Like I’ve been telling my friends for years, it’s a bubble stupid, it can’t last for ever. If the average young couple has to save money for 30 years just to buy their first starter home, then does that not tell you that something is wrong? Things were out of whack, not everywhere, but apparently in enough areas to have caused this mess that we are now in. I know there is more to it than that, but that is the main reason for our crisis.
We should never have had a housing bubble. If you find the ones responsible for the bubble, then you will have found the ones that are responsible for all of our pain.
jbranstetter04
The housing bubble is bursting and the decline is accelerating!
Here are graphs of inflation-adjusted, historical real estate prices.
Recently, there has been a lot of discussion about the bursting of the U.S. housing bubble. Some economists claim housing prices are near a bottom, while others claim that the real estate bubble is the largest financial bubble in history and still has far to fall. This site aims to add to the housing bubble debate with inflation-adjusted graphs and spreadsheets showing that today’s real estate prices are quite abnormal, especially for many coastal metropolitan areas.
Notice that in the 25-year period from 1975 through 1999, real existing house prices stayed roughly within the range of $125,000 to $160,000, with an average during this period of $142,850. The United States median price was $180,100 as of the fourth quarter of 2008.
http://mysite.verizon.net/vzeqrguz/housingbubble/
Housing prices to free fall in 2008 – Merrill
According to a Merrill Lynch report, home prices will drop 15 percent this year, and declines will continue in 2009.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — The worst housing financial crisis in decades is only going to get worse, a Merrill Lynch report said Wednesday.
The investment bank forecasted a 15 percent drop in housing prices in 2008 and a further 10 percent drop in 2009, with even more depreciation likely in 2010.
By contrast, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) expects housing prices to remain flat in 2008. NAR did cut its home price estimate for the current quarter, however, to a 5.3 percent year-over-year decline, which represents the steepest drop in that price measure on record. But NAR sees an uptick in home prices in the last two quarters of 2008.
“Merrill Lynch’s figures are way too pessimistic, and they are unprecedented,” Lawrence Yun, the National Association of Realtors chief economist told CNNMoney.com. “There is so much variation in local housing markets, and we see stable price conditions for 2008.”
The current housing crisis and the depreciation in home prices have pummeled the economy, with businesses and consumers cutting back on spending, raising the specter of a recession. “Lower sales and higher inventory for sales are lowering the velocity of transactions,” said Fritz Siebel, Director of US Property Derivatives for Tradition Financial Services. “That cannot be a sign of good health for the economy.”
But for those who think that the worst is over, Merrill Lynch said that housing prices still remain comparatively high. The brokerage believes that home prices are still far above historical norms when compared to other measures such as rent or GDP. “By our calculations, it will take about a 20 to 30 percent decline in home prices to correct this imbalance,” said the report.
Merrill Lynch believes that housing starts will most likely slide another 30 percent by the end of 2008 – a historic low.
The report says that the inventory situation only continues to worsen, as homebuilders are now looking at more than a nine months’ supply. “The current supply/demand environment does not favor a swift recovery in the housing market, in our view,” according to the report.
Yun agrees that the reduction in housing starts will not bode well for the economy, especially in the homebuilding industry, but he believes that the reduction will soothe the housing market by slowing the glut in inventory. “The reduction in housing starts is not stabilizing the economy, but it will stabilize the market,” said Yun.
http://money.cnn.com/2008/01/23/real_estate/merrill_forecast/index.htm
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