Real estate

Top 908. Jan 19, 2006 1:47 PM

» Jas_Jain - Re: Re: Re: Re: “The US Housing Market Only Needs to Flatten…”

In response to Re: Re: Re: “The US Housing Market Only Needs to Flatten…” posted by nummnutts:

--

"inflamatory," as beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. What makes you the judge and the jury? Oh, I should do things in a manner that pleases you? Sorry, Phil, you need to change your attitude before you demand change from others.

Are you in the business of teaching people how they should behave? Otherwise, whom have I harmed or hurt? I have my style and others have theirs.

Jas

-- posted by Jas_Jain

Top 909. Jan 19, 2006 3:35 PM

» Jas_Jain - FW: broken clock --- Re: Re: “The US Housing Market...

In response to Re: “The US Housing Market Only Needs to Flatten…” posted by nummnutts:

--

From an e-friend:

"Change your id to broken clock."

A fool jumped from the roof of a 100th story building. A wise observer told him before he is about to jump that it will kill him. "I do not believe you" - said the fool. The fool reached 98th floor and said "See I am still alive". Wise man replied, "I feel sorry for you, but I warned you". The fool reached 50th floor and shouted "See you have no idea of what is going on." He could see the wise man start praying. The fool reached 2nd floor and shouted louder "You are an idiot. You should change your name to broken clock." The rest is history.

-- posted by Jas_Jain

Top 910. Jan 21, 2006 2:36 PM

» Normxxx - 25% Underwater Overnight

Poof - 25% Underwater Overnight

by Mike "Mish" Shedlock | January 23, 2006

How would you like to wake up in a house that declined 25% in value overnight?

If you are a proud Centex owner at "Martins Crossing" in Florida, it just happened to you.

SAVE $105,000 - Centex Close Out - NOW $294,000 - NEW Single Family Home in Martins Crossing - 4 Bedroom, 2 Bathroom, 2 Car Garage - 1,695 sf.
BEST DEAL OF THE YEAR!

Let's see.

Save $105,000
Now $294,000
=============
PP $399,000
$105,000/$399,000 = 26.32%

Poof.

$105,000 just went up in smoke.

That ENTIRE subdivision just took a $100,000+ hit.

Wait a second.

This can't happen, can it?

They are not making land in Florida anymore are they?

People want to move to Florida right?

Did it matter?

This exact scenario is going to play out in bubble area, after bubble area, after bubble area.

The party has just started.

-- posted by Normxxx

Top 911. Jan 21, 2006 3:59 PM

» pbradford6 - Re: 25% Underwater Overnight

In response to 25% Underwater Overnight posted by Normxxx:

Centex is in big trouble in my area, Southern California, the Inland Empire. There are big signs posted advertising a 24 hr discount on all new Centex homes here this week end. Last month they were advertising $30,000 discounts in Temecula. Sounds like the company is being squeezed.

BTW, I'm not happy at all with the hit in the stock market! sad

-- posted by pbradford6

Top 912. Jan 21, 2006 6:03 PM

» allancoleman - Re: 25% Underwater Overnight

In response to Re: 25% Underwater Overnight posted by pbradford6:

hello pbradfort6 ,

if you're not happy now with this ' less than 10% correction ' in the stock market , you certainly won't be happy with the continuation of the second leg down later in this secular bear market .

as for housing , bob brinker had a real estate book author on several weeks ago predicting quite a correction in housing valuations in certain areas too . and that author mentioned 30% as a rough estimate for most areas with further declines in some locations .

and with mortgage rates with no where to go but up with the ever increasing fed rates , buyers for homes will begin to dry up at any price . and it seems like the fed is on a mission . and when the fed is on a mission , they usually go too far , in either direction , if history is any indicator .

sometimes the bears win . smile .

-- posted by allancoleman

http://today.reuters.com/business/newsAr...

Top 913. Jan 22, 2006 9:02 AM

» Jas_Jain - FWC: Bloomberg ... potential for housing crash

I am not the only one who sees economic catastrophe straight ahead. Below are comments of an astute commentator. Also, my commentary on the same article and another one in Barron's.

Kirk, it is not just Florida RE, but the economic COLLAPSE in Silly.con Valley will be far worse than in FL.

Jas
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From: Craig Tindale
Received: 01/22/2006 12:48 AM
Subject: Bloomberg is the 1st Politician to acknowledge potential for housing crash

Here we go folks over Niagara, this is the start of the free fall in housing, it will be the top story on CNN and Fox within a month. Then we will have outright panic within 90 days consumption will dry up within 120 days recession by mid year, asset bubble based jobs e.g. Real Estate will crash, Bernanke wont have any options to lower interest rates in order to soften the landing as oil will be spiking. Watch the stampede away from US dollars and US equities, bonds. Bernanke will try and hold it via open market purchases of paper assets (he has no other choice) hence the changes in M3 transparency.. The only way out is via a massive deprecation of the US dollar and is it unfolds BW 2 will begin to unravel.

Greenspan was asked in June who he recommended as his replacement he replied "Houdini".

-----------------------------------------------

What Is Wrong With California and New York?

They house the two biggest financial Fraud Centers in the world – Silly.con Valley and Man-Hunters’ Den, aka Manhattan. The fiscal crisis that brought the bodybuilder to power in California had everything to do with the bursting of the tech bubble (state revenues plummeted) whose root lied in the Scam Options accounting fraud. The current popularity of the Mayor of New York City is wholly due to the fact that his brethren – Bankrupters and Fraudster of New York City – have brought temporary prosperity to the City, whose roots lie in the Housing Bubble spawned by the Bankrupters and by defrauding the whole nation in the process. When the Housing Bubble bursts (prices down more than 20% from the peak) there will be fiscal crises in the two states as have been in the past. There is too much fraud money in Silly.con Valley and Man-Hunters’ Den and when the fraud money dries, as it always does after running its course, there will be economic collapse of these two Fraud Centers. And deservedly so. Those who live by the Fraud die by the Fraud!

The real story of America for the past ten years is fraud committed by its economic rulers and the moral bankruptcy of the so-called “educated” people incapable of seeing the fraud because the Fraudsters have made it legal using their power as the rulers. The control that Bankrupters and Fraudsters have on the laws that affect them is incredible. “The nation of laws” is only as good as the men who make the laws!

Currently, the evil in America is mostly concentrated in the economic arena, but in the next ten years it will spread to the political and social arenas. Americans will suffer and cause more harm to the world than Germans did in the first half of the 20th century. Those who are ignorant of history…

Jas

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http://online.barrons.com/article/SB1137...

Barron’s
MONDAY, JANUARY 23, 2006

State of Mind

Who's to blame when a state government goes wrong? Passive citizens
By THOMAS G. DONLAN

FOR MANY YEARS NOW, cynical Americans have been amusing themselves at California's expense. We have mocked the Golden State for its leaden environmental policies, its decibel democracy and its fiscal ineptitude. We have repeated the old saying that "Wherever the country is going, California will get there first," and labeled it a curse.

We take back none of it, but if California lives under a curse, what must we say of New York? A new study from the Manhattan Institute says New York has been there and back and plans another trip. It will not come as news to New Yorkers, or to the millions who have left the state, but anything California has done to damage its economy, indulge its citizens and limit their opportunities New York has done, and sometimes done it worse.

After World War II, New York started the bicoastal contest with every advantage: New York had more people with better educations and more capital behind each worker. Its transportation infrastructure was the very best in the world. It was the center of Corporate America, home to headquarters of nearly half the Standard & Poor's 500 components. What Americans knew, New York told them -- for it was the center of publishing, broadcasting, news and entertainment. Even the movies were financed in New York, and reflected New York's idea of the popular taste.

But in the postwar competition, New York State fell behind California, and most of the rest of the nation. Its people and businesses created new jobs, but at less than half the national rate. A substantial number of the new jobs were in government. Even in the private sector, the labor-intensive health-care and social-services industries have come the closest to what might be called success, since they feed off the funds distributed by government -- particularly New York's free-spending and unpoliced Medicaid program. Manufacturing and other industries where people create wealth and get rich are in the greatest relative decline.

Progressive Deconstruction

It's going on today. According to the federal Bureau of Economic Analysis, which posts comparative data for 1997 and 2004, California's manufacturing sector grew 31% in the period; New York's grew 12%. California's information and entertainment sector and its financial sector each nearly doubled -- while information and entertainment grew 51% and finance grew 40% in New York. Retail and wholesale trade rose 41% in California and 27% in New York.

The comparison between the states in the real-estate sector is particularly telling, for real estate capitalizes the opportunities available to people who buy or rent working space and living space in an area. From 1997 to 2004, California's real-estate sector was up 56%; New York's was up a mere 23%.

All told, California's gross state product was up 52% between 1997 and 2004, to $1.5 trillion; New York's was up 37%, to $896 billion.

New York State and city still receive immigrants by the hundreds of thousands each year, and for the same old reasons: People come to better themselves by working hard in starter jobs and moving up. But moving up is harder now: 1.7 million residents of the state went elsewhere between 1995 and 2004, continuing a long trend -- New York is no longer growing fast enough to fulfill so many people's dreams.

The trend toward moving out even has an effect on the national government. New York lost 16 seats in the House of Representatives between the 1950 census and the 2000 census. California gained 23.

And in the national economy, New York also plays a smaller role: In the past 25 years, the state's share of national income has dropped by 10 percentage points and its share of the gross domestic product is down by 12 percentage points.

Placing the Blame

In its recent study of the state's woes, the Manhattan Institute pinned the blame on government: "New York's political class spends, taxes, and borrows far more than the national average, consistently ranking at or near the top of the list in every measure of the burden that government imposes on citizens and businesses.

"Empire State government has become an industry run for the benefit of the few, rather than in service to the many. This monolithic industry churns relentlessly in Albany to preserve and expand its power over New York's economy and citizens. Efforts to reduce the swelling in New York's government sector are fiercely resisted by the powerful interest groups -- especially public-sector unions, trial lawyers, health-care providers and other state-subsidized industries -- that have become most adept at gaming the system in Albany."

And of all the ills that citizens are heir to, taxes must lead the list.

The total tax burden -- federal, state, county and local -- falls most heavily on New Yorkers. It's bad enough on average, but progressive taxes on income and high taxes on real estate and other forms of wealth soak the rich and handicap business. On the Tax Foundation's index of business-tax climate, New York ranks 49th, meaning it's more burdensome than all states but Hawaii. That puts putting California almost at ease with its 38th-place finish.

In his new budget, Gov. George E. Pataki proposed tax cuts, but they would be worth less than $1 billion in a budget that he designed to spend $110 billion.

New Yorkers also face other costs that are like taxes: Even after California's spectacular electric-power debacle, its businesses and consumers still don't pay as much for a kilowatt as New Yorkers do.

In the cost of workers-compensation cases, New York and California are nearly tied, at second and third in the country respectively. One difference: Californians have made workers' comp a major political issue; it never moves the dial in New York.

Trying to Find a Fix

As an organization dedicated to government reform, the Manhattan Institute naturally offers a portfolio of changes to the system of government in New York. It wants lower taxes and lower spending, especially in health care; it wants an end to free-borrowing public authorities; it wants free-market alternatives to failed public schools; it wants a fair system of drawing legislative districts that won't protect most incumbents; it wants tort reform and a reduction in the power of bureaucrats and their unions; it even wants to restore "democracy" to the people by amending the state constitution to provide for legislation by direct initiative.

Most of these would do some good, except the last. California's example of the use of such initiatives leads us to foresee mere diversion of some funds in the political marketplace from buying legislators to buying voters.

If New Yorkers had a sudden burst of political energy or even if, California-style, they mindlessly followed a bunch of rabble-rousers to enact some kind of tax relief, it might do some good for a little while. But when Californians had that sort of experience, they ultimately gave their state government extra power by enacting local property-tax limits and then demanding that the state pick up all the missing services, spending and power. New Yorkers should reduce their demands for state spending before tinkering with taxation.

Like California, New York state and its citizens have chosen a road to ruin. Those who want a different destination will have to take a different path -- for example, to Kansas, Colorado or Virginia, which lead the Pacific Research Institute's list of states providing the greatest economic freedom.

Sensible, self-reliant people who don't want much from their state government have been getting out of New York for years. Migration won't save New York, of course; it makes the Manhattan Institute's agenda ever more impossible. But migration improves the quality of life for the millions who leave, and they are improving the economies of the states where they land.

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060120/us_n...

NYC mayor: housing market "dramatically" slowing Fri Jan 20, 1:14 PM ET

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Friday said the real estate market was slowing "dramatically" and only a "miracle" could stop soaring mortgage rates from eating into housing prices.

Consumers are definitely feeling the pinch of higher mortgage lending rates and are not quite as eager to snap up a new home especially at time when house prices in the Big Apple are near record-highs, the Republican mayor said in his weekly radio show.

"The real estate market is slowing down dramatically and we're going to have a problem down the road," Bloomberg said.

"If people who want to sell their houses have to wait a longer time before someone comes along and buys it, it would be a miracle if prices didn't start to go down," he said.

The most recent data compiled by Prudential Douglas Elliman show the volume of sales of Manhattan apartments dropped.

The survey also showed the number of for-sale units piled up in the last quarter of 2005, while buyers took longer to commit to a purchase although prices have not yet taken much of a hit as a result.

Bloomberg, who won a second term in office in November by a landslide, said property taxes were on the rise, but were not climbing as fast as the values of the properties themselves, as state laws limit how much taxes can rise.

But homebuyers are not just burdened by higher property prices and taxes, he said.

"Rates for mortgages are 200 basis points higher than a year ago, the cost of heating oil -- we all know has gone up -- and taxes have gone up and expenses have gone up," he said.

The New York State Financial Control Board estimated in December that real property taxes -- the city's biggest and fastest-growing tax -- will produce $12.6 billion in the current fiscal year.

New York State Comptroller Alan Hevesi has estimated New York City could end the current fiscal year with a surplus of almost $3.0 billion, thanks in large part to the housing market.

The city does face budget gaps in the future, and the mayor defended the practice of handing out tickets for nuisance violations as being preferable to a tax increase.

"They (tickets) are a source of revenue to the city and somebody's got to pay the bills," he said.

"It saves us from having to charge more taxes so to say the money isn't useful is ridiculous," he added.

The mayor denied the city had set formal quotas for the number of tickets -- for minor offenses, such as parking -- issued in order to raise revenue collections. Instead, the city has performance targets, he said.
a3blue; 01/22/06

-- posted by Jas_Jain

Top 914. Jan 22, 2006 11:08 AM

» Normxxx - Re: Re: 25% Underwater Overnight

In response to Re: 25% Underwater Overnight posted by pbradford6:

BTW, I'm not happy at all with the hit in the stock market!

We may know by Tuesday whether we've seen the highs for the year, at least until the 4Q.

-- posted by Normxxx

Top 915. Jan 22, 2006 11:15 AM

» Normxxx - Re: Re: 25% Underwater Overnight

In response to Re: 25% Underwater Overnight posted by allancoleman:

when the fed is on a mission , they usually go too far , in either direction , if history is any indicator .

That's a common (Wall street type) misconception; when the Fed moves, it usually keeps on going until it sees some appreciable response in the economy for the simple reason that anything short of that is like stopping your medicine when you "feel better." The disease usually rebounds with twice the fury.

-- posted by Normxxx

http://money.cnn.com/2005/01/13/real_est...

Top 916. Jan 22, 2006 11:17 AM

» permabear - Re: Re: 25% Underwater Overnight

In response to Re: 25% Underwater Overnight posted by allancoleman:

I believe you are referring to Yale Professor Robert Shiller. Bob Brinker was not the only stock market bear in the beginning of 2000. Robert Shiller came out with a book "Irrational Exuberance" predicting a major stock market decline prior to the bear market. Last year he got a lot of publicity for being one of the first established economists to predict a major housing market decline. The guy has a track record.

-- posted by permabear