Buying your dream house… is becoming a nightmare. Demand for mortgages hit a 22-year low last week, as more would-be buyers got squeezed out of a pricey market. Home sales have fallen for five months straight, as prospective buyers deal with a triple whammy of challenges:

• Ceiling costs: The median price for an existing home hit a record $416K in June. Blame low inventory.
• Roof rates: The cost of borrowing $$ for a mortgage has nearly doubled this year as the Fed hikes interest rates.
• Crowded lawns: The average house is on the market for just 14 days before it’s sold, the shortest cycle on record.

Not keeping up… Median incomes in the US have increased 14X since 1960 — but median home prices have soared 36X. The housing-affordability crisis accelerated during the pandemic as buyers ditch city rent for suburban mortgages — and priced out locals. And it’s getting worse:

• Long road: By the end of this year, it’ll take 11+ years for a first-time buyer with median income to save for a 10% down payment. Pre-pandemic, it took half as long.
• Broken system: The average US worker needs to pay about a third of their income to afford a median-priced home — the highest level since the ’07 housing bubble.

FaZe SPAC... Gaming influencers just took themselves public. FaZe Clan launched as a gaming YouTube channel in 2010. Think: mostly guys in gaming chairs posting “Call of Duty” "sniping" videos. Today, FaZe is an esports and media company with 93 members (including Snoop Dogg). In May, Forbes ranked it the fourth-most-valuable esports company. Yesterday:

• FaZe went public on the Nasdaq after completing a $725M merger with a SPAC (aka: special purpose acquisition company) called "B Riley Principal 150 Merger Corp." — claaaassic SPAC name.
• The debut is a milestone for "creator economy" brands, most of which are private. FaZe has 500M followers across socials like YouTube, Twitch, and TikTok.
• Fazed: Despite its viral clout, FaZe stock plunged 24% on its first trading day. FYI: it was planning to go public last year in a $1B deal, but that didn’t pan out.

Unique timing… FaZe’s debut comes at a time when public offerings and SPACs have been struggling. Given the inauspicious macro environment, many planned SPAC deals have been canceled or put on ice. SPACs boomed mid-pandemic, accounting for ~70% of all IPOs last year. DraftKings, Virgin Galactic, and Opendoor are just a few that went public through a SPAC. Now, the oversaturated market has lost steam and is riddled with losses.

• Suds: Fragrance icon Bath & Body Works slashed its annual sales forecast. The soap staple says #flation has washed up spending and made low-income shoppers more cost-conscious.
• Jolt: Tesla posted better-than-expected revenue as sales revved up 42% last quarter. But profit margins from its core car biz fell as costs of components like battery cells spiked.
• Nord: The European Commission proposed that member countries cut gas use by 15% through next March. The EU’s worried that Russia will continue slowing gas supply to the continent.
• Ring: Regulators in India accused Chinese smart-phone makers Xiaomi, Vivo, and Oppo — which control 60% of the Indian market — of skirting taxes. The crackdown could raise tensions between the key trade partners.
• Bill: UK regulators introduced rules for using stablecoins (cryptos whose prices are pegged to another asset) to Parliament as part of a larger financial-services bill. The US is also eyeing stablecoin regulation.

• Jobless claims
• Earnings expected from Domino's, AT&T, Quest Diagnostics, Boston Beer Co., Philip Morris International, Tractor Supply Co., Capital One Financial, Union Pacific, SAP, Equifax, AutoNation, and Dow

Authors of this Snacks own: shares of Tesla, and Netflix

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