cobblestone

FDIC Forecasts More Bad Loans and Bank Failures

When and how will jobs be created in this country?

Leading Home Price Indicators: Sacramento

Please add a graph of the numbers of homes sold (from lenders and from home owners) for the same periods in order to depict the effect of the price reductions.

What's Driving Single Family Home Investors?

You are correct.....unless rents decline.


On Jul 07 06:50 PM PseudonymName wrote:

> I bought a condo at the end of 2008 in Oceanside, San Diego County,
> CA. Why? Because the 3 bedroom apartments across the street were
> renting for more than my monthly payments are.
>
> Now I own my own place - 3 miles from the beach in SoCal and I am
> paying less than the folks in the apartments across the street to
> live there not to mention that I have way more Sq Footage and a two
> car attached garage to boot.
>
> When you can own your own place for less than the cost of renting
> - it is time to buy.

Options Arm Recasts: Hype or Not?

Looking at the charts you will see that we are in an approx. 12 month window of "less bad news". Starting around March 2010 through March 2012 foreclosures will escalate. Were Option ARM and Alt A loans refinanced? Given the rapid decline in value of the underlying collateral and accelerated unemployment, most likely not. My concern for the next few years is the effect of combined excess inventory, higher interest rates, higher taxes at the State and Federal level, higher fuel costs, and rising unemployment.

Sacramento Housing Bottom Driven by Low Inventory

I agree with ThePhoenix and would add:
* interest (mortgage) rates expected to rise due to excessive printing of money, making homes less affordable;
* rising federal and state taxes and fees;
* state and local government layoffs continuing as there are no building fees to support personnel infrastructure;
* rising unemployment (in most industries);
* devaluation of dollar;
* expiration of state and federal tax credits (I hope they extend), thereby reducing demand;
* rising foreclosures from Option ARM and Alt A loans starting first quarter 2010 through first quarter 2012; and
* continued lack of home buyer credit and construction financing.

It's not going to be pretty.

More Grim Economic News

You touch on my point by stating "At least the builders aren’t adding to supply." I say, "Finally"! Builders took too long, from June 2005 to now, to slow down new construction. And in my opinion, they should have stopped building and adding to supply 3 years ago, with the exception of local markets that might not be over-supplied. Yes, this would have hurt in the short-run, but MAY have resulted in a faster correction. I have been watching a few markets where there is NO supply of new homes (any standing inventory was auctioned off two years ago) and people still desire to live there. In this case, there are not as many foreclosures, the homes that do go into foreclosure are flying off the shelves and would be disappearing faster if people could sell their existing homes in markets that are over-supplied. Builders need to learn to play well together in the sandbox.

Solve the Housing Crisis by Rewarding the Prudent

Based upon your original premise, what about the "really" prudent ones that chose to live below their means and chose instead to pay off their mortgages in full. They are now watching their home equity and investment erode. What about reprimanding the government that caused this mess and letting the free market work. Yes, some people will feel pain and I feel sorry for these people but no one is compensating me for my bad financial decisions. Why should we single out and compensate only selective bad decisions?

Housing Starts Plunge

Sorry for the poor typing skills..."seems" s/b "seem".

Housing Starts Plunge

It would seems to me that, in some ways, less housing starts is "good" not "bad". Everyone has concluded that there is too much housing inventory in the market caused by over-building. The government is allowing builders to offset losses against prior year gains and recover income taxes. Less building allows the over-supply to be absorption in order to reach a balance of supply and demand which will have the effect of stopping prices from declining, mortgages being made and sold in the secondary market, etc.. Being in the real estate business and suffering from a lack of income myself, I still perceive the market forces at work (prices coming down, less building) to be a "good" thing and very normal part of the economic cycle.

CNN/Money: Housing Rebound in Sight!

Instead of or in addition to months of supply, it would be interesting see the Number of Homes in Inventory added to the graph above. My guess would be, with homebuilders slowing down their new home construction and both builders and home sellers lowering their prices, that the number of homes in inventory is decreasing (rapidly?). Whenever and as the litany of problems are resolved and monthly absorption increases, the Months of Supply should rapidly decrease.

A Note to the Bubble-Phobes

Isn't there a "bubble" when price is extra-ordinarily out of line with a particular variable and is caused by "artificial" and temporary factors (i.e. homes prices, wages & "easy" financing)?

Paulson Gets it Right on Housing

I have one concern with the criticism of taxing forgiven mortgage debt. In many instances, as the value of their homes increased, people borrowed excessive amounts against their home equity and financed their lifestyles. In many cases, their total debt exceeded what they paid for the home originally. Should they have worked and earned income/wages to finance their lifestyle they would have had to pay tax on that income. Therefore, I do not believe the rest of society should bear the cost of this forgiven debt.