Rams training camp to open Tuesday with rookies reporting to UC Irvine

It’s still hard to believe this is really happening

It’s back-to-school time for the Rams’ rookies, and the syllabus appears rather daunting.

Just a few months after most of them left college, the Rams’ 27 rookies will move into UC Irvine campus housing Tuesday, then hit the field Wednesday for the first of their two practices before veterans arrive.

The big man on campus, naturally, will be quarterback Jared Goff, who made his name at another University of California school, the flagship in Berkeley. Goff, the No. 1 overall pick in April’s NFL draft, has a secure roster spot but will attempt to win the starting job during camp.

The Rams last camped at UC Irvine in August 1994. Two months later, Goff was born, and in April 1995, the team moved to St. Louis. Now, 22 years later, the Rams have returned for five weeks of practice.

The rookies check in Tuesday and get a two-day head start on the veterans, who arrive Thursday in advance of the first full-team workout on Saturday. The youngsters will need to utilize every practice in order to show coaches they deserve to deserve a spot on the 53-man roster in early September.

Many of the rookies – six draft picks and 21 undrafted free agents – won’t survive the Aug. 30 first round of cuts, which will take the roster from 90 players to 75. Another 18 cuts will come Sept. 3, but that’s when the Rams can establish a 10-player practice squad and keep alive the NFL dreams of some rookies.

The vetting process already has begun. Most of these rookies were on the field in Oxnard, in May for a mini-camp and in June for full-team optional workouts. Some stood out while others made little impact.

The most intriguing battles might be at receiver and tight end, positions critical to Goff’s development.

Only five or six receivers are likely to be on the roster, and fourth-round pick Pharoh Cooper, a standout in OTA practices, looks like a good bet to earn a spot with veterans Tavon Austin and Kenny Britt.

That leaves two spots, and the question of whether returning receivers such as Brian Quick and Bradley Marquez can hold off rookies such as sixth-round pick Mike Thomas and undrafted free agents Marquez North, Nelson Spruce, Duke Williams and Paul McRoberts.

Karl Case, Economist Who Developed Home Price Index, Dies at 69

Karl E. Case, an economics professor at Wellesley College who helped revolutionize how home prices are tracked by real estate professionals and home buyers alike, died on July 15 in Wellesley, Mass. He was 69.

Mr. Case had Parkinson’s disease and multiple myeloma and died in a hospice near his home, his wife, Susan, said.

While the daily ups and downs of prices for stocks and bonds have long been easy to obtain and analyze, the housing market was much more opaque when Mr. Case teamed up in the 1980s with a Yale economist, Robert Shiller, to develop an economic model to track home values.

The two collected information like the price of the same property over time as it changed hands, and tweaked the data to account for reliability and other quirks. This created what has become the benchmark for gauging the value of the single biggest investment most Americans own: their home.

The Case-Shiller Index charted the remarkable rise of housing prices in the bubble that preceded the Great Recession, its subsequent bursting, the sharp declines in 2008 and 2009, and the slow but steady recovery in the real estate market since then.

Both men warned before the recession that the housing market was getting ahead of itself. Mr. Case presciently sounded the alarm about the danger posed by rising subprime borrowing in the decade before the financial crisis.

“He was more connected to the business world than most academics,” Mr. Shiller said in an interview. “He also talked to people in the real world, like home appraisers, in order to isolate data for housing prices, which wasn’t easy.”

Gov. Brown foregoes green law to build more housing

Governor Brown recently proposed a plan allowing development projects meeting certain parameters to obtain permits without waiting for environmental reviews and other lengthy revision processes to clear.

Urban infill projects qualify for the governor’s plan and waiver of environmental review when they:

comply with existing general zoning plans on land previously zoned for high-density residential construction;
neighbor public transit systems; and
reserve 5-20% of units for low-income residents, depending on proximity to transit systems.

The proposal targets limitations set forth by the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), a notorious law beloved by not-in-my-backyard (NIMBY) protesters. NIMBYs often use the CEQA to significantly delay, or worse, stop projects they find personally unsavory — whether or not an environmental offense is truly in question.

Brown’s plan to simplify and expedite developer’s permits helps solve a problem developers and other building and rezoning activists have struggled with for years – local opposition to developments which ease the strain of overcrowding in California’s housing markets.

However, NIMBYs aren’t about to let go of their old reliable kiss-of-death tactic. Already, many are up in arms over the allegedly drastic side effects of the governor’s plan to get more housing now.
A new approach to the environmental stymie

Contrary to popular belief, the governor’s proposal holds few sinister ramifications for the environment. The proposal targets land which has already been zoned for high-density development. Thus, the environmental effects of building on the land has been previously assessed and determined a nonissue.

Additionally, building in an already urban area – near transit systems – creates less environmental change than outward expansion into open regions. The construction likely to result from the governor’s proposal will increase density in existing cities — a necessity for mass transit — rather than reap and develop previously untouched land on the peripheries of communities.

In fact, environmentalists have little to complain about. More than half of California’s land is controlled by governmental factions as public land used mainly for energy, conservation, recreation and necessary establishments like schools.

Governor Brown’s proposal is part of the housing solution California desperately needs. Increased urban density by infill construction can only help supply the demand that has pushed home prices beyond renters’ and buyers’ stagnant incomes. When supply approaches balance with demand, rents and home prices stabilize. Buyers are able to save and enhance their finances to take out mortgages and purchase homes.

Urban density buildup also limits the adverse side effects of low supply, like heavy traffic. More centralized density means fewer commuters from the suburbs and more residents able to take advantage of intracity public transit, which reduces the need for subsidies and parking facilities. It also means more economic stability, as businesses no longer need to fight or flee to keep their employees — and, in turn, their profits, to remain viable and part of the community.

Of course, real estate agents and their brokers benefit from urban density, too. Greater density means more homebuyers are able to stay in the city, and prices will eventually drop to manageable levels as city councils permit construction to pick up — allowing still more homebuyers back into the market.

Why Building More Homes Won’t Help Housing Affordability

Certain old saws that fuel the predictions of economic pundits should periodically be tested to determine if they maintain their predictive accuracy. Three such the old school rules that are heavily relied upon to predict and explain housing economics are the following:

1. When employment is high people buy homes
2. When interest rates are low people buy homes
3. When rent inflation is high people buy homes

Shelter is a product that millions of Americans will purchase each year, but what economic factors cause growth or decline in the purchase of this product? If high employment, low interest rates and high rent inflation, three factors that are present in today’s economy, stimulate the purchase of this product, then why has the level of growth in mortgage home sales this 8 year economic cycle disappointed many housing pundits and experts?

I give them (minor) credit that they no longer blame tight lending. That completely unsupported thesis has finally succumbed to a slow and painful death. The new “stalking horse” that has replaced tight lending as the favorite unsupported thesis to explain the low sales numbers, is tight inventory. According to the “experts” we simply don’t have enough homes to address the high demand.
In a previous article “Low Housing Inventory Lie Still Lives On”

Low Housing Inventory Lie Still Lives On

I discuss and document with data, that existing home sales inventory ( annual months) was slightly higher in 2012-2016, the period of supposed low inventory, than in the period of 1999-2005, when housing sales were exploding. In other words, if it is low inventory that is preventing growth in sales, why are sales lower in a time when inventory is higher than it was when sale were higher?

One of the problems with buying into the low inventory thesis is that what follows from this is the assumption that if builders build more homes, we should see purchases increase. And because supply has increased, home prices should be more affordable.

The obvious problem with this thesis is that builders are not building starter homes. For the past four decades, in fact, builders are building bigger and bigger homes and flooding the market with higher prices homes for the wealthy. This will not do anything to make homes more affordable for the rest everyone else.

If you need proof of this, look behind you. We already ran this experiment. Did the ramp-up in home building from 1994-2007, especially the massive over building from 2002-2006, make housing cheaper?

Where have all the foreclosures gone?

Can-kicking bad loans works

It’s not news that foreclosures are declining as the housing market and economy recover. But data provider Black Knight Financial Services reported Tuesday that first-time foreclosure starts were the lowest not just since the housing bubble burst, but since 2000.

There were 77,657 such starts in the second quarter, Black Knight said. That’s a 16% decline from the first quarter and 25% lower than the same period a year ago.

Repeat foreclosures are also falling rapidly: there were 114,620 in the second quarter, down 17% from the first quarter and 8% compared to a year ago, but still more than double the level they averaged from 2000 to 2005.

It’s worth remembering that foreclosures aren’t just a creature of the crisis. In the oil states of Alaska and North Dakota, “non-current” rates (defined as delinquencies and foreclosures, combined) have jumped by double digits over the past six months.

While it’s good news for homeowners and the economy that the national trends are down, most analysts believe post-crisis lending has been too strict. Many believe it’s worth taking some more risk to boost homeownership and stimulate the economy.

US new-home sales climbed in June to more than 8-year high

WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans bought new homes in June at the fastest pace in more than eight years, a sign that a solid job market and low mortgage rates are bolstering the broader U.S. economy.

The Commerce Department said Tuesday that new-home sales rose 3.5 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted rate of 592,000, the best level since February 2008. Purchases of new homes have climbed 10.1 percent year-to-date, despite volatile sales on a monthly basis.

Low mortgage rates and a healthy job market have lifted the real estate market, which continues to recover from the depths of the housing bust that began nearly a decade ago. Greater demand and tight inventories have led to rising prices, such that the potential to return to the historic sales rate of 650,000 new homes could be limited. Builders say they’re struggling to find both workers and land for additional construction.

June’s median sales price rose 6.1 percent from a year ago to $306,700. Just 4.9 months’ supply of new homes is listed for sale, well below this historic average of six months. Sales surged in the West and Midwest by more than 10 percent in June, but declined in the Northeast and South.

The market for new houses is roughly just a tenth of the size of the existing-home market, where sales are also rising even as the number of listings are shrinking on a yearly basis. The National Association of Realtors said last week that sales of existing homes rose 1.1 percent in June to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.57 million, the best performance since February 2007. But the number of listings has fallen 5.8 percent from a year ago to 2.12 million.

Builders remain relatively confident that they’ll continue to expand, although their optimism waned slightly in July.

The National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo builder sentiment index dropped one point to 59. Readings above 50 indicate more builders view sales conditions as good, rather than poor. The index had mostly held at 58 this year before rising to 60 in June.

Builders’ view of current sales and traffic by prospective buyers slipped one point this month. Their outlook for sales over the next six months slid three points.

Construction of single-family houses has increased, rising 4.4 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 778,000 in June.

Propelling much of this demand has been an improving job market coupled with cheaper borrowing costs.

The unemployment rate is a solid 4.9 percent. Employers added 287,000 workers in June, a strong rebound after the pace of hiring slipped in April and May.

Wow. This is not the Elizabeth Warren that I used to know

Long piece but a worthy read

Facebook’s Answer to Silicon Valley Housing Crunch: Build Apartments

Concerns about Silicon Valley’s housing shortage are turning the world’s leading social media company into an apartment developer.

Fast-growing Facebook Inc. is in the midst of a push to expand its headquarters complex in its hometown of Menlo Park, Calif., a plan for 6,500 new employees that has rankled some locals frustrated with crowding.

So in an effort to shore up city support, Facebook earlier this month made an unusual pledge for a tech company. It would build at least 1,500 units of housing, meant not specifically for Facebook employees, but for the general public.

The novel move is a gesture intended to address a growing frustration in the region: too many workers, too few homes.

“There is a lack of housing in the area,” said John Tenanes, Facebook’s head of real estate. “The intent here is to make an impact … it’s to try something new and something bold and to try to make a difference.”

Under the plan, 15% of the units would be reserved for low- or middle-income families, and the company is offering numerous other benefits for the city, including millions of dollars to study and improve transportation. It is unclear whether Facebook or a third party would develop the buildings, which are located on a site that is currently a set of industrial buildings owned by Facebook. The timing, too, is uncertain.

Other tech giants are likely watching closely. Google Inc. has voiced support for allowing housing on numerous sites it owns in its hometown of Mountain View, Calif., though it has no detailed plans for those sites.

By all accounts, the imbalance of extraordinary job creation and severe housing shortages in Silicon Valley and San Francisco to the north is only poised to grow in coming years.