Live data from Hacker News

Rocket Mortgage to trim 8% of workforce as home-loan market shrinks

detroitnews.com

31–40 of 510 posts

Re: Rocket Mortgage to trim 8% of workforce as home-loan market shrinks

#31

Seems like the bubble burst is going to be more sudden than we thought. 30 year mortgages are suddenly at nearly 5.5-6%, listings are sitting on the market for longer, and multiple cities are cracking down on Airbnb.

I mean, it's not really a burst, we're just hearing the hissing noise of the obvious leak. The true demand from people with the intend to actually live in the estates has been constantly decreasing since around 2000; the real salarys dropped since then, so did the buying power. The only reasons people found buyers at x3-x10 (!) prices were a) that there is a class of people wealthy enough to still afford the purchase…

Housing legislation is something that few politicians have been talking about in the last decade. We have spent a lot more time talking about healthcare, and student debt, but not the number one financial factor which is housing. You really can’t leave it alone with legislation every 20 something years, you sort of have to keep evaluating and reevaluating it. Otherwise while we let the current systems in place fester, what you get is side effects that we simply can’t address until decades later (e.g Canada banning foreign buyers, ok great, the damage has already been done).

Many of the investor class had the first mover advantage where they simply bought a house before everyone else and can now leverage those gains into more investment/rental income property. Couple that with foreign investment. Couple that with home equity and margin loans. Couple that with the private sector collecting houses. Couple that with mortgage fraud where people don’t pay investor taxes and continuously buy homes as a first time home owner. Couple that with with all kinds of things. I know a home owner that owns multiple homes, stopped paying taxes on one and had a tax lien discharge. They go on to sell that other home at profit and pay off the IRS. They never took the hit on their first home in any way. Multiple ownership is a problem, period.

We finally end up to where we are today and the only powerful entity that modulates this is the Fed, but not a single politician is taking up the battle over the fact that the multiple home ownership is killing our society at the moment.

Re: Rocket Mortgage to trim 8% of workforce as home-loan market shrinks

#32
post #30

This is actually a good thing. House cycles exist and it's better to have smaller, more frequent ones than massive ones like 2008. Canada never had a 2008 housing crash. Housing has been on a tear since the early 2000's and the average sale price of a home (nationally) is 2x that of the US despite lower salaries, higher taxes and a lack of 30-year fixed rates. That is a bubble. My opinion is the US market is hot , bu…

If you plot Canadian housing supply vs Canadian city population growth, you get another perspective. Houses are incredibly expensive, because there aren't enough of them

Re: Rocket Mortgage to trim 8% of workforce as home-loan market shrinks

#33

Seems like the bubble burst is going to be more sudden than we thought. 30 year mortgages are suddenly at nearly 5.5-6%, listings are sitting on the market for longer, and multiple cities are cracking down on Airbnb.

That's really high compared to Europe!

I just bought a new house with 2% on the interest-only part and 1.6% on the annuity part!

In the month after rates grew by about 0.5% though. Seems like we hit the bottom and are climbing very slowly.

Re: Rocket Mortgage to trim 8% of workforce as home-loan market shrinks

#34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, it's not really a burst, we're just hearing the hissing noise of the obvious leak. The true demand from people with the intend to actually live in the estates has been constantly decreasing since around 2000; the real salarys dropped since then, so did the buying power. The only reasons people found buyers at x3-x10 (!) prices were a) that there is a class of people wealthy enough to still afford the purchase…

Housing legislation is something that few politicians have been talking about in the last decade. We have spent a lot more time talking about healthcare, and student debt, but not the number one financial factor which is housing. You really can’t leave it alone with legislation every 20 something years, you sort of have to keep evaluating and reevaluating it. Otherwise while we let the current systems in place fester…

Couldn’t agree more. Another issue: home owners are incentivized to see their assets appreciate.

Makes passing meaningful legislation hard, especially if it will actively hurt a substantial number of voters (and every politician).

Re: Rocket Mortgage to trim 8% of workforce as home-loan market shrinks

#35

Seems like the bubble burst is going to be more sudden than we thought. 30 year mortgages are suddenly at nearly 5.5-6%, listings are sitting on the market for longer, and multiple cities are cracking down on Airbnb.

That's really high compared to Europe! I just bought a new house with 2% on the interest-only part and 1.6% on the annuity part! In the month after rates grew by about 0.5% though. Seems like we hit the bottom and are climbing very slowly.

Is that rate fixed for 30 years?

Re: Rocket Mortgage to trim 8% of workforce as home-loan market shrinks

#36

Seems like the bubble burst is going to be more sudden than we thought. 30 year mortgages are suddenly at nearly 5.5-6%, listings are sitting on the market for longer, and multiple cities are cracking down on Airbnb.

I mean, it's not really a burst, we're just hearing the hissing noise of the obvious leak. The true demand from people with the intend to actually live in the estates has been constantly decreasing since around 2000; the real salarys dropped since then, so did the buying power. The only reasons people found buyers at x3-x10 (!) prices were a) that there is a class of people wealthy enough to still afford the purchase…

maybe one more interesting detail worth noting:

c) private equity firms are buying up insane amounts of real estate, being able to outbid regular home buyers and (don’t quote me on this b/c I’m not 100% sure) pay cash for the properties they buy.

Re: Rocket Mortgage to trim 8% of workforce as home-loan market shrinks

#37
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Cracking down on Airbnb"... you say this as if Airbnb is a horrible thing or something LOL

I don’t know about other places, but Airbnb has been a mixed bag for NYC: I’ve seen it used to keep housing stock off the market, to dodge the obligations associated with keeping a property livable, and to essentially run entire illegal hotel businesses without attracting regulatory (including safety) scrutiny.

AirBnb in NYC is also a fertile ground for scams

Re: Rocket Mortgage to trim 8% of workforce as home-loan market shrinks

#39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's really high compared to Europe! I just bought a new house with 2% on the interest-only part and 1.6% on the annuity part! In the month after rates grew by about 0.5% though. Seems like we hit the bottom and are climbing very slowly.

Is that rate fixed for 30 years?

No, 20 years fixed rate on a 30 year mortgage.

Re: Rocket Mortgage to trim 8% of workforce as home-loan market shrinks

#40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's really high compared to Europe! I just bought a new house with 2% on the interest-only part and 1.6% on the annuity part! In the month after rates grew by about 0.5% though. Seems like we hit the bottom and are climbing very slowly.

Is that rate fixed for 30 years?

It's practically impossible to get fixed rates in europe.
Post reply on HN