This post first appeared in the November edition of Cirios Trends: Getting to the Bottom of the Housing Market

This piece first appeared on Minyanville.

By Andrew Jeffery

Reality, it appears, is a dish Washington believes is best served, never.

Late Friday evening on October 30th, long after most Americans had shut off their computer screens and turned their attention to more important things — namely, Halloween — banking regulators dropped a silent, rotten egg onto the financial system.

Despite an alarming increase in the number of troubled commercial real estate loans gumming up bank balance sheets, the Federal Reserve, FDIC, and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency issued new guidelines Friday easing the burden this souring debt will have on lenders. Regulators are encouraging banks to modify loans, rather than foreclose and repossess property, even if the value of the building has fallen below the amount of the loan.

Loan workouts, regulators argue, can be beneficial to both lender and borrower, and are preferred to foreclosures, which drag down prices. But one look at the earlier-to-crash residential real estate market quickly proves this notion as a fallacy.

In many of the hardest hit real estate markets, ones which imploded well before ill-fated mortgage modification attempts were launched, true price discovery was given a slim opening to take hold. Now, as prices have fallen back to more affordable levels, traditional homebuyers and real estate investors have stepped back into the market, helping to stabilize prices.

Sure, there’s still a healthy dose of government intervention propping up the housing market as a whole, but only through these fresh starts can markets begin a genuine healing process.

Well-to-do markets, on the other hand, have not yet had their requisite dose of price discovery, as corrective market mechanisms are being prevented from functioning. Foreclosure moratoria (ongoing) and modification efforts (floundering) are simply kicking the proverbial can down a long proverbial road.

So too in commercial real estate, as landlords face increasing vacancies, falling rents, and, according to the Wall Street Journal, $1.4 trillion in maturing loans over the next five years. Around half of these are said to be underwater, and thus cannot be refinanced at current price levels.

Regulators’ answer, not unlike the failed mortgage modification programs introduced by the Bush and continued by the Obama Administration, is to allow big banks like Citigroup, JPMorgan, and Bank of America to forestall the recognition of losses, trying to delay the inevitable bursting of the commercial real estate bubble.

With Wall Street’s collective eyes focused on Monday’s headlines — CIT’s bankruptcy, Goldman Sachs picking up tax credits from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and of course the Yankees a single win away from their twenty-seventh World Series title — regulators are hoping investors will ignore the stench of this well-timed announcement as just another holdover from Halloween revelry gone awry.

And while the new guidelines may bolster efforts to make the banking system look healthier than it actually is, it’s further proof that rumors of a legitimate economic recovery are, in fact, greatly overestimated.

This post first appeared on Minyanville.

Despite the best efforts of the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department, the free market is winning the battle over mortgage rates. Tens of trillions of dollars in support for the financial system can’t change the stark reality: Giving out home loans remains risky business.

Borrowers looking to take advantage of rock-bottom interest rates are seeing the opportunity slip through their fingers, as rates have risen by more than 0.50% in the past few weeks.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the pop in rates is due to expectations of economic recovery, combined with fears that the mounting pile of debt incurred by Washington’s central economic planners may not be sustainable. As the government prints money and plunges the country into an ever-deeper deficit, holders of US Treasuries (e.g. China) are getting skittish. These investors are quietly demanding a higher return on their bet that our economy will pull out of its current tailspin.

This, in turn, is pushing up mortgage rates, which doesn’t bode well for nascent signs of recovery. Big lenders like Wells Fargo (WFC), Bank of America (BAC) and JPMorgan Chase (JPM) — despite offloading nearly all default risk to taxpayers via Fannie Mae (FNM), Freddie Mac (FRE), or the Federal Housing Administration — are asking prospective borrowers to pony up hefty points up front to get the lowest rate possible.

And this at a time when pundits and performance-chasing portfolio managers are latching onto the absurd notion that the nation’s housing market is making some sort of fundamentally sound turnaround. A contributor to CNBC actually said with a straight face that our economy can’t grow with mortgage rates this “high,” and that the Fed is derailing the recovery by letting rates move up.

To say that our economy is undergoing some sort of legitimate recovery, and at the same time assert mortgage rates a hair above 5% are too high is to confirm that those declaring the recession in our rear view mirror are delusional at best, talking their book at worst.

As renewed fears of inflation percolate and investors begin to snatch up commodities in expectation of future prices, pressure will mount on the Fed to keep rates of all kinds low to ensure the economy doesn’t remain mired in its current malaise. This means more printing press activity, more “quantitative” easing, and more social-welfare programs packaged as “progressive” economic policy.

Battle lines are being drawn: Washington bureaucrats on one side, advancing the theory that money can be printed seemingly without limit to generate legitimate economic growth – and the market on the other. And each time the Fed takes its foot off the dollar-debasement accelerator, we get a peek into what will happen when the printing presses finally run out of ink.

By ANDREW JEFFERY

This post first appeared on Minyanville.

The horses, pigs, cows, goats, sheep, llamas, ostriches, dromedaries and rhinos have all left the barn, yet the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) still thinks it should be minding the door.

In light of its woeful inability to perform even the simplest of tasks — like making sure the biggest hedge fund in the world, I don’t know, makes a trade once every 13 years — the Obama administration is looking to strip the SEC of certain regulatory responsibilities.

And rightly so.

According to Bloomberg, plans could be announced as early as next week outlining just how watered down the SEC’s role in the new Obama regulatory regime could be. It’s expected the Federal Reserve may take over the SEC’s oversight of firms deemed “too big to fail.” Keeping tabs on mutual-fund operations could become the domain of certain banking regulators.

The SEC, for its part, under the new leadership of 20-year veteran of the agency, Mary Schapiro, is fighting back. Shapiro says she’s frustrated the SEC isn’t more involved in high-level negotiations with financial firms like Citigroup (C), Bank of America (BAC) and Goldman Sachs (GS), and is making great strides in repairing the regulator’s tattered image.

Commendable, but too little too late.

The SEC is widely viewed as having committed the biggest regulatory bonk in modern financial history, turning a blind eye to Bernie Madoff’s $65 billion Ponzi scheme, and failing to, even in the remotest way, protect investors from the implosion of the market for mortgage-backed securities and other structured financial products stemming from rampant fraud, scant disclosure and blatant conflicts of interest.

Oh, and just days before Bear Stearns collapsed into the waiting arms of JPMorgan Chase (JPM), then SEC Chairman Chris Cox went on national television, assuring the country Bear was in good shape. Oops.

The SEC is a case study in regulation gone bad. It’s one thing to have openly unregulated markets, where participants understand there’s no one guarding the hen house. But when markets are purportedly policed by a powerful government body, investors assume some level of basic integrity and honesty.

By violating this trust, the SEC proved that weak regulation — and more specifically, weak regulators — do more harm than any amount of deregulation could ever do.

The looming restructuring of the financial regulatory complex will be a messy, political, imperfect process. But if the first step is dismantling the SEC’s web of incompetence, then we’re off on the right foot.

By ANDREW JEFFERY

This post first appeared on Minyanville.

Despite Herculean efforts, the Federal Reserve is losing its battle to keep mortgage rates at all-time lows.

As fear that we’re headed for imminent collapse slowly wanes, investors’ appetite for risk is coming back. This renewed confidence has helped buoy stocks, and the major equity indices have rallied more than 30% from their March lows. The shift, however, has come at the expense of the Treasury market, which has been in a 7-week slump.

According to Bloomberg, big money managers like Blackrock (BLK) are betting the Fed will step in to support the Treasury market (again), as regulators hope renewed Treasury purchases will push down mortgage rates (again).

Bond prices and yields move in opposite directions. When investor demand falls, so do prices, pushing up yields. And as investors shun the safety — but relatively low return — of government-backed debt, the impacts are felt throughout the credit markets. Of concern to the Fed, and what has led Chairman Ben Bernanke to increase Treasury purchases in the past, is the effect this dynamic has on mortgage rates.

A mortgage is nothing more than a long term bond, given to a borrower to purchase a home. So when lenders get fearful they’re not being compensated for tying up money for as long as 30 years, they increase rates. Further, as the specter of inflation rises, lenders demand bigger interest payments to keep up with higher prices. In other words, when dollars in the future are worth less than dollars today, banks demand higher payments to make up the difference.

Keeping mortgage rates low has been a cornerstone of Washington’s efforts to jump start the flagging housing market. But with rates at the highest level since April, the “smart money” is betting the Fed may return to the Treasury market en masse.

Paradoxically, even as the Fed tries to keep interest rates low — which are rising in part due to the expectation that higher prices loom in the years ahead — its actions increase the likelihood of future inflation. Running its printing presses around the clock has consequences, even if Fed officials are loathe to admit it.

Minyanville’s Mr. Practical often discusses the fallacy that credit markets are improving. As he points out, only in corners of the market where the government has stepped in to support lending is any so-called “normalcy” returning.

So too in the mortgage market.

Loans backed by Fannie Mae (FNM), Freddie Mac (FRE) and the Federal Housing Administration account for the lion share of mortgages currently being issued in this country. Aside from the occasional jumbo loan written by banks like JPMorgan (JPM) or Wells Fargo (WFC), government mortgages are the only game in town. Coupled with the Troubled Asset Lending Facility (or TALF), which funnels money into the market for mortgage-backed securities, the home-loan market remains completely dependent on government support.

This is one reason recent “strength” in the housing market will provide transitory. There’s a limit on how much government can control markets, as evidenced by mortgage rates that move persistently higher every time the Fed eases its aggressive intervention. Fundamentals, not subsidies, will provide a true floor in prices.

And as banks prepare to unleash a firestorm of foreclosure inventory into the market, fundamentals will remain pointed south, thereby pushing down prices. And as foreclosures continue to infect higher end real-estate markets, these price declines will be felt by a growing — and more prosperous — segment of the population.

Mortgage rates, left to their own devices, would be far, far higher without government support. This is the message of the market – one bureaucrats in Washington seem unwilling to learn.

By ANDREW JEFFERY

This post first appeared on Minyanville.

“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again” – and you certainly can’t fault lawmakers for a lack of persistence in trying to stem the epidemic foreclosures plaguing America’s housing market.

Sadly, they insist on trying the same failed strategies over and over again.

For more than 18 months now, Congress has resolutely believed loan modifications are the path out of the housing jungle. But despite a blitzkrieg of public-relations campaigns and benevolent-sounding foreclosure-prevention programs like “Hope for Homeowners,” “HOPE NOW” and the latest, the Federal Reserve’s “Homeownership Preservation Policy,” modification efforts continue to sputter.

Even private-sector programs announced by big banks like Citigroup (C) and Bank of America (BAC) have had only marginal success.

After months of relentless pressure from the House and Senate alike, the Fed’s new policy allows it to review loans supporting the assets it purchased after it rescued Bear Stearns and AIG (AIG) for potential modifications. Barney Frank, the House Financial Services Committee Chairman, told reporters yesterday, “This is a very big deal.”

Actually, Mr. Frank, it’s not.

The assets acquired when the Fed and Treasury Department backed the JPMorgan (JPM) buyout of Bear Stearns and nationalized AIG were derivatives, not actual loans. These mortgage-backed securities are supported by thousands of individual mortgages, while the interest in those underlying loans was sliced up and allocated to countless securities, derivatives, and derivatives of derivatives.

Securities owners can’t modify mortgages: The rules about altering loan terms are pre-determined in securitization documents. It’s left up to loan servicers to implement the rules, whether the security owners like it or not.

Nevertheless, according to Bloomberg, the Fed — after identifying which loans it holds a fractional interest in — will encourage the servicers of those residential mortgage-backed securities “to implement a loan modification program that is consistent with this policy.”

Congress, Treasury and now the Fed have been trying to months now to get servicers on board with modification efforts, to no avail. Even the FDIC, whose highly touted modification program is being tried out at defunct California thrift IndyMac, has been unable to successfully – and sustainably — modify loans en masse.

The reason modification efforts aren’t working — amid evidence that Washington continues to ignore the root of the housing problem — is that the vast majority of loan defaults are being caused by job losses and negative equity. Borrowers can’t get a new loan without a job, nor can they qualify for a modification if they owe more on their house than it’s worth.

According to data released by JPMorgan yesterday, average equity for subprime loans stands at less than 5%.


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It’s negative for all Alt-A adjustable rate mortgages.



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Average equity in jumbo prime loans, which are experiencing defaults at faster rates than either subprime or Alt-A, has tumbled from 45% in January 2006 to less than 20% at the end of last year.


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And, even as regulators force mortgage rates down to record lows to encourage buyers to step in — catching the falling knife of tumbling home prices and risking financial ruin for the benefit of the rest of us — property values continue to fall.

Meanwhile, regulators and lawmakers continue to parade bold foreclosure-prevention efforts before the public. And they’ll keep trying – even if it bankrupts the country.

By ANDREW JEFFERY

This post first appeared on Minyanville.

In recent months, headlines have been popping up noting that rents – finally – are beginning to follow home prices into the abyss.

Since the housing market began to crumble, would-be homeowners were forced to become renters, keeping demand for rental units relatively strong even as home prices fell. Now, however, as landlords convert condos into rentals, supply is beginning to move in tenants’ favor.

And while this is welcome news for millions of renters around the country, its impact on consumer price measurements could materially impact mounting deflation expectations.

The reason can be found in the nuances of how the US Bureau of Labor Statistics measures the Consumer Price Index, or CPI. The CPI is the most widely quoted gauge of inflation, it being the easiest to explain to the consuming public. Tally up a basket of commonly purchased items, see how their prices compared to last month, then last year and voila! consumer prices at your fingertips.

In realty, of course, it’s a bit more complicated: Just take a gander at this sophomoric equation from a recent CPI release:

Riiiiiiiiiight.

The most heavily weighted item in the CPI is something known as Owners’ Equivalent Rent, or OER, which accounts for almost 24% of the total index. OER is the government bean counters’ preferred method for measuring the cost of owner occupied housing, calculated by figuring out how much the median homeowner in the country would have to pay to rent his or her family’s dwelling.

Many observers, Minyanville’s Professor Mish Shedlock included, believe the CPI has been understating inflation for years by ignoring housing prices. Now, that rents are beginning to fall, however, inflation readings could become dire.

As Professor Kevin Depew noted last week, the December CPI registered the lowest inflation reading since 1980. And while most media outlets touted the effect of dramatically lower energy prices, OER is quietly reversing a long-standing trend and contributing to the decline.

Examining the data, available on the BLS’ website, OER has been steadily trending upwards for years. Even though the housing market peaked in late 2005, OER rose in 2006, 2007 and even 2008. The rate of change, however, is slowing. Notably, in December 2008, OER rose just 0.08% from November, breaking from the rest of the year’s trend.

And while 1 month does not a trend make, the data support stories from Manhattan to Los Angeles of landlords giving in to thrifty tenants shopping for the best deal. With mounting job losses and weak economic conditions persisting, this will be an important trend to watch in coming months. Property liquidations by big banks like Wells Fargo (WFC), Bank of America (BAC) and Citigroup (C) will add to housing supply, further pressuring rents.

CPI data matter, despite their myriad of potential problems, because of their effect on inflation expectations - or in this case, deflation expectations.

Federal Reserve officials, including Chairman Ben Bernanke, are wary of these expectations because they represent future consumer behavior. In a speech last summer, as energy prices rose to all-time highs, Bernanke said “Some indicators of longer-term inflation expectations have risen in recent months, which is a significant concern for the Federal Reserve.”

Fearful of higher prices in the future, consumers increase buying now, spurring demand and pushing prices up even further. The same is true the other way. If the public thinks prices will keep falling, they will delay purchases, waiting for a better deal down the road. This weakens aggregate demand, accelerating price declines.

So as rents, the largest component of the CPI, continue to fall, pricing measurements are likely to signal deflation, even as conventional wisdom calls for hyperinflation. And as a deflationist attitude gains currency, social mood continues to darken, and consumerism is shunned, lower prices will ultimately become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

By ANDREW JEFFERY

This post first appeared on Minyanville.

From expansive estates in the Hamptons to mansions on the Malibu cliffs, the rich are watching their vast real-estate wealth evaporate before their eyes.

Perhaps no market epitomizes the ultimate surrender of high-end real estate than the island of Manhattan, where housing prices had held relatively stable until quite recently, despite broad declines across the country.

Turmoil on Wall Street, the collapse of Lehman Brothers, and layoffs at big employers like Citigroup (C), JPMorgan (JPM), Morgan Stanley (MS) and Goldman Sachs (GS) have finally taken their toll on the once-proud market for overpriced, undersized refuges from the concrete jungle.

The Wall Street Journal reports housing inventory in Manhattan jumped 39% in the fourth quarter as sales plunged – even as prices managed to eke out a 3.1% gain from a year ago.
Meanwhile, condominiums and cooperative apartments currently under contract to be purchased are selling at a whopping 20% below the prices paid just last summer. As sales data reflecting those transactions emerge in the coming months, Manhattanites may finally wake up to the reality that their housing market is no longer immune from the afflictions the rest of the country knows all too well.

Compounding the effects of an abysmal bonus season throughout the financial industry, ongoing job cuts, and generally weak economic conditions, lenders continue to scale back the availability of so-called jumbo mortgages. These loans, too big to fit within the ever-narrowing lending guidelines of Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE), don’t qualify for a government guarantee.

Banks take on more risk by originating these loans, and charge higher rates for the pleasure. Bankrate.com (RATE) reports jumbo rates remain more than 1.5% higher than their smaller, conventional counterparts.

Since most Manhattan condos and co-ops are purchased with jumbo loans, these persistently high rates mean prices on the island are being only marginally supported by recent, aggressive moves by the Federal Reserve and Treasury Department to spur home buying.

Wells Fargo (WFC), now the nation’s largest mortgage lender after completing its acquisition of Wachovia, isn’t helping matters for high-end buyers. The California-based bank announced yesterday it would stop offering jumbo loans through its wholesale (or broker-originated) channel. MortgageDaily.com reports Wells cited low market demand and higher risks in its decision to suspend jumbo offerings for mortgage brokers.

The ongoing financial crisis, which arguably originated in the narrow winding streets of Wall Street, has now come full circle. The same bankers, traders and financiers who levered houses up beyond all rationality are now seeing the dark side of structured finance gone awry.

Some will wisely sell now, while they still can, take their lumps and move on. Others, stubbornly clinging to their former glory, are likely to go down with the ship.

By ANDREW JEFFERY

This post first appeared on Minyanville.

It’s wishful thinking that artificially low interest rates alone are enough to rehabilitate the housing market.

The mortgage industry has undergone a swift and ruthless downsizing over the past 18 months. While a necessary part of the corrective process, the market is ill-equipped to handle the onslaught of new loans that regulators are hoping to incite.

Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported the Treasury Department is considering pushing down mortgage rates to levels not seen since the heyday of the housing bubble. Through the recently nationalized mortgage giants, Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE), loans would be offered to qualified homebuyers with rates as low as 4.5%.

The story sparked a wave of refinancing as rates on all types of mortgages tumbled. Coupled with the Federal Reserve’s plans to buy agency debt and freshly originated mortgage-backed securities, the stage is set for renewed buying activity.

Although Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson has since denied that he’s planning such a move, he did say that he’s “always looking at new ideas” and that “the key thing to get us through this period is getting housing prices down.”

Whether there’s an official program of 4.5% mortgages is immaterial, as Washington is doing everything in its power to push rates as low as possible.

It’s hard to argue cheaper mortgages won’t encourage buyers to leave the sidelines and jump into the market. However, as Bloomberg noted this morning, layoffs at mortgage companies and banks like Citigroup (C), JPMorgan (JPM) and Bank of America (BAC) have greatly diminshed origination capacity. Lenders, having already tightened underwriting standards, have limited resources to process new applications.

Many are hoping low rates will encourage refinancing and help clear out the toxic subprime and Alt-A securities still plaguing the financial system. Unfortunately, the loans originated for securities in 2005, 2006 and 2007 – the ones causing all the trouble — were done with minimal down-payment requirements. Falling home prices mean most of these borrowers are underwater - and thus unable to refinance.

Furthermore, any renewed buying is likely to be met with a flood of new supply. There’s a concept in real estate known as “phantom inventory,” which refers to homeowners who want to sell, but keep their homes off the market while they hope for conditions to improve. Some experts believe actual inventory levels, when these would-be sellers are taken into account, is as much as 25% higher than official data show.

Anecdotally, this makes sense. For each buyer waiting for lower prices to step in, there’s a seller waiting for a better market. So any pop in buying activity will offer sellers an opportunity to list their homes in a seemingly stronger market. As foreclosures continue to spread into previously unaffected areas, inventory levels are likely to remain high throughout much of the country.

And while attractively-priced, well-maintained homes in desirable neighborhoods will continue to sell, more of the same will be available in each successive month. Patience remains the best ally for the prospective buyer.

By RYAN TAYLOR

It’s still a lousy time to be selling new homes.

The National Association of Home Builders, or NAHB, shared its sentiment index for December, which remained at a record low of 9. The index is based on 426 residential developers nationwide; a reading below 50 reflects negative sentiment. In addition to the general index number, confidence levels for current sales dropped to 8 from a reading of 9 last month. The six-month sales forecast dropped from 18 to 16. To say confidence remains extremely low is a bit of an understatement.

The NAHB sentiment index number is an important gauge of the health of the overall market. In many of the hardest hit areas of the country, there remains a glut of housing supply – particularly new construction. Homebuilders are aggressively cutting prices, which is adding to existing downward pressure on prices caused by foreclosures. Since new homes are often more desirable than existing homes, watch any strength in homebuilder sentiment as a prelude to possible strength in the broader market.

While many prognosticators are starting to believe we’re moving into a bottoming phase in the housing market, the chief economist of the NAHB, David Crowe, remains unconvinced:

“We have seen no improvement over the past month in terms of sales conditions for new homes. In fact, certain factors have gotten progressively worse, not the least of which is the job market, where massive layoffs are having a devastating effect on consumer confidence.”

The sobering reality of the housing market is that its recovery has been postponed due to the global recession and the resulting job losses. Despite aggressive moves by the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve to lower interest rates and spur demand, people without jobs simply do not buy houses.

By ANDREW JEFFERY

This post first appeared on Minyanville.

Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson is hoping he’s found the magic bullet to solve the US housing market’s seemingly never-endless woes.

He hasn’t.

By throwing around the weight of recently nationalized mortgage giants Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE), the Treasury Department is considering a plan to push interest rates on purchase money mortgages down to 4.5% – well below the current market rate of around 5.75%.

Artificially lowering rates so buyers can afford more house led us into this mess; it’s doubtful the same tactics will lead us out.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the plan is in the early stages of development, but officials expect the initiative to spur buying activity. The aim is to prop up home prices by enabling borrowers to afford more expensive houses. Columbia University economists believe such a program could help between 1.5 million and 2.5 million Americans buy new homes.

In order to qualify for the low rate, borrowers have to meet Fannie and Freddie’s now-stricter loan underwriting requirements. But even with more affordable monthly payments – the lower rate amounts to savings of $150 per month on a $200,000 loan — precious few prospective buyers are willing and able to pony up the tens of thousands dollars still required for a down payment.

Combined with the Federal Reserve’s recent $200 billion lending program for securities backed by newly originated mortgages, bureaucrats are pulling out all the stops to buoy falling property values.

This is the latest in a series of botched attempts to re-inflate the housing bubble. And like the others before it, the plan fails to address the root causes of ongoing home price declines: Negative equity, over-supply and mounting job losses.

The flood of recent loan modification programs championed by FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair and rolled out by JPMorgan (JPM), Citigroup (C) and Bank of America (BAC) also miss the point. Like any distressed market, the housing market badly needs price discovery. And like any other asset class, the true price of a house is only discovered when someone buys it on the open market.

By creating unnaturally low interest rates and allowing buyers to purchase bigger homes than they could normally afford, Paulson and Bernanke are preventing home prices from falling back to where responsible, fiscally minded Americans can buy without the crutch of government subsidies.

These continued distortions of the free market end up running in contrast to their intended goals: As long as the charade continues, as long as the real estate market is prevented from finding a natural bottom, home prices will continue to fall.

The silver lining — for those brave enough to uncover their eyes and look – is that just as it overshot on the way up, the housing market will likewise overshoot on the way down.

A protracted period of stabilization will ensue, during which time the opportunity to purchase high-quality residential real estate below its long-term intrinsic value will be extraordinary.
Savvy investors with the ability to identify attractively priced properties will, eventually, have the buying opportunity of a lifetime.