A two-time winner of the Crystal Ball Award, presented by Zillow and Pulsenomics, Habib was recently recognized as one of the nation’s top economists, based on the accuracy of his predictions of future real estate trends.
2020 was predicted to be a great year for the mortgage industry. Said Habib, “The real estate market was booming and in great shape and that was one of the bright spots that will lead us out of this, although there are some challenges.”
With regard to unemployment, Habib blames an outdated system on reporting and questions the metrics that are being reported. “Potentially a little over 20 million people that are unemployed right now, but I think those numbers are understated,” said Habib.
Some measures that have been put in place, specifically forbearance may place a hindrance on the market rebounding quickly once we emerge from current restrictions.
“You should make people at least prove hardship,” said Habib. “Forbearance is actually helpful to the housing market because you don’t have all these homes in foreclosure and put up for sale. So it is actually helpful, but they gave a license to be able to abuse it which didn’t make sense to me, but that’s what we are dealing with which is why you have such risk out there.”