Im only interested in san diego. Take a look at this chart and tell me if anyone see's any sign of an end to the downtrend
IIRC, past sales number were YoY and I think this was reported on prior month basis. The numbers are down compared to same period one year ago. And think they have until sept to get the rest of the suckers in before Fannie and Freddie tighten up on the liar loans. I expect a hard push by NAR to get any remaining ignorant buyers in before the lending faucet is turned off.
I believe sales were up last month too. And the housing market doesn't act like a stock market...people have to live somewhere...they don't need stocks.
Sorry, that was November http://www.realtor.org/Research.nsf/files/EHS.pdf/$FILE/EHS.pdf So existing sales were up two of the last three months and basically flat over the last 6 months. I'm willing to change my mind, but I need facts and figures. SM
Well, let's agree to disagree on that. There are always plenty of "reasons" why "X" market is somehow different. In my view, manias are manias, and they always end badly.
Smart, put a Fib on that line chart, we haven't even hit 50% retrace, I would say that the angle of the downward retrace indicates it could go to 60%. As far as the differences between the market and real estate, its still all psychology, prices will always try to revert to the mean. The question is when, and how close? The Ever Technical VIPER
Fair enough. FWIW, I do recognize it was a mania triggered by low, low interest rates. But my own philosophy is that something funny happened along the way. The value of the dollar fell out from under it, essentially justifying the prices somewhat. Found out last night that it will cost me $130 per square foot to build a house in my neck of the woods (land not included). Where I live a $500,000 house is close to 3,000 S.F., all brick and in a great school zone with a large lot. Point I'm making is that existing houses cost $100K to $150K less than that. The existing houses just can't get any cheaper IMHO unless the building costs come down...and I don't see that happening cause the dollar was whacked so bad over the past few years. Hmmm...opinion instead of fact...must be getting soft. SM
If I'm correct about deflation, I don't see anything standing in the way of further declines in the cost of materials or the price of existing housing. I think both can and will drop, as price cuts become the only way to move inventory, and in order to get work, labor costs drop as well. Interesting that in spite of equities' fall today, both gold and silver were down hard. SM, I think it's all about liquidity; actually the lack thereof. There's a LOT of bad debt out there and until it's offset, I don't think it'll be over.
Housing bottomed, really? And who is going to buy houses now that rating agencies are starting to take a look at their CDO pricing models which have had assumed an 5-6% housing appreciation. Big tranches of MS will be downgraded and rates for mid and lower ficos will be much muchg higher than they have been, add to that FNM tighetning it lend standards and many banks getting out of the second tier game. If you don't have cash or a hefty downpayment you will not be able to buy a house, and even with that if your fico is not stellar and debt to income benign your rate will be exorbitant regardless of what underlying libor is doing. This is going to suck if you own a home and will need to sell in the next few years, sorry.