More On Housing And Employment Correlative Effect [Housing Tracker]

Seeking Alpha's Housing Tracker is a collection of housing-related excerpts from various sources, grouped by topic. Feel free to post any interesting links on the subject in the comments section below.

Quotes of the Day

“Life kind of goes on.” - Jian Yang, 25, a second year student at the University of Chicago’s graduate business school. Mr. Yang says he’ll graduate with $200K of student loan debt, but isn’t worried about his prospects in the financial world. (NY Times, Oct. 11)

"To sell the bailout to the public, everyone from the President on down had to go out and tell people how bad everything was, that the world was coming to an end. Ever since, people's expectations about the economy have gotten worse and worse and worse." - Strategist Jim Paulsen, of Wells Capital Management, said last week’s market chaos may be an unintended, self-fulfilling consequence of recent efforts in Washington to pass the $700 billion bank bailout.” (WSJ, Oct. 9)

Macro Effects of the Housing Slump

Finance Students Keep Their Job Hopes Alive. “Financial companies shed 150,000 jobs last year and more than 100,000 so far this year, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a national job placement company. Yet amid the downturn, applications to graduate business schools rose this year, as they have in other periods of uncertainty.” (NY Times, Oct. 11)

Home Builders: We’re Big Part Of Metro Atlanta Economy. “The National Association of Home Builders: In a year’s time, building 13,000 homes in Atlanta, Georgia’s nine metro counties supports nearly 35,000 jobs in 28 counties, and $2.5 billion in income is produced. Research company Metrostudy: Metro Atlanta starts are down 54% y/o/y… Those 13,000 single-family homes generate $114 million in local taxes and fees on a recurring basis.” (Atlanta Journal Constitution, Oct. 10)

Schwarzenegger Suggests He May Not Need Loan From Treasury Dept.   “California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger… believes the state could find the money it needed in the credit markets… Analysts agreed the bond sales to Massachusetts and a couple of other states were encouraging… California’s fiscal woes reflect deepening problems in more than a dozen states... On Thursday, Gov. Tim Kaine of Virginia announced a plan to lay off 570 state workers, among other steps, to cope with revenue shortages this fiscal year and next. Mr. Kaine  has also said he will reduce spending at the executive mansion, including cutting the grocery bill, taking fewer trips and cleaning the drapes less often.” (NY Times, Oct. 9)

First Into Recession, California Shows Possible Future for U.S. “Some economists also believe California's housing market may hit bottom before the rest of the nation's, and could start an upward tick earlier as well. The loss of construction and finance jobs has slowed. In San Diego, one of the first housing markets to falter, home prices are roughly in line with the city's incomes and rental rates. "Housing is becoming affordable again," said Steve Cochrane, an economist at Moody's Economy.com. The pain of the housing bust has been harder on inland areas than it has been in coastal cities such as San Francisco and Los Angeles, which generally have more high-paying jobs.” (WSJ, Oct. 9)

CitiMortgage Cuts Jobs, Reduces Broker Pool. “Reuters: Citigroup Inc. (C) plans to extensively scale back its CitiMortgage operations. The downsizing plan includes cutting 500 jobs and reducing the number of independent brokers that Citi works with by 90%. The latter reduction will leave the company doing business with 1,000 mortgage brokers, down from approximately 9,500. The job cuts, meanwhile, will mostly affect Citi’s sales and support staff, or about 5% of the company’s mortgage employee base.” (Mortgage Orb, Oct. 9)

                                                            

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