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Bubble Meter is a national housing bubble blog dedicated to tracking the continuing decline of the housing bubble throughout the USA. It is a long and slow decline. Housing prices were simply unsustainable. National housing bubble coverage. Please join in the discussion.
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The Bubble Meter Philosophy
The best way to get the housing market thriving again is to drop prices to the point where supply equals demand. Home sellers might not like it, but it's good for buyers and it's great for Realtors.
For Realtors, the best way to make more money is to sell houses quickly, and the best way to sell houses quickly is to convince the seller to drop the price.
For Realtors, the best way to make more money is to sell houses quickly, and the best way to sell houses quickly is to convince the seller to drop the price.
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Bubble Meter Archive
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2008
(518)
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December
(37)
- Housing Prices Fell Dramatically in October
- Open Question
- Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!
- Home sales plunged in November
- 2009's ten worst housing markets
- David Lereah Admits he 'Spun' for the Realtors; Ta...
- McMansion Watch: Foreclosed McMansion
- As foreclosures increase, fewer people willing to ...
- The strangest house I've ever seen
- Southern California real estate prices continue to...
- Homebuilder Hovnanian loses another $450 million
- The Economist didn't see the financial crisis coming
- U.S. housing loses $2 trillion in value
- McMansion Watch
- The best investor became the worst
- Washington, DC metro area foreclosures
- NYU professor "explains" why foreclosure preventio...
- McMansion Watch: Near Me McMansion
- Help fight the automaker bailout
- 9 1/2 Street NW, Washington, DC
- Mortgage modifications failing
- An interesting comment
- Stocks
- Foreclosures Rate Set to Remain Very High
- Dean Baker warned us of severe recession two years...
- Are you as prepared for a dollar collapse?
- Foreclosures surging
- Americans rapily losing jobs
- Treasury wants to reinflate the housing bubble
- WSJ skewers Barney Frank and Sheila Bair
- NYC luxury housing market starting to experience p...
- Lereah & Others Missing The Housing Bubble
- Americans expect housing prices to bounce back soon
- Foreclosure modification programs still falling be...
- U.S. officially in recession
- Stock market wipeout today!
- Hovnanian, R.I.P.?
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December
(37)
Are you still pining for a cute city property?
ReplyDeleteWell, people lived that way for centuries, right up until the 1960's or so when suburban sprawl kicked in.
ReplyDeleteThis doesn't look half bad. (pun intended)
"Anonymous said...
ReplyDeleteAre you still pining for a cute city property?"
I think he is - along with myself and many other people (relative to the housing stock). I think its pretty obvious given how little housing prices have fallen.
In McSame suburbia, you can choose from thousands of very similar houses, closer, farther away, North, south, across the river, etc. - Suburban buyers are actively substituting between neighborhoods and driving prices way down.
That said, if you want a very unique historic brownstone in DC but cant afford it, where else are you going to find it? Maybe Downtown Alexandria, or Annapolis (or Baltimore) but thats it. To the urban buyer, 90% of the housing stock located in suburbia is essentially worthless - therefore, less substituting is going on and prices in these areas are holding up pretty well.
Its funny, David, myself, and obviously several other potential buyers are competing against each other for these "Cute city properties", and as long as that competition exists, prices will merely ease (vs imploding in suburbia). Yet, if he, I and everyone else quit caring about these places, prices would fall very very quickly!
" Yet, if he, I and everyone else quit caring about these places, prices would fall very very quickly!"
ReplyDeleteOn the contrary, more and more people are pulling their heads out of their, ahem, and coming to the conclusion that a place in the city is desireable - if not for this moment, then for the future.
Macroeconomic indicators and events lead me to purchase a brownstone (three levels, with actual brownstones) in 2003.
In these old places the walls are so thick, you cant hear anything. My place has 2-3' foot thick walls - no joke.
ReplyDeleteOriginally they were probably only 1 foot thick - solid brick. Studs and drywall were later added (to each side), as well as insulation bringing it out to the 24-30 inches.
Ive lived here for 3 years and never heard a single peep out of the neighbors - they could be engaged in (hetero) b*ttf*cking every night and I could never hear a thing.
So just because your place in suburbia has 4" thick walls and you can hear every moan out of your neighbors mouth - dont think we suffer the same plight as you poor suckers.
Anon 11:41 is just a little stressed because the local Tractor Supply Company (TSC) is going out of business, and he has to fire up the dualie and drive 30 miles one way to get his Wendy's bacon double cheeseburger.
ReplyDeleteCut him some slack.
"Anon 11:41 is just a little stressed because the local Tractor Supply Company (TSC) is going out of business, and he has to fire up the dualie and drive 30 miles one way to get his Wendy's bacon double cheeseburger."
ReplyDeleteHe can only hope that the new strip mall Applebees (the sign for which originally said "Opening Sept 2007, then "March 2008" and now just says "opening soon") will come through. Things arent looking good though. The anchor tenant was supposed to be "Target" but they pulled out and now it looks like it will be "Dollar General" - not good.
Same thing goes for his KB homes development - it only got 1/3 completed before the bulder pulled out. Now its mostly empty lots, and discarded construction debris. Problem now of course is the crime. High prices and gentrification drove the "unsavory" element out of the urban neighborhoods. Now they are moving out here and squatting in the abandoned homes in the neighborhood - either that or they are stripping the homes of their copper pipes - or setting up meth labs.
So I can understand his frustration level- life in the exurbs isnt turning out the way it looked on the glossy brochure. Perhaps one day all of us who live in the urban areas can head out that way on field trips - kinda like the pioneer ghost towns of the old west - to show what Late 20th century life used to be like.
The anchor tenant was supposed to be "Target," just like the shitty strip mall in the middle of the Columbia Heights ghetto.
ReplyDeleteThe anchor tenant was supposed to be "Target," just like the shitty strip mall in the middle of the Columbia Heights ghetto.
ReplyDeleteYep - and they had to fight like hell to get them since it still is pretty much the ghetto. But this is a sign of progress - Columbia Heights used to get Dollar General, now they get Target - progress
By contrast - exurban strip mall wanted Target, but it got Dollar General - welcome to the new exurban ghetto.
Exurban strip malls in your beloved ghetto is progress....yep, moving those Denial goalposts to the land of Fear and Loathing.
ReplyDeleteHi, different Anon here. It is fairly easy to track the other two Anons using the following technique:
ReplyDeleteAnon referencing "Fear and Loathing" and making references to homosexual intercourse on a bubble blog = Scared homeowner underwater on the mortgage for his "country gentleman's estate" in Rubarbsburg VA. The repeated angry gay sex references say much about his childhood and the true nature of "Moving Denial Goalposts".
Anon referencing Target in Columbia Heights as "Progress" = Urban homeowner disappointed in the pace of progress in the city (wishing it would go faster) but is well situated in the heart of the economic engine of the USA, and is fully prepared to thrive in the post-meltdown world.
"Exurban strip malls"
ReplyDeleteYeah, that 20 acre open parking lot in front of the Columbia Heights Target is just like the one in Manassass!
Oh, wait, that ain't right. The DC Target has underground parking, the store itself is vertical, and the entire area is designed and built around human-scale buildings and walkability.
Yeah, that is so NOT going to come in handy in the 21st Century! HAHA! Urbanism is DEAD! Just ask Richard Nixon.
Exurban strip malls in your beloved ghetto is progress....
ReplyDeleteYep - it used to be crack houses & dollar general - now its Target and condos - not my cup of tea, but certainly better than crack houses & dollar general.
Perhaps you disagree - in your world crack houses + dollar general is the equivalent of Target + Condos.
If so, you should feel right at home as crack houses and dollar general are coming soon to an area near you!!!
The DC people are just angry as they havent had a good meal or shopping experience in a while -
ReplyDeleteWe have Ruby Tuesdays, and Olive Garden, and Chilis, and Red Lobster, and Longhorn - and all those wonderful places. Then we get to shop at Linens & Things, and Wal Mart, and the Container Store...EXACTLY like the same ones we have back home in Roswell, GA.
We are a mere 20-30 minute drive from our favorite chain restaurant & chain store - (+10 minutes of driving around looking for the best parking spot - god knows it really would kill us to WALK anywhere). Actually it might, given many of us are hypertensive and borderline obese...
After a quick bout of McShopping, its time to eat - just 2-3 hour wait til our server comes and offers several wonderful prepackaged flash frozen entrees - all assembled at the corporate headquarters in Overland Park, Kansas.
Then its back into the car to our wonderful house built by Lennar, or Bozutto, or Ryland, or Pulte, or any other McBuilder - exactly like the same ones they build in Roswell, GA.
God I love how well they prepackage life - its all the same here in exurbia and I LOVE IT.
All of your comments are childish and pathetic. You are supposed to provide numbers and figures. The problem in American cities is that they were left to rot for most of the 20th Century while cities in Europe where thriving and still are. Suburbs in European cities are mostly for the poor. This trend is now taking place in American Cities. It will take longer because of gentrification. Gentrification is not an issue in Europe.
ReplyDelete"Scared homeowner underwater on the mortgage for his "country gentleman's estate" in Rubarbsburg VA."
ReplyDeleteNot true, the guy likely in the exurbs. There is a difference between the exurbs and the rural way of life.
Dont knock the truly rural way of life - even though I live in the urban core and love it, I find the area way past the exurbs pretty fantastic too.
Way out there - past the last subdivided tract of spec homes is a wonderful world of horses, vineyards, and yes rural estates - all of which are very unique and belong to the fabulously wealthy.
A good friend of mine lives in a small village in central VA built way before the car was ever imagined. His small town is a village - modeled after the villages seen in the cotswalds (england). His home is a 200 year old place located in the center of the village. The whole place consists of unique houses, restaurants and shopping, all walkable, and no chain stores in sight. I could easily live there...
The rural and the urban are much more similar than you might think. Both areas are all about a unique way of life - mostly detatched from the car culture. Unique restaurants, unique stores, unique houses - we share a common bond.
Between us and them is a vast wasteland called McAmerica - its filled with sameness - same chain stores - same houses - same everything. It is a unique form of hell on earth built only in the last 50 years. I really feel sorry for those trapped in these exurban pockets of purgatory...
An urban Anon here:
ReplyDelete"Ruburbia VA" is a reference to places like "Bristow VA", not the kind of place where Robert Duvall lives or where the Mellon family has had an estate for decades.
The primary purpose of the car parked in my carraige house is to get me into rural areas of VA and MD for a change of pace.
""Ruburbia VA" is a reference to places like "Bristow VA", not the kind of place where Robert Duvall lives or where the Mellon family has had an estate for decades.
ReplyDeleteThe primary purpose of the car parked in my carraige house is to get me into rural areas of VA and MD for a change of pace."
I apologize - judging from your response its obvious you know about such wonderful places as Middleburg and Upperville, and perhaps those places a little more obscure such as Paris, Delaplane and Milwood.
Clearly places like Bristow and Culpeper do not belong on that list...
Oh no, David's back! My plans for a blog mutiny have been thwarted.
ReplyDeleteAs I group up in a city with loads of personality, I can't stomach McSame suburbia and chain restaurants (ewww). Sure my closet isn't as big but I can walk to work and still be home before you hit the beltway, thank you very much.
ReplyDeleteLived in Dupont Circle near 16th and S, til we sold our home (4-story Queen Anne Victorian home) last February. Glad to have sold when we did. The prices are still holding up OK (after dropping), but very few sales of full homes. Anyways, we are way out in RURAL America - the heartland of the Eastern Shore, just chickens horses and us, in an old farmhouse we've largely restored. Yes, getting beyond the tract houses is very nice, and the cost of living is less than half. That's the main reason we moved. Cost of living in DC just got too high -- we could manage, but money spent was money not saved for retirement. Glad we were there for 10 years -- raised our daughter there, and she's off to college now. Great place to raise a kid -- REALLY! But rural America has its charms too.
ReplyDelete"The prices are still holding up OK (after dropping), but very few sales of full homes. "
ReplyDeleteNot entirely true. 1768 Willard St NW sold three weeks ago for $1,069,000.
1733 Seaton NW sold a month ago for $554,999 (thats a 2 bed, 1.5 bath tiny house)
Those are a few.
that's what I said - few.
ReplyDeleteIt isn't anything like the years before.
I'm the last one to give DC a hard time. I adored the place. But, it just got too costly. The funny thing is - the folks "out in the country" can't imagine how I'd like living in farm country, after 10 years prior in Dupont Circle. Helps to have grown up in rural America -- but the key is having a good sense of community. Dupont and the rural parts of the Shore, both have it.
"1733 Seaton NW sold a month ago for $554,999 (thats a 2 bed, 1.5 bath tiny house)"
ReplyDeleteper dc.gov, it previously sold for $369,000 in Aug 2002. Weren't bubble believers already screaming "bubble" back in '02?
I am an independent broker and homeowner in the District proper. Prices have remained strong, but the number of transactions are down. It seems as though people are staying put and not selling unless they have to.
ReplyDeleteOh, that's right. It's different here. While even prime Manhattan RE is collapsing, DC is somehow immune. Go get your Lexus detailed, loser broker. When volume is ZERO, asking princes mean NOTHING.
ReplyDelete