Reinventing Feudalism in America: How can existing home sales go up when mortgage applications are falling?

Dr. Housing Bubble reports:

This week we were welcomed by the news that existing home sales reached a multi-year high. Good news right? Depends on where you stand since the stock market continued to react to the potential of the Fed moving slowly away from their unprecedented mortgage experiment. As you know, mortgage rates are now at a multi-year high as well. It is very clear that this has hampered the ability of your average family to purchase a property since the big money from hedge funds and investors is still fiercely competing for the current inventory in the market. Big trends do not change overnight. Yet it is clear that we reached an inventory bottom in March of 2013. It is also clear that cash buyers are a much bigger portion of our market today (in fact, they might be the biggest player of all). The real estate game has completely shifted from a stale boring play that tracked inflation to a boom and bust cycle that is fully dependent on the wills of the Fed. If that is the case, the Fed pulling back even a little is enormous. The nation is becoming one of more renters largely because low rates have done very little to help out regular families.

An article well worth your time.