Housing — I assume Fannie Mae is somehow related to Uncle Sam, so let’s make this easy and just call her Aunt Fannie. Great, now that we got that settled, a few days ago, Aunt Fannie dropped the latest report highlighting consumers’ views on the housing market. According to the giant mortgage lender, Americans aren’t dreaming of homeownership nearly as much as they once were.

The median selling price of a home in the U.S. right now is roughly $408.1k, just below the all-time high of $411.2k, set way back in Q3 2021. For reference, the peak median sales price of U.S. homes during the GFC era was $257.5k. 

Please, resist the urge to go all Michael Burry on me (if you can), and let’s take a look at the current state of the market because this time, things just might be different.

Within that report from Aunt Fannie, America’s agreement with the statement “it’s a good time to buy a home” has plummeted across every age group. In fact, Americans think now is such a bad time to buy a home that this past month’s survey reached a record low 25% of people that agree with the aforementioned statement. 

Meanwhile, 69% of consumers think now is a good time to sell, with the most pessimism concentrated in the 18-34 demographic, clocking in an insane 83% on respondents who said, “now is a bad time to buy a home.” 

Basically, U.S. citizens are not vibing with the housing market in the least bit, all while the average 30-year mortgage rate still hovers around record lows, currently sitting at just 3.55%. 

So what’s the issue? Well, as pointed out earlier, prices are very, very high. Realistically, there is an army of reasons as to why prices have spiked so much, but the fundamental story is the same as would be for any other asset: there simply is not enough supply to meet the demand. 

Following the GFC, homebuilders were terrified, and thus new housing stats sank precipitously over the following years. The U.S.’s supply of housing has not at all recovered from this, and with recent demand spikes brought on by 1) demographics (aka, millennials actually buying homes now) and 2) C19-induced WFH, the imbalance has led prices to an all-time high, giving middle fingers to first-time home buyers. 

As with anything in economics, who knows what could happen down the line. Although, with the current rate of housing starts across the nation, don’t get too excited for a price collapse anytime soon.

SuperAd Prices — Fun fact: Superbowl ads have outperformed the S&P 500 over the past year. What does that mean? Well, the S&P 500 over the past year has returned ~14.4%. Meanwhile, Superbowl ad space has jumped 18.2% since Tom Brady (the GOAT) utterly smoked Pat Mahomes last year.

And if you think that’s good, wait until you hear about the kind of gains you can make trading football. That’s right — you can officially trade football games now. But then the question is, can you outperform Superbowl ads themselves?

That jump in ad space price is the highest ever, bringing the price tag for a 30-second slot during the game to about $7mm. Every year, there are somewhere between 80-90 ads that run during the Superbowl, meaning NBC can expect to pocket in the range of $560m-$630m over just a ~4hr period. 

Sound ridiculous? Yeah, probably because it is. Raking in well over half-a-billion dollars in a span of time that encompasses ~0.045% of the year… Not bad at all. 

Every year, the big networks (CBS, FOX, & NBC) take turns airing America’s most-watched sporting event. In 2022, it’s NBC’s turn, and they must be pretty happy about it. 

Already, a bunch of ads set to run during the game have been leaked, and the lineup looks pretty damn entertaining. We’ll see Seth Rogen and Paul Rudd chow down on some Lays chips, Guy Fieiri is gonna pound some Bud Lights, and a sloth will get a well-deserved taste of Flamin’ Hot Doritos. Stay tuned. 

Watch The Game, Trade The Game