- SELLING HOMES – The sale of existing homes nationwide peaked at 7.1 million in 2005, then fell for the next 3 years before bottoming at 4.1 million in 2008 but has climbed back to 6.1 million sales in 2021 (source: National Association of Realtors).
- NO DEBT – As of 9/30/2021, 26% of all US households (both renter households and owner households) are homeowners who have no mortgage debt on their primary residence, i.e., 33.3 million debt-free households out of 126.9 million households nationwide (source: MBA).
- WELCOME BACK TO WORK – 89% of the 25.5 million American jobs lost during the first 2 months of the global pandemic (i.e., between February 2020 and April 2020) have been hired back by employers as of the end of December 2021 (source: Department of Labor).
- CARS IN DEMAND – The price of “new vehicles” increased +11.8% in 2021, dwarfed by the +37.3% increase in the price of “used cars and trucks” last year (source: Bureau of Labor Statistics).
- GOING MY WAY? – The 3 most popular states to move into during 2021 were Texas, Florida and Tennessee. The 3 states with the greatest outflow of people during 2021 were California, Illinois and Pennsylvania. The rankings are based on more than 2 million rentals of moving trucks last year that involved a “1-way” interstate movement of furnishings, personal belongings and clothing (source: U-Haul Migration Trends 2021).
- RUSH TO BUY – Americans borrowed a record $1.61 trillion from mortgage lenders in 2021 to purchase homes, breaking the previous record high for purchase loans of $1.51 trillion set in 2005. The purchase loan total does not include individuals who refinanced existing mortgages (source: Mortgage Bankers Association).
- THEY OWN IT NOW – Banks foreclosed on just 25,662 homes nationwide in 2021, down 49% from 50,238 foreclosures in 2020 and down 82% from 143,955 foreclosures in 2019. The worst single year of foreclosures in US history was 1,050,500 foreclosures in calendar year 2010 (source: ATTOM Data Solutions).
- A LOT FEWER – There were 1.53 million homes for sale nationwide as of 12/31/2018. Nearly 3 years later, there were 1.11 million homes for sale nationwide as of 11/30/2021 (source: National Association of Realtors).
- DUE IN APRIL – Tesla founder Elon Musk claims that as a result of exercising stock options in 2021 that were awarded to him in 2012, he will pay over $11 billion in federal income tax when he files his 2021 individual income tax return, the largest federal income tax bill for any individual in US history. Musk received 26.4 million non-qualified stock options in 2012, allowing him to buy his company’s stock at $6.24 a share at any time before August 2022. Musk is the richest person in the world, worth $263 billion as of 1/07/2022 (source: CNBC).
- NECESSARY SKILLS – Utah has the top financial literacy requirement for its high school students of any of the 50 US states. Utah requires all of its high school students to take a half-year course dedicated to personal finance, and then to take a final exam administered by the state. Ohio is the latest US state to add some form of financial literacy instruction at the high school level, effective 1/27/2022 (source: Champlain College Inc.).
Courtesy of Mortgage Market Guide
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