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$13T Loss? Banks Shrink, US $45T Assets at Risk

It now appears that the U.S. real estate market could face a more severe decline than it did during the subprime mortgage crisis.

For some time, U.S. analysts have been closely monitoring the continuous rise in loan interest rates and the pressure it exerts on the real estate sector.

However, with a slight recent adjustment downward in loan interest rates, a more significant issue has emerged: the decline in income and purchasing power due to unemployment.

Previously, Wall Street investment banks predicted that U.S. real estate could drop by 15% to 20% in 2023.

But after a series of bank bankruptcies in March, many analysts believe that U.S. housing prices could potentially fall by more than 30% in the coming period.

This implies that over $13 trillion in assets could be wiped out.

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Now, the most significant factor affecting the U.S. real estate market has become people's income issues.

Currently, as the U.S. economy gradually declines, many businesses have not been able to develop, and in order to stabilize costs, companies are resorting to layoffs.

Data shows that during this period, the U.S. unemployment rate has increased, with more people applying for unemployment insurance than before, and significantly more than the market's general forecasts.

This indicates that the unemployment situation is worse than expected.

There is now a trend of layoffs in the U.S., primarily targeting high-income white-collar workers.

However, some experts suggest that compared to white-collar workers with specialized skills, it is actually ordinary workers who face higher unemployment rates.

Regardless, the wave of layoffs has spread from tech companies to others, affecting an increasing number of people.

When people find their incomes reduced, they naturally consider cutting expenses, and many choose to sell their homes to reduce mortgage payments.

Mortgage expenses have indeed increased significantly compared to previous years, with the same principal requiring almost three times the interest to be repaid as a few years ago.

The latest 30-year mortgage interest rate is 6.4%, but due to the Federal Reserve's near-zero interest rate policy over the past decade, the average loan interest rate has been around 2%.

Now, as the U.S. continues to raise interest rates, future loan interest rates may rise again.

Data shows that at the beginning of last year, U.S. residential prices were still rising continuously until mid-2022 when they began to trend downward.

Currently, due to the banking crisis and the tightening of credit scales, financing costs for real estate companies have increased; and due to various factors, individual residential loan interest rates have also gradually risen, suppressing people's demand to buy homes.

In the second half of last year, U.S. residential prices continued to decline, and under the influence of the Federal Reserve's consecutive interest rate hikes for a year, the value of real estate has already evaporated significantly.

Analysts from Wall Street warn everyone that, based on past experience, when real estate prices start to fall, they always transition from a slow decline at the beginning to a rapid decline in the middle and later stages.

The U.S. housing prices have not yet begun to fall rapidly, but that does not mean they won't in the future.

So, if U.S. housing prices fall rapidly, it is very possible that they could drop by 10% to 20% within just one or two quarters.

It is now estimated that the average decline in future housing prices could reach 30%, with U.S. families holding a total value of $45 trillion in U.S. real estate, facing a huge loss of over $13 trillion.

With the sluggish economic development in the U.S., people's incomes are not thriving, and coupled with the continuous decline in housing prices, Americans may choose to sell their properties.

With a large number of properties being sold, will Chinese buyers, who like to buy houses, take over?

In fact, among the buyers who hold real estate in the U.S., there are quite a few from China.

However, this time Chinese buyers do not intend to take over and have also started to sell their properties.

In March of this year, when several U.S. banks went bankrupt, it was suddenly discovered that wealthy Chinese who had money in U.S. banks were extracting it and transferring it to Asia, such as Hong Kong or Singapore.

Even earlier, Chinese buyers had already begun to sell the U.S. real estate properties they held.

Chinese who like to buy U.S. houses are continuously selling properties, which is making the crisis in the U.S. real estate market increasingly severe.

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