Re: Recovery, just not the normal sort

In article <esphr4$f9o$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Mike Andrews <mikea@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Housing values are crashing in some parts of the States, I'm given to
understand, at the same time Adjustable Rate Mortgages are going up
through the roof. Result is that a lot of folks are losing their
homes. Mr. Bubble, he go "Pop!"

Haven't seen a crash around here (thankfully), but prices did stop
going up last year. There's still a limit to how low they can go
because the supply is artificially constricted, and construction loans
are still cheap enough that some builders would rather pay six months'
interest than accept a lower offer. (If price pressures stay
negative, the result in this market is not lower prices but less
inventory, as has been seen so far. Last year, sales dropped by
something like 15-20% but prices held steady or dropped only slightly.
Foreclosures *are* up.)

It would probably take another banking crisis to cause a real crash
here, and that's not likely to happen due to changes in the financial,
competitive, and regulatory environments. What everyone seems to
expect is a gradual deflation, where absolute housing prices stay steady
or decline slowly for several years until the rest of the economy has
inflated enough to bring relative prices back into line.

-GAWollman

--
Garrett A. Wollman | The real tragedy of human existence is not that we are
wollman@xxxxxxxxxxxxx| nasty by nature, but that a cruel structural asymmetry
Opinions not those | grants to rare events of meanness such power to shape
of MIT or CSAIL. | our history. - S.J. Gould, Ten Thousand Acts of Kindness
.

Relevant Pages

  • Oil prices holds steady after sharp $4 drop
    ... Oil held steady Tuesday in Asia as a weaker dollar and renewed buying interest ... helped support prices after a plunge of nearly $4 in the previous session. ... Southeast Asia, police said Wednesday. ... There is tremendous anticipation that Umno president Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad ...
    (soc.culture.malaysia)
  • Re: This drivers strike ?
    ... stations are affected for some reason. ... Although prices are steady and no one is panic buying a thing. ...
    (uk.rec.driving)
  • Re: Yep, some more actual Mac advocacy (This is comp.sys.mac.advocacy, after all)
    ... There's been no noticable drop in motherboard prices as they ... eject features. ... Yet prices have been steady or coming down, ...
    (comp.sys.mac.advocacy)
  • Re: Oil hits $100 again
    ... trucks to get goods across country, expect to see a steady increase in ... prices of everything as transportation firms pass the costs along to ... Oil is used for far more than merely than transportation fuel. ...
    (misc.transport.road)
  • Re: Rasmussen: 67% Support Offshore Drilling...
    ... "67% Support Offshore Drilling, 64% Expect it Will Lower Prices" ... Even if the United States produced all the oil in its ...
    (comp.sys.mac.advocacy)
Loading