Monday, June 19, 2006

Bubble Sphere Roundup

I know the posts have been a bit slow in coming on this blog. Rest assured that I have some very solid, and hard hitting posts planned for this week. For now there is the Bubble Sphere Roundup.

Housing Panic has a terrific post about two real estate agents in the Phoenix area who are reporting very differently about local market conditions.

Marin Real Estate Bubble has a post titled 'Losing on Real Estate is "A Matter of Perspective" '

Updated graphs for Sacramento market.

Over at Urban Digs there is a solid post about, CPI, short term interest rates, FOMC etc.

28 comments:

  1. In discussing the California market, I just added a post to my blog about how Centex is hiring actors to pose as a family for its homes.

    Centex Hires Actors to Pose as Family at Open Houses

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  2. This goose is cooked. Start writing the obituary for the housing market, the chatter is becoming deafening. Yes, I agree that they have been talking about the end for several years, but "it is different this time" (ever heard that before?)

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  3. Home-debtors are quaking with fear as their overpriced"investments" will be vomiting equity for the next six years. Bitter homedebtors will live each day with regret as their houses sinks in value leaving them ever further underwater. Renters don't have regrets, only freedom.

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  4. Yup

    this goose is cooked- and its heading down faster then even I thought. The 'R' word is now being used around Wall ST of dreams-
    I wonder how far and deep this implosion will go?


    From a post I made today at Ben Jones Log- worth reporting and historically correct-

    Back in 1928 President Calvin Coolidge told his wife Grace … ‘Mama, I think a depression is coming’…..and Coolidge later ’said he did not choose to run for re election in 1928′…..’
    Well a depression may not be around the corner- but a recession is- and it will be a bastard.

    The housing sector is going bust- and its going to drag much of the US and world economy down with it.

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  5. Joe,

    I know many "homedebtors" and, guess what, none are bitter or quaking. In fact, there is a collective "yawn".

    The only ones who live and breathe this issue are the homeless renters. Why is that?

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  6. "The only ones who live and breathe this issue are the homeless renters"

    How can one be a 'homeless renters'?

    If they pay rent they have a place to live?

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  7. National debt, the stock market crashing, rising interest rates equates to the bottom falling completely out of the housing market. To all the bottomfeeds stuck with property they can't flip, it's going to be one hard Candy Christmas, Regards from the Grinch.

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  8. " In fact, there is a collective "yawn"."

    That's because nothing has happened yet. Wait until the trillion dollars of resets happen and the comps in their hoods go to hell because the 2004-05 buyers have to give up their houses to whatever buyer they can find.

    The only yawn then will be of the technicolor variety.

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  9. Prices may fluctuate, but, in the end, some will be "owners" and the other 30% won't. The "owners" will have fixed their housing costs at today's dollar; the rest will be a the mercy or/whim of a homeowner (landlord).

    Year to year, decade to decade cycles don't matter. Same as the stock market - no sense trying to time it.

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  10. "The "owners" will have fixed their housing costs at today's dollar; the rest will be a the mercy or/whim of a homeowner (landlord)."

    Not if they have ARMs.

    What about rent, maintainence costs, insurance costs etc.?

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  11. "no sense trying to time it."

    Keep telling yourself that. See you on the downside.

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  12. "What about RENT, maintenance costs, insurance costa etc.?"

    I believe you meant re taxes, not rent. Freudian slip perhaps?

    If taxes, ins., and maintenance ever equal or are less than rent, there will be NO landlords. Keep dreaming that renting at retirement is the best financial plan (and emotional plan).

    If that is your position, why care about housing prices. Owners don't care to the same degree as renters.

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  13. "Keep dreaming that renting at retirement is the best financial plan (and emotional plan)."

    I don't believe that for a second. Please don' accuse me of that or else you WILL be deleted.

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  14. Deleted???? You must be nuts!!!!

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  15. Delete, delete!

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  16. http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Story.aspx?guid=%7B57D1C3F0%2D3AA2%2D4DED%2DA259%2DC4E68DE13BFF%7D&siteid=mktw&dist

    Home builders feel bad, why shouldn't home owners?

    Oh, yes - they're not renters. Ahem, I mean slavery-indentured, bubblehead sharecroppers with low self esteem - owners who understand the new housing paradigm, where prices never go down because of limited land supple, a booming DC job market, and unquenched demand for $500K 1BR apartments in Clarendon.

    Stoopid libural media.

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  17. ah Bill,

    What's your point?

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  18. uh, bill?

    you said "sharecroppers"

    but really, that's my term. i used it a few days ago to describe YOU. get an original thought that isn't related to scatology, or STFU.

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  19. More angst from the bitter homedebtors who bought at the peak and paid way too much.

    Clever bubbleheads will swoop in and buy for 40% what the bitter homedebtors paid, but only after the homedebtors have bled to death with their ARM's are ripped off.

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  20. Joe,

    You, my friend, will not be "swooping in" on anything. You lack what it takes pal. In other words, you lack brains, cash, brains, guts, brains, imagination, brains, etc.,......

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  21. As alluded to above, the homebuilder confidence rating has plummeted to 42 out of 100, the lowest point in over a decade.

    http://housingbubble.forumsplace.com/forum-7.html

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  22. James said:

    "As alluded to above, the homebuilder confidence rating has plummeted to 42 out of 100, the lowest point in over a decade."

    James, this fact doesn't support a bursting bubble ... It does just the opposite. When you want to stop your car gradually (i.e., have a "soft landing"), you first take your foot off the accelarator ... you stop giving it gas. The builders stopping to build is analogous to your stopping to give it gas. For the moment, there is enough supply of homes out there at the current price ... i.e., where supply meets demand. Were the builders not stopping to produce more homes, the point where supply meets demand could indeed drop, but the builders halting of new supply instead just works against a drop. I.e., to have that bubble so many potential buyers are hoping for, you'd have to have the market not sending signs that we're now at an appropriate price and have the builders continue on building ... But the market is acting appropriately ... it is level off at the price where the most effecient allocation of property is occuring.

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  23. Proposition Joe's advice is brilliant! Take what he says, do the opposite, and you'll do just fine.

    And is it just me, or was David's threat to delete posts a bit silly and thin-skinned. What VA-Investor said was hardly offensive. All he did was challenge your premise taken to its logical ridiculous conclusion.

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  24. "For the moment, there is enough supply of homes out there at the current price ... i.e., where supply meets demand."

    > No, there is more supply than demand, as evidenced by rising housing inventories and shakey prices nationwide. This includes our beloved DC. In fact, we see dropping prices in the most inflated housing markets, like Florida and California.


    "But the market is acting appropriately ... it is level off at the price where the most effecient allocation of property is occuring."

    > We've seen a speculative housing market in DC for a few years running now. Efficiency goes out the window in such an environment. Instead, speculation and irrationality take over.

    Lance, there's this thing out there called Economics. Study the parts about supply-demand, pricing, rising interest rates, S curves, and history's many speculative bubbles. Once you do that, please try posting again without raping the fundamentals of Economics through your tired, elliptical, faith-based postings.

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  25. Wow, bill learned to Google "economics" and look at all the neat important sounding words and phrases he learned.

    Too bad he doesn't understand what any of them mean. but they sound important. and smart. Which makes him sound smart and important.

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  26. Hey, dave - why did you delete my comment to this anonymous wise crack? Did it hurt your feelings?

    Still piddling around and let the discussion roll.

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  27. Check out my new blog: http://dcbubblemeter.blogspot.com/

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  28. "But the market is acting appropriately ... it is level off at the price where the most effecient allocation of property is occuring."

    As all market driven exchanges do, but markets are often irrational in the short term, but are always rational in the long term. A long way to say 'regression to the mean'.

    Over the last 50 years home prices have risen 3.5% per year. There have been times when prices have fallen, and other when they have risen, but the net is 3.5% per year.

    We can expect to experience two to five years of negative appreciation in markets that have greatly exceeded the mean. It is already happening in NOVA, and other markets are feeling it, too.

    Everyone looks like a genius in a bull market.

    Someone suggested to do the opposite of Joe's advice to buy at a 40%. So I guess they plan to buy now at 60% over the asking price and expect to do 'just fine'.

    Sniffing White Out for days at a time is NEVER a good idea. Don't do it. A little nip now and then is OK, and maybe even good, but day after day. . .

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