tomyris

Shorting the Homebuilders as Their Stocks Surge

This is where I got my data - I did not look for the highest just took the first that came up in Google . Agreed houses in Germany did not participate that creates an interesting dilema for the ECB who cannot lower interest rates to help Spain and Ireland out.
Ireland
finfacts.ie/irishfinan...
UK
news.bbc.co.uk/2/share...


: Kyero.com Spanish House Price Index - independent and accurate ...Although we've been recording the asking prices of property in Spain since mid 2005, I suspect that ... The national average property price is now €246000. ...
prices.kyero.com/ - 24k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this

Shorting the Homebuilders as Their Stocks Surge

JST ,
I accept your point that European houses look expensive in devalued bucks , but even if you adjust by 25 % to take account of that, which would bring the Euro back close to its original value of 1 euro = 1.18$ , the US bubble is insignificant compared to the EU one .

Shorting the Homebuilders as Their Stocks Surge

The tax payer will bail out the goverment as always .

Shorting the Homebuilders as Their Stocks Surge

The reason I brought up the relative value argument is to counter the consensus that an "enormous bubble " had been created .

A bubble sure but not an enormous one , therefore had it not been for the creation of CDO`s and ensuing credit crunch due to banks holding the bag the slump would never have been as severe .

Thats why I believe that as the credit crunch is worked out the housing market can recover in short order.

I could be wrong , but if you dont try to buy low you will never sell high , and isn´t all investing an evaluation of upside versus down ? .

Does any one have data on foreclosures before for years before the loans were packaged into CDO´s , I suspect they got fairly high on occassions without causing a credit crunch or slump.

Shorting the Homebuilders as Their Stocks Surge

Let me back up Jack Simpson's opinion with some more facts which I just pulled from Google :

Average house price in UK is 222 K £ equivalent to 432 k $
Average house in Spain is 246k €uros equivalent to 364 k $
Average house price in Ireland Dunlin area 397 K € = 587 k $
Average house price in Ireland outside Dublin 266€ = 393 k $

The median house price ( admittedly not the same as average but close ) in the USA is 240 K $ and believe me USA houses are a whole lot bigger .

If the USA has a bubble some European countries have hot air baloons . You got any facts Jack or are you blowing baloons ?

Shorting the Homebuilders as Their Stocks Surge

I do not see how you can compare the HB stocks which are still 70 % down over 18 months with the tech bubble of 2000. At that time certain stocks were being valued based on "eyeballs" or web sight viewings . I see no such situation in the housing stocks and do not agree that a major bubble was created in the house prices . If you are looking for housing bubbles look at Spain , Irelan and UK where house prices rose by 200 % plus over the past decade and scaremongers on the US housing stocks are pointing to 10 to 15 % above trend in the US. The fact is that the median US house price is only 240,000 $ which make them about the CHEAPEST in the developed world .
In fact I believe that were it not for the invention of CDO's there would be no US housing crisis .

I am with Bill Miller on this one. Houses builders are not comparable to Y2K Fantasies .