August 23, 2007

HousingPANIC Stupid Question of the Day


Do you see now how HousingPANIC was a positive force for change, and a better future?

Do you see now how the bursting of the housing bubble and the toxic mortgage meltdown was the best thing that could have happened for America?

Do you see now how exposing the NAR, realtors, builders and mortgage brokers as corrupt liars and conmen only helped?

Do you see now?

50 comments:

Anonymous said...

this is me at the grand canyon.

do you see?

this is me at mount rushmore.

do you SEE?

this is me at yellowstone nat. park.

Do. You. See?!

Anonymous said...

MarketWatch now sees it:
http://tinyurl.com/3bgdet

Anonymous said...

"There are not enough jail cells to put all of these people in jail". . .quote from Cuyahoga County Treasurer (Cleveland) (see housingdoom.com). . .YES - Blogs were the ONLY source of information on the housing Ponzi scheme - and it WAS a Ponzi scheme. . .Keith and Co. were voices in the wilderness. . .I wrote in my own diary in March of 2005, that the subprime mess would cause major problems - I found HousingPanic doing some Google searches on subprime, and have been here since nearly the beginning. . .where was the New York Times?? The LA Times? we won't even get into Rags like the Arizona papers. . .they were ALL in bed with Toll Brother and KB, Etc.

The result is a lifelong distrust of the MSM - Blogs, YouTube, etc. are where real information is found these days.

Anonymous said...

Good in some ways...bad in others. You aren't factoring in the Greed and corruption of Wall St. and the Corrupt Fed Govt. Gold and Silver are apparently worthless. The FED is bailing out all the people stuck in the mortgage industry. What a great country we live in...So much for Free Markets.

Anonymous said...

I see the troll needs a beach towel.

Anonymous said...

Nope.

I see the potential for amerikans to perhaps finally wake-up and decide to stop the Elite-Insider raping of the planet (which is finally killing even the USA), but I doubt their will be a wake-up, unless about 250 million brain implants occur...

Nope, the response to this debacle will be just another round of electing corrupt politicos, pandering to their base with lies from hell, to the District of Criminals.

The sheepsters won't be happy until they're std. of living is on par with India & China.

"You've killed us all!"

Anonymous said...

"I see, I see!" said the blind man.

I really do see what you mean. The faster this whole mess melts, the better.

Capitalism is awesome IMO. We just need the market to do its thing, to correct quickly, to carry out all the foolish lenders and borrowers.

I'll feel so much better when we get back to normal. It'll feel good knowing stuff is priced much more in-line with historical standards. It'll feel good to know I can buy a house and not worry about how I'm going to pay for it. It'll feel good knowing some folks will no longer need to pile on debt to buy stuff to make them feel like they fit in.

And I like stuff, sure I do. But to have so much personal debt like so many folks have, it's sad to me. Might even see a swing from "gotta have it all" to less is more.

blogger said...

This post isn't about being right about the housing bubble and crash - that was easy and many came before HP with that call.

No, this post is about HP being an optimistic agitator.

Good things will come from the housing crash and mortgage meltdown.

Only bad things came of the housing bubble.

Anonymous said...

Helped in what way? The REIC and Banks own Congress, Wall Street owns the Fed, and one day the FBI will be asking you questions Keith. This blog is inciting revolutionary thought and probably runs afoul of some provision of the Patriot Act.

No, HP is more like the book O"Brien gives to Winston Smith in Orwell's 1984. It's a way to get all of the moths to circle a light so their IPs can be traced and entered into a database.

I'm old enough to not have much worries. Others here may one day see their posts to HP on a big screen in a "court" setting.

Anonymous said...

Ignorance still dominates the land

boris said...

Keith,
Who cares about being optmistic. Why do you give a crap? Icare about the truth. Period. You are pursuing the truth. Keep it up.
I am a regular reader. I sold everything last year way before I found this blog. I rent a townhome ($1500/mo) in a ski town in the rockies, have no debt and approx 500k in cash or cash equivalents not including substantial retirement savings. I am 47. I can almost retire.
Why does this matter? Because the average renter out there, and i am one of them, is being laughed and snickered at and even though the markets are doing exactly what a renter would want, the home debtors are still clinging to their ways.
On occasion, Keith, I come here and to some other excellent blogs to remind myself why I'm doing what I'm doing. I am in pursuit of TRUTH not pessimism not optimism not spin not BS just truth. You need to keep posting that TRUTH because as this disaster progresses your going to look smarter and smarter and the truth WILL be told.
Continue, Keith. Press on.

Anonymous said...

I see how it was alot more fun to hang out here ahead of the bust.

Now I turn my sights to what is next.

I think it will be along way down with many false bottoms and lots more money being extracted out of the market by all the REIC workers now displaced by falling prices and tighter money.

Anonymous said...

I am Wind In His Hair.
Do you see that you’re my friend?
Do you see that I will always be your friend?

blogger said...

Boris - good point. Seeking and uncovering the truth is living in my book.

Being in denial, or being scared of the truth, is a sad and unhealthy way to live. Again, in my book.

Ignorance is bliss. Until you lose everything.

Meanwhile, I just want people to understand that future generations will be better off if this current debt and fraud fueled housing bubble completely deflates, and ASAP.

The housing bubble was evil. It ruined families. It will eventually cost millions of jobs and destroy our economy. Yes, it may have felt GREAT at the time, just like crack cocaine I'd imagine.

But it was evil.

Anonymous said...

devestment said...

I am Wind In His Hair.
Do you see that you’re my friend?
Do you see that I will always be your friend?


Thanks Devestment....that one made me spit coffee on the screen!!

Anonymous said...

Keith

I think you are dreaming if you think good things can happen if the housing market/mortgage market collapses.

America will not turn back to some sort of libertarian wonderland of Ron Paul, it will either turn to a socialistic answer - increases taxes on visibly wealthy people / increased regulation of business ( e.g. Britain in the 1930s), or it will turn into a fascistic/corporate capitalism state (e.g. Germany, Italy, Japan).

A collapse of the housing market will bring a lot of hurt to the poorest members of American society. This will make them angry and look round for easy and quick solutions.

Who cares about the value of the currency, if you have no currency? During the 1930s depression, did the poor fight for the right of the rich to keep gold?
Did the rich during the 1930S dare display wealth?

Anonymous said...

In 2003 I made an offer on a house for 800k, was number 2, number 3 offered 700k, number 1 bought it for 840K. Felt funny about my job situation so I was going to withdrawal my offer, so he paid 140K more than he had to.

It only got worse from then to now, I knew this was going to end up ruining our entire economy, so I started my own business that is as recession proof as you can get. Happy to not own and be house & home depot poor.

Anonymous said...

Sure Keith, we HP'ers did our part...now let's wait a couple of years for the NEXT BUBBLE TO START, BY THE SAME SHADY GROUPS WHO CONTROL GOVERNMENT AND WALL STREET.

Everyone with half brain knows that the American economy can only go on with bubbles...too late to fix it, out of control. That's why the shady groups keep pumping illegals in, create phony wars, and come up with fraudulent-exotic investments, to make some money off the taxpayer sheeple. Meanwhile, the dollar is worthless even in Eastern Europe and Latin America.

Anonymous said...

Praise the Lord Brother, praise the Lord! Much of our societal ills stems from the, "I want it all, and I want in now" mentality.

The Bible is actually filled with much wisdom concerning money and credit, and maybe it's time we get back to basics concerning what's really important in our lives. Your riches are your family, your faith, your memories and in understanding that life is about the journey and not simply about the destination.

There are absolutely no promises on tomorrow folks, so hug your kids, call your parents, show some kindness to strangers and remember that life itself is a very special gift. Don't waste the gift on this material world.

blogger said...

Kids out of college will be able to save up 10% (vs. 0%), aspire to own a starter home (vs. a mansion out of the gate), and spend a reasonable percentage of their incomes on housing. They'll think of a house as a place to live, not a lottery ticket.

That's my dream.

But it's a long way home.

Anonymous said...

Whack! Thank you sir, may I have another?

Whack! Thank you sir, may I have another?

Whack!......

Anonymous said...

I personally would anser :yes!Althoug - Human nature makes sure people rather shoot the messenger than accepting the facts. In that light, the answer is no.

Anonymous said...

Bill Gross calls for bail out of home debtors.

Anyone care to speculate on wether or not Bushco will save the little guys?

http://www.pimco.com/LeftNav/Featured+Market+Commentary/IO/2007/IO+September+2007.htm

Anonymous said...

check out the larest on seattle bubble,its a call to Dr Laura

Anonymous said...

How about some truth seeking from Bill Gross? Get a load of this...

"Famed bond fund manager Bill Gross said the White House should bail out the millions of American homeowners who face the dreaded prospect of foreclosure this year."

"If we can bail out Chrysler, why can't we support the American homeowner?" Gross wrote in his monthly investment outlook on PIMCO's Web site."

"Write some checks, bail 'em out, prevent a destructive housing deflation that (Fed Chairman) Ben Bernanke is unable to do. After all 'W', you're 'the Decider,' aren't you?" Gross wrote.

"Your stocks and risk-oriented levered investments will spring to life like the wild flowers in Death Valley after a flash flood," Gross wrote.

Read the whole story here. How might Gross's bond funds suffer if nature will, for once, be allowed to take its natural course after all this madness? Perhaps, instead, this is his attempt at some witty sarcasm?

http://tinyurl.com/337ufs

Anonymous said...

KEEF you are a trip amigo. Even though the evidence is out there that there is no cras you still cling to this idea.

Counrywide is being bailed out via fed. Hillary, Obama, Dodd and Shumer are tripping over one another on who will have the biggest bailout.

Whatever the crash was going to be, this is it. If you can't afford a home today, you will not afford it next year.

You are as delusional about the crash as you are about Ron Paul's chances.

Anonymous said...

Implicite in my rant about the MSM mission in action, is an optimistic hope that the younger internet generation will tune out the talking heads, and real estate, mortgage salesmen, and talk with each other via blogs, etc. Life decisions should be researched, and the information IS out there.

On another optimistic note, the large condo project next to me (Aquavista - 300 units or so) is now becomming what it was intended to be - cheap housing for downtown workers (hotel workers and civil servants). . condo sales prices and rents have come down so much that the building is filling up with young people, not empty flipper units. Agree! A house should be to live in.

Anonymous said...

Orangezilo makes the call and predicts a recession:

http://tinyurl.com/28tmeb

If anyone knows how to call on bad conditions (and insider dump his own shares) the Orange man does!

Meanwhile, I'm making the call for SEC investigations on insider selling by the Orange. Now THAT's a DEPRESSION for the Orange!
Lol.

Anonymous said...

Keith (Mr. Sherlock Sir) you have been right all along. The best econmomists in the world didn't see the bubble coming. The biggets governments in the world didn't see the bubble coming. The wall street brains didn't see it coming. It is now upon us and we all will pay the price.

The big question is when will the next bubble come. The folks on wall street aren't done yet. It is up to the average citizen to invest their money wisely.

Anonymous said...

A friend of mine just called today telling me he's being laid-off after working as a construction supervisor for 25+ years.

Just like that ... boom ... out of work.

As an act of kindness, the company is still paying his cellphone bill ... but so far, no return calls for work.

I'm sure there are many of those with friends on this blog who can share similar stories.

The scary part is these people were *very* qualified in what they did ... and now they're being left without a pot to p*ss in.

Anonymous said...

bailout bailout bailout. Free money. Sucks to be a HP Bitter renter.

Anonymous said...

Dooopeyyyyy, Dooopeyyyyy...

Come out and play!

Unless you're too busy trying to sell your CFC long from this morning!!! LOL LOL LOL

Orangzillo does it again! He duped the dopes into buying last night and this morning... The result? CFC is DOWN after jumping 10% on the BofA news.

ROTFL ROTFL

Duped again, dope!

Anonymous said...

OFFICIAL UPDATE

REALTORS AND MORTGAGE FLUNKEES HAVE CHANGED THEIR FOOD> NEW OFFICIAL FOOD IS CHEAP SORE BRAND MAC & CHEESE OUT OF A CUP. THEY HAVE INFORMED ME THIS IS CHEAPER THAN RAMEN.

Anonymous said...

keith said...

Kids out of college will be able to save up 10% (vs. 0%), aspire to own a starter home (vs. a mansion out of the gate), and spend a reasonable percentage of their incomes on housing. They'll think of a house as a place to live, not a lottery ticket.

That's my dream.

But it's a long way home.

August 23, 2007 6:24 PM
---------------------------
Keith,
You live in wonderland - kids out of college, whose parents are NOT loaded and funding them like there's no tomorrow, graduate with somewhere on the order of over $30K in student loans and other debt on average. The ones being funded mostly by their parents graduate with $0, and the ones fully funded by 'rents get the $$ for a downpayment or a house in its entirety.

Back in the real world, I think you've outsmarted yourself - if the housing market were to completely implode, almost noone would be spared globally. The US economy is what keeps the world flowing unfortunately - the fact you haven't realized trying to time the market is a bad idea indicates you're either younger than me, or a lost cause. Hopefully it's just the former and you'll figure it out soon enough.

It's that classic gambling system scheme: you find 1024 people, tell 512 Team A is going to win, 512 Team B. Whichever team won, you call the people you told that to, split it 50/50 again, and repeat until you convince a few that you're a God and get them to do what you want. Same thing as always betting on black at the roulette wheel and telling people it's gonna come up - it eventually will, and you can SWEAR you're psychic, but if you really believe it, the only person dumber than the ones you convince is yourself. The runup was going to end eventually, the only question was/is how it will end - via inflationary-absorption, price depreciation, a combination thereof (most likely, with the biggest chunk being through inflationary-erosion), etc.

Anonymous said...

NEXT BUBBLE IS SILVER AND GOLD 2 YEARS OUT

Mammoth said...

Keith wrote, “Only bad things came of the housing bubble.”
--------------------------
Umm…are you sure about that?

What about all of the posters on HP who gloat about how they made a huge profit on their house by selling it to an FB in 2005?

What about all the flippers who made a fortune off of the bubble, and were smart enough to get out of the game before it popped?

I don’t think that from their perspective, the housing bubble was a bad thing.
-Mammoth

Anonymous said...

cut it out keith. here in cramerica we are going through what cramer calls recovery mode.....dude.......get with the program keith and quit being so negative. we here in cramerica believe our little bald headed philli jew is telling us the whole truth so help him the devil.......

Me said...

Who was the housing bubble "evil" to? Renters that got priced out of the market?

And there are very few foreclosures out there. According to the latest statistics, last month, New Jersey only had 215 foreclosures. That number is peanuts considering the fact that we have over 600 towns. This is not even enough houses for all of the bloggers on HP to buy.

There is no housing crash. All this market means is that you can't make 6 digits flipping houses and you can't sell a house over-night anymore.

Me said...

A house is still a lottery ticket. I own a rental property in Brooklyn that is in an awful slum that I would never consider living in. But it makes me money and will double my net-worth when I go to sell it.

Do you know what is more funny than the people who think there is a housing crash? President Paul! Now that is funny. President Ron Paul. HA HA. I'm sure he will have no trouble competing against Mitt Romney's $250 million...

Anonymous said...

Thanks Keith (and a shout out to Borka) for calling it by the book and providing a forum for discussion. I have been following the issue since Fleckstein began writing about the Housing ATM and have been following since. I will tell my story one day here, but suffice it to say when GB was elected I knew that we were going to war and any major purchase by an average citizen was going to cost them dearly.

That said, I have to add I am beginning to notice signs when you have apparently smoked, drank, or eaten something really good.

Anonymous said...

Keith
You gotta see this

http://seattlebubble.com/blog/2007/08/22/suzanne-researched-this-part-2/

Anonymous said...

Hah!Hah! Now all those home debtor morons, spec-u-vestors and sheeple in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Ohio are wiped out with no home insurance thanks to the floods. I say it's God's punishment for being so greedy and trying to borrow their way to prosperity.

I predict home prices in Findlay Ohio will be back to 1998 levels maybe 1997. One F*ucked borrower even had the nerve to say his property was probably worth more now that it was waterfront (and back too)

I say let the HELOC'd debt slaves eat Ramen noodles along with corrupt REIC. Now they all want the government to bail them out (literally).

I say if they were dumb enough to live on a flood plain they don't deserve our sympathy, only our scorn.

Woo-hoo free waterfront homes for everybody!

Anonymous said...

"Whatever the crash was going to be, this is it. If you can't afford a home today, you will not afford it next year.

You are as delusional about the crash as you are about Ron Paul's chances."

Perhaps you'd like to explain who is going to buy all of these $600,000 POS houses (at least in my area, Mont. county, MD), especially now that creative financing has been wiped out. Explain how people are going to afford that! I'd love to meet these households that make over $200,000/year to pay for these modest houses.

The bailout will amount to what, maybe $500 per buyer, maybe $1000? Ooh, that'll make a big difference.

dude said...

I must say, I do not understand the hostility I read from some of the real estate "fans" against the "happy renters" on this blog.
It is somewhat juvenile at times. I am a homeowner who was fortunate enough to have purchased in 1999, when prices were somewhat reasonable in S.Cal. I also was paying attention to timing when I refinanced the mortgage in July of 2003 at 4.875% on a 30 year fixed plus one point. My monthly mortgage and homeownership costs are half of what it would cost to rent this home. I was also fortunate to purchase a lot in S. Lake Tahoe in 2002 and sell it in 2005 for 2.6 times the purchase price. Yes, I WAS FORTUNATE and BLESSED, but if ANYONE sincerely believes real estate will be worth "investing" in within the next 5 years, they are sincerely MISTAKEN. This bubble will take years and years to play itself out, and "real estate" will be subject of scorn instead of praise for quite sometime, as well. Yes, and I agree with Spectre of Deflation... Praise The Lord!
(And by the way, I put 32% down on the house in 1999 and paid cash for the lot in S. Lake Tahoe)

Anonymous said...

Overpriced homes. 800 thousand dollars.

Resetting arm. 2000 more dollars every month.

HP telling you don't sign on the dotted line. Priceless.

My friend and I were talking today about how a few years ago we wondered if maybe WE were wrong to keep renting. Maybe we would never get in now. Today we laughed about it.

The only unfortunate thing I see is that all of us who were responsible, not signing for debt we couldn't repay, will still have to pay something because of the damage it is doing to the economy overall. I guess it could be worse. We could have bought, lost, and have seven years bad luck

Anonymous said...

Still too early yet Keith and NONE of us are going to get credit for it... the labor class is just beginning to wake up, and they will overthrow the acquisitive elite.

You're certainly a big part of that. Just don't expect anybody to thank you.

That said... it's going to be BEAUTIFUL!

That's our thanks.

Anonymous said...

"bailout bailout bailout. Free money. Sucks to be a HP Bitter renter."

You're right, I should have bought in 2005. There's a tiny little split foyer (824 sq. ft.) across the street from me, which was for sale in Sept. 2005 for $349,900. It finally sold, to a guy named Enrique, for $339,000. I could have bought it if I really stretched myself to the limit, but I didn't. Right now, he's been trying to sell the house since June. Current asking price: $299,000. It still has a ways to go down. Are you saying that I should have bought this house when I had the chance?

Anonymous said...

homeowner said...
"There is no housing crash. All this market means is that you can't make 6 digits flipping houses and you can't sell a house over-night anymore."

Right, I forgot, bubbles are for bathtubs.

Tell everyone that bought a house within the last 2 1/2 years, whose houses are now worth less than what they bought them for, that there is no housing crash. They'll feel better.

Anonymous said...

if interest rates went high enough even my mediocre savings might enable me to save enough to buy some stocks as a method of bailout

Anonymous said...

I saw from the moment I came to this blog it was a good thing. I knew when houses around here and elsewhere quadrupled in value within only a matter of months something was wrong. It was all so odd to me, but everyone was acting like the sudden astronomical rise in home prices was an every day occurance. I searched and searched for information about it, but of course nothing was coming from the MSM. So I knew I had to look elsewhere and that's when I found HP. Then I found the other housing blogs, but HP was and is still my favorite. I learned a lot from this blog. I gained a wealth of knowledge that will help me for years to come, and the most important thing I learned was common sense and reality do still exist though a lot of this country is currently detached from both. I know many others have learned important lessons as well. I might not agree with everything you say Keith all the time (on immigration we disagree some grrrrrrr lol), but I appreciate that you've done all this for all of us. Thank you.