Housing Supply Tight for First Time Home Buyers:

In roughly half of the top 100 cities in Trulia's analysis, first-time buyers with 33 percent of the local median income could afford to buy the median-priced starter home.

Some eight years after its worst collapse since the Great Depression, the housing market has recovered in much of the country, with prices approaching peak levels set a decade ago.

But the supply of affordable houses available for first-time buyers remains tight, leaving many on the sidelines.That shortage is worsening, according to real estate site Trulia.

Researchers there say the number of affordable homes on the market for the average first-time homebuyers this year took its biggest year-over-year drop in three years, falling 12.1 percent. The good news for younger home shoppers is that wages have begun rising after a long, flat spell following the Great Recession.

Though incomes are up, home prices have been rising even faster in many cities. That's pricing out more households looking to get started as homeowners.

To afford the median-priced starter home, first-time buyers, on average, now have to pay some 39 percent of their monthly income — up 2 percent in three years. But mortgage lenders have held the line on strict credit and income standards when they approve a mortgage. As a result, there's a squeeze on the supply of starter homes.

Households moving up to a larger home have it a lot easier, Trulia found. A buyer of a so-called "trade-up" home needs just 25.5 percent of their monthly income. Buyers at the upper end need just 14 percent of monthly income to afford a premium home, according to Trulia's data. 

Smart Home Technologies Becoming More Important to Buyers:

As smart homes become more popular among consumers, buyers and sellers are showing greater interest in those homes and smart-home technologies.

A recent survey of home buyers by the National Association of Realtors showed that in terms of smart home devices, 37 percent of Realtors said clients find smart locks to be very important, followed by lights at 29 percent and thermostats at 26 percent. Forty-three percent said clients were neutral about the importance of voice control features and 38 percent for smart appliances and doorbells.

When it comes to the importance of smart home functions to their clients, 80 percent of Realtors see security as very or somewhat important. Nearly half of Realtors view privacy as a very important smart home function to their clients, while 30 percent see it as somewhat important. Four in ten Realtors see both cost savings and energy savings to be very important to their clients and 38 percent see comfort to be a very important smart home function.

According to the report, slightly more than half of Realtors' clients were not familiar with what's available for smart home technology. Nearly 40 percent of Realtors discussed security and privacy issues with their clients followed by technology cost at 31 percent and interoperability at 6 percent.

Of the many types of smart home technologies available, 42 percent of Realtors said clients were most interested in smart home devices, followed by whole home technology (22 percent) and smart home technology for specific rooms (13 percent); 41 percent of clients were not interested in any of these technologies. 

Ben Carson to be new head of HUD:

President-elect Trump has officially nominated Dr. Ben Carson to head up the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

“I am thrilled to nominate Dr. Ben Carson as our next Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development,” Trump said in a statement released today. “Ben Carson has a brilliant mind and is passionate about strengthening communities and families within those communities.”

The selection is considered to be very interesting as Dr. Carson (who grew up in Detroit) does not share the classical views of prior HUD secretaries.  Last year, Carson publicly criticized an Obama policy requiring that cities publicly report racial bias in their housing patterns, the Post reported.

“These government engineered attempts to legislate racial equality create consequences that often make matters worse,” Carson wrote in the Washington Times. “There are reasonable ways to use housing policy to enhance the opportunities available to lower-income citizens, but based on the history of failed socialist experiments in this country, entrusting the government to get it right can prove downright dangerous.”

Separately, Trump selected Steve Mnuchin, the former Goldman Sachs executive tapped for the Treasury job.  He said that one of the things at the top of the Trump administration’s agenda will be “getting Fannie and Freddie out of government ownership.”

The news sent Fannie and Freddie stocks skyrocketing to 45% above their opening price, to levels not seen since June of 2014. Both stocks closed near $4.40.

With these two appointees, the housing market is in store for many policy and structural changes in the coming years.