October 13, 2007

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!

Classic roller coaster
Phoenix Case-Shiller:
Miami Case-Shiller

You know that excitement you feel (chuga chuga chuga) as the coaster is climbing the hill. Oh, how high will we go? Weeeeee, this is gonna be fun.

Then you get to the very tip top, and it's calm. You have a nice view. Everything's gonna be OK. It's peaceful.

And then, if you're sitting in one of the front cars, you feel gravity taking you down. You start to scream. You see the drop ahead of you. You scream even louder. But oddly, you only hear silence from those behind you. Oh, that's because they're still enjoying the peak, having no idea of what's to come.

Well, now the whole coaster has crossed the peak, the ones in the front are screaming their heads off, they've got a full view of the drop ahead, and even the ones toward the back of the coaster can feel the gravity take hold, even though they don't have a clear view of what's ahead.

Here's the Case Shiller graph for Phoenix and Miami. And of course, one of my favorite coasters at Cedar Point.

26 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think that the ABX indexes should be in this too. :-)

Anonymous said...

53% of your readers think Ron Paul will win. Must be the same readers who go to online polls and vote 100 times for Ron Paul.

Anonymous said...

Don't worry there's a first aid station at the bottom.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...

I think that the ABX indexes should be in this too. :-)

October 13, 2007 1:38 PM
------------
Agreed, they are over on CR and they are getting ugly again!!! Third time is the charm & we are in that magic time of the year (Sept-Nov) when markets seem to always take a dive when these market forces finally take hold for good in terms of investor psyche!!

Anonymous said...

No matter what happens, the really nice stuff is always out of reach for most of us. And what if the stinkin' chart levels off? Then what, man?

Anonymous said...

Ahhhh!
How refreshing to get back to the housing issue.

Nice to get away from the skewed European view of American politics.

Anonymous said...

Like the ride, you just know how those charts are going to end up

Anonymous said...

WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!

I'm glad that I was down there with the ride operater(Keith), looking at all those suckers lose there lunch. haahahaahahha

Anonymous said...

Seattle is about a year behind PHX and MIA on this ride.....

Anonymous said...

...Front cars.. Forget that, the best ride is in the back after the weight of the front of the roller coaster train has accelerated down the rails and whipped you over the top!! The homedebtors that bought at the end of the boom in 2005-2006 are in the back cars. Wheeeeeeeee! :)

Anonymous said...

The unemployment rates in bubble areas, Miami, Phoenix, SD, etc. are soaring, as all the realtors, mortgage lenders, title company employees, and construction workers have or are getting pink slips. . .then PF Changs sales go down (check) then more layoffs in restaurants and retail (check), then tax revenues go down (check) then county layoffs and salary freezes (coming soon), etc etc. How do you say recession??

Anonymous said...

Visited CP as a kid, and it was roller coaster heaven. Keith, you picked a great metaphor for what's happening. Too bad 299,000,000 sheeple won't know what hit em'.

Anonymous said...

I thought the down side of the roller coaster was suppose to be the fun part? Guess if you are an HP'er.

Anonymous said...

Does anyone think the 100 billion being ponied up by all the big banks will be enough to counter the next ABX sub-prime slime based credit/liquidity crunch? Its all over the net as being the result of weeks of meetings b/t the central bankers, investment bankers and big multi-national banks.

Smacks of organized support to me, and we all know how that turned out. If you don't recall Just as Irving Fisher and he'll fill you in on the details!!

Anonymous said...

Could the median price increase in Phoenix have anything to do with the increase in the number of McMansions being built there? I'd like to see the median price per sqft. If the average size of a home went from 2200sf to 3500sf then obviously the prices will increase dramatically.

Anonymous said...

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2757699799528285056

Housing prices (Adjust for Inflation) from 1890 through April 2007, plotted to a roller coaster in Atari's Roller Coaster Tycoon 3.

It's old, but still pretty cool.

bobn said...

Thanks for the great link!

It's cool that you can click on other cities and see how they matchup, and the mouse-overs to show the comparisons with bonds is really fabulous.

The graphic you showed from WSJ's "The United States of Subprime" seemed to put me (Chicago Area) in such exalted company as Phoenix, Las Vegas, Portland and Denver, but the case-shiller graphs look a lot different. I still wish I didn't buy in 11/2005, though.

On the other hand, a lot of renters who rent from bubble-buyers (many of whome didn;t at least get fixed rate loans, like I did) are getting some nasty surprises these days:

http://tinyurl.com/2j4fav

http://tinyurl.com/2q9kl3

http://tinyurl.com/2ovsaz

http://tinyurl.com/2nmu5v

Anonymous said...

The opening scene of Maxed Out is a must-see:
http://tinyurl.com/3cqjt8

This related image is funny:
http://tinyurl.com/28fgjl

Anonymous said...

Looks like a woman from the side

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...

No matter what happens, the really nice stuff is always out of reach for most of us. And what if the stinkin' chart levels off? Then what, man?

October 13, 2007 2:43 PM
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Then real prices are still dropping due to inflation and your wages will some century catch up:)

Anonymous said...

Mark in San Diego said...

The unemployment rates in bubble areas, Miami, Phoenix, SD, etc. are soaring, as all the realtors, mortgage lenders, title company employees, and construction workers have or are getting pink slips. . .then PF Changs sales go down (check) then more layoffs in restaurants and retail (check), then tax revenues go down (check) then county layoffs and salary freezes (coming soon), etc etc. How do you say recession??

October 13, 2007 4:43 PM
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Correction on the tax revenue. Here in NoVA instead of taking the bubble based boast in property taxes as a bonus to be put aside, it became the norm. Now with county assessments dropping like a rock rates are being jacked up to keep revenue at the same bubble levels!! So FBs who are looking for a little breathing room in the form of a drop in property taxes are instead getting smothered w/ a double whammy, ARMS are adjusting up and taxes are either staying the same in amount or even going up to track the rosy bubble based revenue/spending projections!!

Anonymous said...

"The opening scene of Maxed Out is a must-see:
http://tinyurl.com/3cqjt8
"

Classic !!! Thanks for posting that link !!!!

I actually watched it twice !

Anonymous said...

There will be some skidmarks on the seats by the time this ride is over.

Anonymous said...

Keith when are you going to stop reporting on the bodies and start reporting the crimes as you say of the MSM?

I'm sorry that the Seattle Bubble blog is so boring but we're just a bunch of tech nerds up here with no sense of humor and little pizazz.

You should be looking at our condo market in the same way as you look at all the others.

Frank R said...

I know people in Scottsdale who continue to believe they will sell their houses for triple what they paid in 2005.

DOPES.

Anonymous said...

As much as a I like the roller coaster picture, I think the direction is reversed: The up was fast and people screamed (of joy), but the decline will stretch out and people will be silent, very silent.

Peter T