Does it surprise you how clueless and unaware your fellow Americans are?
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Although existing homes are selling at their slowest pace in four years, most Americans are confident their homes are worth more now than they were a year ago, according to a survey released on Thursday.
22 comments:
Time to buy land in Paraguay!!!
Seriously, what a joke! Paraguay? Could anyone make this stuff up?
As I said before...
My favorite form of entertainment for the past six years:
Watching the American people (especially the 49% who voted for Bush II) GET MORE AND MORE STUPID BY THE DAY!!
The best part of it?
IT'S FREE !!!!!!!!!!
Now is probably a great time to be a 'cult leader' because the pickings for stupid people is overwhemingly abundant!!
Paraguay? Could anyone make this stuff up?
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Only an Anonytroll!!
Gotta give Keith credit...he must not delete much, as he lets even dual personality trolls through. Proof:
When I left my comment in the "Canary" thread just above, there were no comments on any of these threads, and that quote posted at 543 AM.
So how did Post Two comment on Post One here? :)
hey thats my family
Kinda like that mythical town where all the children are 'above average'. Everyone says 'it can't happen to me', they believe they are special, their town is special, their home is special. But the numbers say they are not.
Does this reveal something more meaningful about our western culture? We are all so self-absorbed that we ignore the empirical evidence of our own ordinariness.
As for the causes, I would look to self-help books and dual income homes where both parents spend so little time with their kids that they shower them with praise, gifts and attention to make up for the lack of real parenting. Oprah and Dr. Phil are both cause and effect of this babying of our children and ourselves.
It's easier to be a sheep than to think for yourself, therefore most people choose to be sheep - then you get things like political parties
This really drives home how early on we are in this housing correction. We are not even at "anxiety" yet!
No not really. I could not believe when I heard a friend of a friend I met this weekend tell us he left a 20 yr corporate life to flip houses.. now.. today.. 2007!! I just said cool. Granted Philly is not as bubblelicious as other places but talk about coming late to the party and being clueless.
LauraV said: My husbands co-worker yesterday asked his opinion about the housing market because she is considering selling her house.
The house was purchased back in 1998 but the mortgage will be resetting soon. The conversation was going fine, but then she actually got angry with my husband because he disagrees with her about prices going down... amazing. How can someone get mad at a different opinion?
Sounds like she bought the house at a good time, but then ATM'ed herself to death since then.
There are many more people just like her who are sitting on the fence, and will soon discover (my guess-the end of the year) that prices are not going to resume upwards and will be frantic to sell. Get ready to see tons of new listings at a city nearest you.
The power of positive thinking crowd has a significant affect on asset values. A distortion of true value occurs when interest rates go to historically low levels, and when anybody with a pulse can get credit. This combination is always lethal.
How did that dot-com boom work out for you? How is this past housing boom working out for you? This combination of The power of positive thinking and easy credit distorts reality, and always ends badly, with many many innocent bystanders getting hurt. The cattle drivers who spread mis-information about the reality of the situation, are the enemy.
Nope. Not surprised. Just sad that the sheeple don't realize they've been fleeced by Wall St., the global banking cartel, and the whores in Congress and the White House.
I'm very naive about many things that regular folks are not; I have no idea how much the taxes on my house are [ok, I can guess within 50%, I think], While I have the odd ability to be shown a wilderness picture from anywhere in the world and tell you where it's from, I can never find north, I truly, and please do not ruin this for me, do not know what politcal party the president assumes. I know a low IQ when I see one, I just truly never remember, nor care if he's R or D., I am a world class CCR diver but can barely swim. I find skydiving the most boring thing, even worse than bowling. I've had an email address since the day compuserve started in 1985[?] I had an apple, not a II or a IIe, but an APPLE in 1982[?]. I did not figure out cut and paste until a couple of years ago.
We all have large gaps in our knowledge. It shouldn't be a gap that you bet your life on. Housing investment is a loaded gun that will do more damage than a single shot. It will do such financial devestation that it is not for ameteurs. That's what we're seeing. The same people who actually vote for American Idol are the same one that read USA Today and think it's the WSJ, then ivest based on an a blurb. We are apes, we emmulate. We try to emmulate success. Sheeple anger me. I don't do surgery because I'm unskilled. If I had to do it I would educate myself as much as possible. Maybe I'll only have 3 minutes to compose myself, maybe I'll have a week to prepare. The sheeple do not prepare. I'm so sorry that they are our; lawyers, dentists, CPA's, cable guy, all the people we have to rely on for support in our lives. If they make such foul life decisions how can we expect them to do what's right, ever? Tired tirade, but thanks. They don't make me sick, they make my ass tired.
The sheeple are in denial:
CNNMoney.com
"Out of touch with realty reality"
http://tinyurl.com/3dgoyh
Denial is a very poor financial strategy:
"BIS warns of Great Depression dangers from credit spree"
http://tinyurl.com/35moqq
For those who don't know, the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) is the central bank for the world's central banks. When the BIS flashes warnings like the above, you'd better pay attention.
No I have been saying it for years...My Fellow Americans are the stupidest Creatures walking on 2 feet to ever graze this planet...
figuratively speaking of course.
Ya,
Every homeowner is talk believes that prices can't fall that far, because too many people will lose money. Like there is some god of money who will protect the uneducated, and save them form financial disater.
Lennar Reports $244.2M 2nd-Quarter Loss
Tuesday June 26, 6:35 pm ET
By Adrian Sainz, AP Business Writer
Homebuilder Lennar Reports $244.2M 2nd-Quarter Loss, Forecasts 3Q Loss
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070626/earns_lennar.html?.v=20
MIAMI (AP) -- Lennar Corp.'s struggles may not be over any time soon, with the housing market showing no signs of recovery. The Miami-based company, one of the nation's leading homebuilders, said Tuesday it stumbled to a second-quarter loss as inventories of unsold homes rose. The company cut prices and offered more incentives to attract skittish buyers.
Lennar also warned that it would likely post a loss through at least the third quarter.
"As we look to our third quarter and the remainder of 2007, we continue to see weak, and perhaps deteriorating, market conditions," Lennar President and Chief Executive Stuart Miller said.
For the second quarter, losses totaled $244.2 million, or $1.55 per share, versus a profit of $324.7 million, or $2 per share, in the previous year.
Lennar took a charge of $1.33 per share for valuation adjustments and write-offs of option deposits and pre-acquisition costs.
Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial forecast a profit of 5 cents per share. The estimates typically exclude one-time charges, but Lennar fell way short of expectations in any case.
Quarterly revenue slid 37 percent to $2.88 billion from $4.58 billion in the prior-year period. That still beat the analyst consensus of $2.58 billion. Shares of Lennar fell $1.20, or 3.1 percent, to $37.55 Tuesday.
Lennar's loss reflects broader problems in the housing market, with the Commerce Department reporting Tuesday that sales of new homes fell in May for the fourth time in the past five months.
On Monday, the National Association of Realtors reported that sales of existing homes fell for a third straight month in May and the median sales price declined for a record 10th consecutive month. Inventory of unsold homes shot up to the highest level in 15 years.
Miller said Lennar is cutting prices to sell inventory, but that has led to slimmer profit margins. Gross margins on home sales were 13.6 percent, compared with 23.7 percent in the second quarter of 2006.
Miller said the company anticipates a third-quarter loss due to uncertain market conditions, but did not offer specific guidance. Analysts expected the company to earn 25 cents per share in the third quarter, at least before Tuesday.
Lennar is focused on expenses, reducing construction costs and pushing sales to convert land and new home inventory into cash, Miller said. The homebuilder has cut back on housing starts by more than 50 percent year over year as it unloads inventory, Miller said.
"Market conditions have eroded so much over the past six months that we are now focused on limiting the loss for the year," Miller said, adding later that uncertain conditions make him "suspect that we will not know that a recovery is coming until it is upon us."
In the second quarter, Lennar delivered 9,568 homes, down 28 percent from last year, while new orders totaled 8,056 homes, a drop of 31 percent. Prospective buyers canceled orders at a rate of 29 percent. Lennar showed a backlog of 8,199 homes, at a value of $2.8 billion, in the second quarter.
Michael Rehaut, a JP Morgan analyst, said that the drop in new orders and the flat cancellation rate were roughly in line with estimates, but that the charges and deterioration of gross margins was worse than expected. Rehaut maintained a neutral rating for the company in his Tuesday note.
The average sales price of homes delivered decreased to $298,000, compared to $322,000 in the same period last year. The drop was due to higher sales incentives that averaged $43,700 per home delivered in the second quarter of 2007, compared to $24,700 per home delivered in the year-ago period.
Banc of America analyst Daniel Oppenheim said in a note Tuesday that high supply is keeping buyers on the sidelines because they expect a further drop in prices.
Lennar said loss on land sales totaled $108.8 million in the second quarter of 2007, including $69.4 million of valuation adjustments and $48.9 million of write-offs of deposits and pre-acquisition costs related to about 5,400 home sites under option that it does not intend to purchase.
Having experienced the dotcom bust, I am not at all surprised with the current housing and credit bubble. I worked for small telecom company that had some fiberoptic products in the pipeline. The Nasdaq feeding frenzy drove our worthless stock from $1.50 a share to $150.00 a share. Just so happened that I had 4000 shares in my stock option, so I cashed out as soon as we emerged from a blackout freeze in early 2000. Free money from the sheeple paid off my house and bought me a new car. Just as interesting, some of my coworkers believed that the stock would continue to go higher and refused to sell. Sadly, they rode their greed down close to single digits before capitulating.
The girl that cuts my hair just bought a condo for $330K. I'm guessing she makes $75K. It's a high end, overpriced kind of place and she makes that more for he incredible body than her skills, but I digress. So at 4 times her income she can afford it more or less.
I asked her why now. Her response was she was tired of renting and with prices having fallen so much lately figured now was the time to get in to real estate.
So she got it 1/2 right. Prices are lower than a year ago, but she also got it 1/2 wrong. That $330K was $400K a year ago but will go for $250K next year.
I wasn't about to burst her bubble with her holding sharp scissors 3 inches from my neck. I said congrats and quickly changed subjects.
I feel bad for her since she seems like a responsible kind of person. I'd be very surprised if she went the $0 down toxic loan route. Yet nonetheless, she is the classic case of MSM/realtor manipulation of "buy now before you're priced out" and "there has never been a better time to buy" bullshit.
And it's yet another example of why we have a looooooong way to go before we hit bottom.
PS: Yes I know I am wasting my money on hair cuts that I could get for 1/3 of the price at a chain. No need to tell me.
PaulEMath said:"As for the causes, I would look to self-help books and dual income homes where both parents spend so little time with their kids that they shower them with praise, gifts and attention to make up for the lack of real parenting. Oprah and Dr. Phil are both cause and effect of this babying of our children and ourselves".
Laura Vella said:"I totally agree with you Paul. What are we telling our children with this kinds of behavior?
By no means do I want the Great Depression II, It's just that families need to simplify their lives and exchange material things with more attention for their kids.
Don't get me started about Oprah and Dr. Phil.
We need to return to a time when it took only one income to support a family, including families learn how to budget themselves and invest in saving money.
I know I'm probably dreaming about this actually happening, but it's nice to dream sometimes.
There are plenty of sheeple. But let's remember that most of the sheeple did try to educamate themselves a little bit about real estate.
What did they do? Well, they asked their real estate agents and mortgage brokers!
For a sheeple it's the obvious thing to do.
Who would most people trust---the nice guy in the nice suit---or random anonymous bitter ranters like me who blog on the Internet?
most sheeple think Internet == Porn + psychos.
"Does it surprise you how clueless and unaware your fellow Americans are?"
Given that a few big Corporations own most of the MM, I am not surprised at all.
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