If you’re among the sundry folks encouraged that stocks just regained bull market status, that the Fed appears near the end of its tightening cycle, and that we’ve ducked a widely predicted recession so long that it may not be coming, here’s a data point to douse your cheer: Based on the traditional measures, the "sheetrock and framing" basics that normally determine its worth, the U.S. housing market is overvalued by 40%.
Shocking as it seems, that’s a view that should carry a lot of weight, because it comes from of one of America’s top real estate sages, Sean Dobson, founder and CEO of property powerhouse Amherst. For this writer, Dobson offers the best combination of on-the-ground proprietary data, gleaned largely from his own business, plus a mastery of sophisticated analytics, of anyone in the field. Amherst manages $16.9 billion in capital for investors, and ranks among America’s largest owners of single-family homes for rent, overseeing a portfolio of roughly 44,000 residences across 32 metros in 19 states. Dobson is a pioneer in deploying artificial intelligence to automate the appraisals and purchases of houses in those sweet-spot venues, an innovation I explore in my 2019 story, “Meet the A.I. Landlord That’s Building a Single Family Home Empire.”
