April 23, 2006

HousingPanic nominations: What US city is the face of the housing bubble today?

The leading list for months has been

Phoenix
San Diego
Miami
Boston
Washington DC
Denver
Sacramento
Las Vegas
Tampa

I still think Phoenix with the absolute panic, the fleeing of the investors, the listing explosion (up to 43,000 by the way today), the over-reliance on real estate, the get-rich-quick mentality of the people (there are no real jobs in Phoenix) and the 55% increase in 2005, will make Phoenix the face of the bubble when they go back and do research papers on the madness.

Get your nominations in - and tell us why you think it's that town.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Phoenix all the way, because San Diego, bad as it is, is at least a place worth living.

Anonymous said...

Probably Miami. . .if another hurricane strikes, there won't be enough glass on the planet to replace all those glass-box condo windows. . . maybe the residents (or all they all empty spec units?) will move to the empty houses in Phoenix and Denver.

Anonymous said...

San Francisco is another disater in waiting. Imagine what would happen there after a Mag 7 earthquake -- the big one scientists keep telling us is overdue. Politicians prefer to deal with the here and now, and residents there mostly live in denial thinking all the bases are covered. If New Orleans taught us anything, it was the lesson that picking up the pieces long-term is even harder that dealing with the immediate emergency.

This is not a TV show or Star Trek boys and girls. We have limited resources and a finite number of people. When everbody leaves town after an emergency, guess what? Not a damn thing gets done! And what is the city supposed to do? Advertise "Come back to San Fran, we have no water, now sewers, no electricity, no schools, but you can shovel rocks all day!" Yeah right...

Anonymous said...

New Orleans also showed that a disaster sparks a real estate price boom. Same deal in San Fran. Prices may go down there, but it will be a recession that takes it down, not another 1906-style shake 'n bake.

Anonymous said...

not la

Anonymous said...

Miami, because history repeats itself. Florida RE during the "booming" '20s and the subsequent "bust".

Joe said...

I gotta stick with my former hometown of Las Vegas.

Although both are neck and neck in terms of ratio of listing to population. But the numbers don't tell the whole story. At least Phoenix has a diversified economy, Las Vegas has no economy outside of gambling and tourism.

Also, the collective IQ of people in Vegas is much lower than anywhere else; enough bad media and these people will panic first.

David said...

So many wonderful choices for the face of the housing bubble today. Tough call.

Anonymous said...

Any California city on a little slope due to rains or a quake that can liquify and slide...like the foundation Card wiggling around at the bottom of their Ponzi scheme housing DREAM!

Anonymous said...

Boston, Miami, Phoenix, Seattle, Portland (Ore. and ME.), DC, San Diego, San Fransisco, Minneapolis, Detroit, Baltimore, NYC, Salt Lake, Tucson, Las Vegas and every other city in the US.

It's all going down. This is going to be the end of RE as anything more than a roof over your head for a long long time.

Anonymous said...

KEITH,

Do you say Phoenix because you hate it, or because you really think it will drop the most?


After 13 years here, I want to commit suicide. I absolutely HATE it here!!!! The only thing I would miss is the shopping. But I do think that any metro area has a ton of shopping like Atlanta. I was going to say the lack of humidity. However, I just remembered that I need to go to the dermatologist for severly dry skin.

So, after 13 years here (seems like a few lifetimes), I can say Phoenix will go down the most.


Transient, out-of-state, soulless semi-retired gouls from CA who made a killing on their shack in San Jose who are too lazy to more further east are 75% of the reason that prices skyrocketed here in Scottsdale.

Anonymous said...

Sorry, I meant "Ghouls", not gouls.

Anonymous said...

West Coast of Florida
Phoenix
Las Vegas
East Coast of Florida
Sacramento exurbs
Northern VA
Boston
San Diego
The remainder of Florida
Orange County, CA
Toadsuck, Arkansas
LA

just kidding about Toadsuck. It's a fine place to be.