Paul Ferley Rising Quotations

But in the current environment, interest rates are not rising to punitive levels; rather, the current tightening is meant to keep growth at a sustainable pace.

Pressures are particularly evident in the West where housing prices in local markets such as Riverside-San Bernardino (outside of Los Angeles) and Las Vegas are rising rapidly with an attendant marked deterioration in affordability. Rising prices in those areas seem more the result of speculative pressures and thus indicative of local housing market bubbles. There is the definite risk in these markets that prices will eventually need to correct sharply lower.

Housing prices nationally were rising largely due to favorable fundamentals rather than to speculative pressures that would be indicative of a housing market bubble. However, the situation seems to have changed recently. Affordability has deteriorated significantly in the second and third quarters of 2005 as housing price increases have spiked higher. As a result, affordability is quickly closing the gap relative to this measure's long-run historical average.

Bubble conditions may not be present yet but are approaching such and thus require close monitoring going forward. To allay this concern, housing price increases will need to start to moderate soon from recent sharp increases. Our expectation is that this should occur, since rising mortgage rates should slow the growth in housing prices to a rate below gains in income.