Unless incomes will go up 31% in the next 14 months, I highly doubt that figure. Incidentally, when I was renting my unit, I got quite a few callbacks, but maybe only 1/3 to 1/2 of those responded when I got back to them.

Or really horrible tenants — once their contract expires, they can jet back home, leave the apartment a complete toilet, and good luck collecting damages.

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H1B tenant is great. Indian EB3 more so. They might be stuck in process for a decade. I took the kids to see the place where we lived 2007-2009. The Indian H1B family that was there when we moved in is still there.

This is a pretty academic paper, and it’s not clear to me the researcher has his/her feet on terra firma. Take this statement:

At the same time though, the level of house prices is by far the most important cyclical variable that influences the inventory of homes for sale.

What about builders and new homes?

And this statement:

…Las Vegas, Miami, and Phoenix, the total inventory of homes for rent is approaching that of homes for sale. …the impact of investors in these markets should not be overstated.

The impact of investors cannot be overstated, or should not understated? These are the only three places that corrected and investors flocked to them. Las Vegas saw a 29% increase in one year to July 2013. That party is, I believe, now over. I have seen up to 50% percent of inventory with multiple price reductions. There is a distinct pattern emerging in many of the listings that looks like investor activity. Supply is rebounding, which is what you’d expect, as hedge funds offload in what now seems like a declining market. They sucked up the supply creating the vacuum, pushing up prices and now want to cash in their chips. I’d say investors have had a big influence on this market.

I just couldn’t make sense of this statement:

The decline in homes for sale is very closely linked with the large downward shift in the homeownership rate in these markets. It is impossible to say though whether declining sales are pushing down homeownership rates or falling homeownership is pushing down sales…

I think that what they are trying to say, is that the desire to own a home is falling. But we know that credit, unemployment, affordability, inventory, where we are in the cycle, consumer confidence, demographics, urban vs rural, and a host of other factors are influential in the buoyancy, or otherwise, of the housing market.

The best thing that could happen is that QE3 continues, but will simply become old news. Fed would lose control of interest rates, and some of Zimbabwe Ben’s asset-inflationary bad work would be unwound. Better now than later when the fall will be even harder.

Bonus points when Q4 earnings (affected by shutdown) start flowing in three months and are compared with stock valuations. Add to that the Jan 15 deadline for another shutdown, and we might have interesting times ahead!

And yes, I know that stocks =/= housing, but the two are intimately related, at least emotionally.

Let them consolidate and/or stop paying their blue-collar employees $100k+ per year. If some overpaid cops and trash collectors leave the state and move to Alabama, good riddance to bad union garbage.