The Price of Your Home Carries Key to Recession

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
The Price of Your Home Carries Key to Recession

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A recession could render the U.S. economy troubled. What trigger could begin it? For one, the way your home price may fall.

The real estate value surge, part of the rise in gross domestic product for two years, will end soon. Improved home equity has helped fuel optimism and consumer spending. Americans may feel poor as that equity decreases and the opportunity to profit from home sales fades each month.
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Home prices have climbed due to low interest rates, as well as a mobile population arising from “work at home” options created by the new COVID-19 economy.

High interest rates produce high mortgage rates. Today, they are well above 5% and rising. A year ago, they were below 3%.
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The median price of an existing home nationwide has risen above $350,000 for the first time. Consider that jump as about 20% year over year. That, in turn, creates a better value of $50,000. People with mortgage rates well below $300,000 have money “money in the bank.”
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The core of the Great Recession originated with a collapse of home prices. Americans felt poor as the size of mortgages dropped below home equity values. This triggered mortgage defaults. The dominos fell further, as mortgage defaults led to evictions, and areas with high eviction rates lost any appeal they might have to buyers.
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Consider your home’s price. If it has made your “bank account” more valuable, your feelings about the economy could be very positive. Within a few months, that could change entirely. Based on your location, that worry could be high.

People look at their finances differently based on savings, frugality and income. Income and frugality will not disappear for money. Home prices, often considered as savings, may erode.

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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