Saturday, January 24, 2009

Housing starts experienced worst year ever

Posted by at 8:09 AM

7 comments:

  1. AnonymousJanuary 24, 2009 1:49 PM

    Not to worry. David, the creator of this blog, is certain that the home building industry will be back full-bore in much less than ten years.

    David wrote the following on January 23rd.

    "I'll say it. There will be a significant recovery in the homebuilding business. Not soon, but a decade from now our current troubles will be long past us. Over the long run, as long as the U.S. population keeps increasing (which it will), "suburban sprawl" will continue."

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  2. AnonymousJanuary 24, 2009 1:58 PM

    By the way, I totally disagree. I think the housing development patterns that dominated the latter half of the last century are relegated to the history books now.

    Perhaps McMansion neighborhoods will be torn down and the land redeveloped for more sustainable communities, but we aren't going to see a return to the housing boom as we knew it.

    Yes, I own a home, and no, I'm not involved in the real estate industry.

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  3. JamesJanuary 24, 2009 10:46 PM

    Anonymous said...
    "Not to worry. David, the creator of this blog, is certain that the home building industry will be back full-bore in much less than ten years.

    David wrote the following on January 23rd."

    David didn't say that. I did. Everyone makes mistakes, but the strange thing is you went out of your way to incorrectly claim that the quote came from "the creator of this blog". This makes me think that perhaps you were intentionally misattributing the quote.

    Also, you used clever wording to change the timeframe. I said "a decade from now," but you rephrased it as "much less than ten years."

    I'm thinking perhaps this blog needs a policy change so only registered users can post. The lies and insults come overwhelmingly from people posting as "Anonymous".

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  4. UnknownJanuary 25, 2009 3:04 PM

    "David the bubble blogger; are you saying that suburban sprawl growth will continue when the dust settles?"

    James, You quoted the question above, and then you responded to it.

    I apologize if your feeling were hurt when I (understandably) thought that David was responding to a follow-up question regarding his own post.

    My name is "John". So "James", now that we are no longer anonymous, I really hope you feel less offended.

    Same with Noz. If I had known that anonymous comments could provoke such vitriol from such a gentle soul as he; I would have used my real name long ago and spared him the anger-fest.

    After all: "Noz" is such a non-anonymous name. I feel like we're neighbors. Perhaps I should bake a casserole and bring it over?

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  5. UnknownJanuary 25, 2009 3:54 PM

    "you used clever wording to change the timeframe. I said "a decade from now," but you rephrased it as "much less than ten years."

    Ok; so lets look at precisely what you said.

    "Not soon, but a decade from now our current troubles will be long past us."

    "A DECADE from now (10 years), our current troubles will be LONG past us."

    So I suppose it depends upon how you define "long". Ten years from now, if something is "long past us", that denotes that several years have lapsed, right? Or by using "Long" in a temporal context, do you mean "several days or a few months, max"?

    As phrased, your comment suggests a resurgence of the retail home building industry within 7 years, max.

    I'm a homeowner, and I disagree. I think sprawl is dead. Millions of baby-boomers who've witnessed the collapse of their 401(k)s and the eradication of their home equity, now have no choice but to retire in place and pray that the can keep their roofs over their heads. They cannot "trade up" or "downsize" or make any moves at all.

    People with even less means (monetary) will move to (and rent or buy) where prices are at their lowest, which, not coincidentally, happens to be the newer "sprawl" areas.

    So we'll see older established neighborhoods with old folks firmly entrenched and hanging on for dear life. And we'll see newer neighborhoods (the exurbs) full of lower income people.

    Are homebuilders going to plow under even more cow pastures and build new homes? Who are they going to market those homes to? The boomers? I suppose if they've been in their homes for 20 years, boomers can sell with 1 or 2 hundred k in equity. But are they going to move to the exurbs? No - they'll want to stay near the 'core', where amenities and health care are available.

    It wasn't long ago that Phoenix AZ and other "sun belt" areas would see a massive influx of boomers as they retire. Does anyone reading this really truly beleive that millions of aging boomers are now going to sell their homes and move to AZ or NM?

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  6. AnonymousJanuary 27, 2009 6:48 PM

    Hmm, a video from Morningstar. Aren't they one of the companies that overrated securitized mortgage "investments"? Branding them as high quality investments when if fact they were junk?

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  7. JamesJanuary 28, 2009 7:16 PM

    Anonymous said...
    Hmm, a video from Morningstar. Aren't they one of the companies that overrated securitized mortgage "investments"? Branding them as high quality investments when if fact they were junk?

    You're probably confusing Morningstar with Moody's. Moody's, S&P, and Fitch are the companies that rate bonds.

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