March 23, 2006

Ah, you have to love that classic moment in any Ponzi or Pyramid scheme, when the music stops...

And the bag holders look around and say "hey, what happened! We were all supposed to get rich! Come on back! Don't let me stay holding this damn bag!"

That moment is here, and Tucson Arizona is holding a really, really, really big worthless bag of cowtown sh*t, with nobody to buy it from them...

"Tucson real estate has risen much faster than household income growth," Stiff said. "As a consequence, we predict a significant slowdown in home appreciation in Tucson."

Stiff said California real estate speculators fueled much of the growth in property values in Tucson, Phoenix, Las Vegas and other Southwestern markets over the past couple of years.

A wave of speculation that has radiated eastward from California is responsible for the unprecedented price jumps," he said. "Mortgage payments are already above what many people can afford, which has to eventually put the brakes on the market."

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

From Bloomberg, after today's housing numbers:

>>A modest decline in sales this year may prevent prices from tumbling, making it easier for consumers to keep tapping into home equity and boost spending, economists said.<<

Woohoo! I just found another ten spot in my wallet! Barkeep, how about another one for the road!

Anonymous said...

So Tucson collapses...Arizona collapses...Las Vegas collapses....and then these flippers holding the bag have no choice but to move to from CA to AZ,NV etc.etc and in the process sell their CA McMansions (all 100 ft of it)......then CA collapses. Does this compute?

Anonymous said...

Mortgage Bankers Association has reported double digit declines in mortgage applications each week this year except for one. Yet home sales only declined by .3%? So is the NAR telling us that people are now buying houses with suitcases full of cash? Maybe they're writing six digit checks.