are folks out that there. They are very interesting.
- 18:05Speaker 3: But you know, it's something we've talked a lot about before,
- 18:08Speaker 3: is lack of inventory. So it's not even just the
- 18:11Speaker 3: rates at this point, but you know, rates, higher rates
- 18:14Speaker 3: are locking in potential sellers. Inventories at the lowest level
- 18:19Speaker 3: we've seen historically, so really, you know, it's it's it's
- 18:22Speaker 3: a quagmire. It's it's we're just you know, there's nothing
- 18:25Speaker 3: it's something you know, at least we need to see
- 18:28Speaker 3: a lower mortgage rate at some point for something to change.
- 18:34Speaker 2: So you know, it's I kind of feel like the
- 18:37Speaker 2: next issue that somebody has to get a handle on
- 18:40Speaker 2: is what is the rate or is there a rate
- 18:42Speaker 2: that kind of frees up the market, clears out the
- 18:44Speaker 2: market that would make you know, it would be sellers say, okay, yes,
- 18:48Speaker 2: I'm getting out of my three or four percent mortgage,
- 18:50Speaker 2: but the rates are i don't know, five percent or
- 18:52Speaker 2: six percent, so it's not that bad. Do you guys
- 18:55Speaker 2: in the industry have a feeling like where interest rates
- 18:58Speaker 2: have to go down to before we start to see
- 19:00Speaker 2: some of these sellers come back into the market.
- 19:03Speaker 3: Yeah, I think if we get back to about six percent,
- 19:06Speaker 3: slightly below six percent, I mean that five handle is
- 19:09Speaker 3: very magical in many ways, but even at six percent,
- 19:13Speaker 3: I mean if you recall earlier this year when mortgage
- 19:16Speaker 3: rates came down to six point two six point three,
- 19:18Speaker 3: we had quite a bit of activity in a market
- 19:21Speaker 3: and even more and inven inventory was picking up to
- 19:25Speaker 3: some extent at that point. At this point we're just
- 19:27Speaker 3: seeing nothing, you know. So I think it would really
- 19:29Speaker 3: help to get richs down to six.
- 19:30Speaker 2: Percent because I guess one of the questions is the
- 19:36Speaker 2: new housing market give its just a sense of what percent? Like,
- 19:40Speaker 2: how big is a new housing market? Can that deal
- 19:42Speaker 2: with some of the demand out there? Where are we
- 19:46Speaker 2: like new housing as percentage of total housing in terms
- 19:48Speaker 2: of supply, right?
- 19:50Speaker 3: I mean it has been increasing, especially now as existing
- 19:56Speaker 3: home sales are frozen and inventory is frozen, So new
- 20:00Speaker 3: home sales is a share of total sales have been
- 20:02Speaker 3: on a rise historically. I think we've seen about eleven
- 20:05Speaker 3: percent of sales being new home sales. Now we are
- 20:09Speaker 3: closer to fifteen sixteen percent of home sales, new home
- 20:13Speaker 3: sales contributing to overall sales activity. Now, the issue too
- 20:18Speaker 3: at this point is that, you know, with mortgage atees
- 20:21Speaker 3: approaching eight percent, now that's freezing new home market as well.
- 20:25Speaker 3: And on the other hand, new home sales are really
- 20:28Speaker 3: concentrated in parts of the country where the inventory issues
- 20:33Speaker 3: are not as large. So, you know, so it's the
- 20:37Speaker 3: other parts of the country that continue to suffer as
- 20:41Speaker 3: a result of low inventory and higher mortgage rates.
- 20:45Speaker 2: Yeah, because it seems like here in the Greater Metro
- 20:47Speaker 2: area during the pandemic, we had a great exodus of
- 20:50Speaker 2: people for you know, states like Texas and Florida and
- 20:53Speaker 2: some of the other maybe Sun belt states. Is a
- 20:57Speaker 2: supplied demand imbalance even more pronounced than some of the
- 21:00Speaker 2: those faster growth market or are the new home builders
- 21:03Speaker 2: kind of trying they're there meeting that demand?
- 21:06Speaker 3: Well, I think they're ramping up. I'm not sure that
- 21:09Speaker 3: they're necessarily meeting demand just simply given how many people
- 21:13Speaker 3: are moving to those areas, but they're ramping up, and
- 21:16Speaker 3: they are, you know, trying to And you know, one
- 21:19Speaker 3: thing to keep in mind is that's it's less restrictive
- 21:22Speaker 3: to building those areas and less costly, so they are
- 21:25Speaker 3: in a sense providing that more affordable inventory and smaller
- 21:30Speaker 3: homes and all these features that the incoming buyers are
- 21:35Speaker 3: looking to looking for. So that is helping the market.
- 21:38Speaker 3: But again I think overall, you know, we're still severely undersupplied.
- 21:43Speaker 3: If you look at the existing homes for sale right
- 21:46Speaker 3: for example, we are now at about a million, you know,
- 21:50Speaker 3: it depends on a month. But to get in a
- 21:52Speaker 3: more balanced market, we would need at least double that,
- 21:55Speaker 3: at least one point eight million. Same thing for new
- 21:58Speaker 3: home sales. I mean new homes are now below below
- 22:03Speaker 3: about seven hundred thousand. I want to say we would
- 22:05Speaker 3: need to at least increase that by fifty percent to
- 22:08Speaker 3: get some relief in terms of pressure on home prices
- 22:13Speaker 3: and overall affordability and just just better, better balanced housing market.
- 22:20Speaker 2: All right, So let's let let's say I'm able to
- 22:22Speaker 2: stomach the seven to eight thirty year fixed mortgage. If
- 22:26Speaker 2: I go into my bank or my mortgage worker, can.
- 22:28Speaker 3: I get a loan? Here?
- 22:30Speaker 2: Can I get a mortgage? Well?
- 22:32Speaker 3: I think so, I mean, I think the lenders are
- 22:35Speaker 3: really trying to get buyers in. At this point, given
- 22:38Speaker 3: just how many have fallen out with higher mortgage rates,
- 22:41Speaker 3: it sounds like income qualifying incomes are now an issue
- 22:46Speaker 3: because of debt to income ratio, given how much higher
- 22:49Speaker 3: the mortgage rates are. But I mean, you know, lenders
- 22:52Speaker 3: are being innovative. They are trying to find ways to
- 22:57Speaker 3: qualify folks, you know, and for sample, in a new
- 23:00Speaker 3: home market, there is still a lot of homebuilders and
- 23:04Speaker 3: developers that are offering mortgage rate buydown programs, which is
- 23:08Speaker 3: helping with that affordability at least in the first couple
- 23:11Speaker 3: of years of home ownership.
- 23:15Speaker 2: All Right, So I guess talk to us about the
- 23:18Speaker 2: rental market then, I mean, if I decide I can't
- 23:21Speaker 2: really stomach of seven or eight percent mortgage, I got
- 23:23Speaker 2: to continue to rent or go out and rent versus
- 23:25Speaker 2: buy is what we see in the rental market, right.
- 23:29Speaker 3: I mean, there's two different stores in a rental market.
- 23:31Speaker 3: There is a single family rental market and there is
- 23:33Speaker 3: a multi family rental market. And we've seen quite a
- 23:36Speaker 3: bit of a new construction going on in multifamily on
- 23:39Speaker 3: a multi family side, which is putting pressure lower on
- 23:44Speaker 3: rent increases. And in some markets we have now at
- 23:48Speaker 3: this point seen decline in rents, especially in these markets
- 23:51Speaker 3: that were really high growth, high rent growth during the pandemic.
- 23:55Speaker 3: You know, think of Austin, Phoenix, Vegas. Uh, this is
- 23:59Speaker 3: really Miami for example. This is really high growth markets
- 24:02Speaker 3: during the pandemic. But on a single family side, we
- 24:05Speaker 3: are seeing rents plateau, rent growth at least plateau. And
- 24:09Speaker 3: actually the markets where we are seeing a lot of
- 24:12Speaker 3: increases in rent or relatively higher increase in rent growth.
- 24:16Speaker 3: Are these Midwest more affordable you know, sort of easy
- 24:20Speaker 3: as it goes kind of markets seeing loos for example,
- 24:23Speaker 3: tops are lists, you know, so it's it's different dynamics
- 24:28Speaker 3: going on, but people definitely who cannot afford our pivoting
- 24:31Speaker 3: to single family rental markets.
- 24:35Speaker 2: Hey Sam, thank you, thanks so much for joining us.
- 24:37Speaker 2: Really appreciate it. Soma Help, chief economist at Core Longa
- 24:40Speaker 2: talking about the real estate business.
- 24:42Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Markets podcast. You can
- 24:45Speaker 1: subscribe and listen to interviews at Apple Podcasts or whatever
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- 24:53Speaker 1: at Matt Miller nineteen seventy three and on Faul Sweeney.
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- 24:59Speaker 2: can always catch us worldwide at Bloomberg Radio