GasPANIC + HousingPANIC + New Light Rail = The Death of Far-Flung Suburban Hell, and Here Comes "Re-Urbanization"

The Wall Street Journal says we're now in "Panic Stage", warns of crash

It's kinda weird when reading the WSJ is like reading HP, complete with references to our bible "Manias, Panics and Crashes". First time I've seen the book cited in the MSM. Too bad, people could have really benefited if they had just known, like HP'ers.

Man, this is getting really scary really quick now. Feels like everything HP'ers have predicted is happening, and it's all coming to a boil in real time.

So, are you all ready? Time is running out.

The Panic Stage

In his book "Manias, Panics and Crashes," the economic historian Charles Kindleberger describes the stages of financial boom and bust. Students of the good professor will recognize where we now are in the current credit crisis: the panic stage.

It isn't a pretty sight, but a crash is far from inevitable if political and economic leaders keep their wits about them and focus on the proper remedies.

Amid the daily market turmoil, and to help prevent a crash, it helps to step back and remember how we got here. With the benefit of hindsight, everyone can see that the U.S. economy built up an enormous credit bubble that has now popped. Our own view -- which we warned about going back to 2003 -- is that this bubble was created principally by a Federal Reserve that kept real interest rates too low for too long.

Enter the panic stage. The desire for debt has turned into a stampede to quality, especially Treasury bills.

The danger now is that this panic becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy and talks us into a crash.

If your town's housing market had to "mark to market", how steep of a fall from the 2005 peak would it be looking at today?

"Mark to Market" - what is the true price that a seller would expect to realize on the open market to gain a sale TODAY?

Let's hear it. Enough of the BS we hear from the MSM, US government, NAR and homedebtors.

What's the reality on main street today?

Be real.

Pick HousingPANIC's new name for a day

I like playing with the HP tagline - The Housing Bubble Blog with an Attitude Problem.

Let's have some fun - funniest tagline wins, and it'll be the name of the blog on Wednesday.

I'm thinking - HousingPANIC - The Housing Crash, Yahoo Search Sucks and Angelo Mozilo is Orange Blog with an Attitude Problem

But I figure you all can come up with something even better...

Countrywide has HousingPANIC Censored!!! HP Removed from Yahoo seach listings by the Big Orange Advertiser

That's my theory...

Many HP'ers have emailed in the past month letting me know that one night a few weeks ago Yahoo removed HousingPANIC from its search listings. Right after we really went after the corrupt Orange Man Angelo Mozilo and his insider dealings at soon-to-go-bankrupt Countrywide. Gee, maybe something to do with the millions of dollars of ads that Countrywide does on Yahoo? Ya think?

Type in "housingpanic" in google (a real search engine, vs. yahoo's corrupted bulls*it) and guess what, you get http://housingpanic.blogspot.com as the #1 result. Of course you do. Any search engine who didn't give that the #1 slot isn't worth your time.

Type that into Yahoo what do you get? Not HP. Not to be found. It's like we've never existed. Like we don't have over 3,500 posts and 5.6 million page views. Nope, it's like Mozilo and Countrywide want. Silence.

Here's a few more tests of where HP rates at random - do your own test too for fun:

"countrywide mozilo corrupt" - google #6, yahoo not in top 50
"countrywide housing crash" - google #2, yahoo not in top 50
"housing bubble blog" - google #3, yahoo not in top 50
"housing crash mozilo" - google #1, yahoo not in top 50
"housing panic blog" - google #1, yahoo not in top 50
"angelo mozilo is orange" - google #1 (of course!), yahoo not in top 50

If you'd like fight the evildoers at Countrywide and Yahoo, report this unfairness and censorship here

I made sure HP was on the Yahoo domain register (it is), and sent a note to Yahoo and got back a note that everything was fine. I sent them back an email that they're corrupted and a bogus search engine that deserves to get clobbered by google. Needless to say the as*holes didn't respond.

And here's a personal note from HP to Angelo Mozilo at Countrywide - that you'll find one day only if you google it:

ANGELO MOZILO CAN KISS MY BLOGGER ASS

Note I'm short CFC and think Angelo Mozilo and Yahoo suck. If you use yahoo search, stop it, and switch to google. Fu*k 'em.

Ron Paul. Kudlow. Housing Crash. Subprime Disaster. Mortgage Meltdown. Government Bailout. Fed Policy.

Nice to see it all come together.

Ron Paul - the ONLY HousingPANIC candidate. Damn, this guy gets it.

How bad is the housing crash getting in Phoenix? Here's a home $220,000 below appraisal - yours to buy or maybe even commit mortgage fraud!

Hell, you find a home in housing-crash-central-Phoenix listed at $220,000 below appraisal, just go get yourself a loan for the appraised amount with no down and no doc (IndyMac might be able to help you there if you hurry), move in, then do the American thing and NEVER MAKE A PAYMENT.

Meanwhile, take the $220,000 and transfer it to your Swiss bank account, and just walk away.

Sweet!

Or if you really want to "own" it, go ahead and buy. And see how quick you can lose another $220,000. Or try to rent it out, and ask yourself why renters would only pay 30% of what your cost to "own" would be.

Welcome to HousingPANIC.

$900000 $220k below RECENT appraisal, builder desperate

Priced to move, this WEEK! Not in MLS. No agents please. This is a Pre-foreclosure.

This home is really just one of about 11 other high-end foreclosure or pre-foreclosure homes in the Desert Hills, Cave Creek, or Carefree areas. What is it you are exactly looking for? We can send you a detailed list of all “instant equity on the buy - value purchases” in the area.

HousingPANIC Exclusive: Interview with CNBC's housing market reporter Diana Olick

Major hat-tip to Diana Olick at CNBC for doing five questions with HP. It's gotta be tough to do her job folks - by reporting the truth about housing, she's now being shunned by some of the REIC top dogs, and as she calls herself in the HP interview, is the "Usama Bin Laden of real estate" to the REIC.

But in the end, what do reporters get paid to do? You got it - report the damn truth. And the truth of this housing crash doesn't allow for sugar coating and spin anymore - well, unless you're the NAR and Lawrence Yun of course.

Check out her CNBC real estate blog for more insights into the housing market, and also her role as a reporter for America's leading business news station. Good stuff, good blog.

Here's the HP interview, in its entirety. I hope you join me HP'ers in welcoming Diana to the blog, and thanking her for her hard-edged reporting.

______________________

HP: Do you feel the Real Estate Industrial Complex attacks on the media's role in popping the housing bubble are fair?

DO: Absolutely not. I can't speak for everyone, but I report numbers, facts, statistics and on-the-street evidence.

I find that the REIC is ready to blame me no matter what I say. Last year I was "a shill for the Realtors, helping to pump up the market." This year I'm the Usama Bin Laden of real estate, blowing the housing market to bits with my reports.

CEO's of the major public home builders who were jumping at the chance to get on our air 18 months ago, are now shirking us with force, and when I argue, they say I make them all look like fools. This, after I did several pieces on all their buyer incentives...which one could argue is better than a commercial.

HP: Many in the media were cheerleading the bubble on the way up (remember the infamous Time Magazine housing cover?), and quoted NAR press releases as news. Just as many in the media jumped on tanks and ra-ra'ed the Iraq war. How would you rate the media's performance during the housing bubble and crash?

DO: I do my best, but look, the overall media jumps on whatever the hype-du-jour is. They have to because that's what the bosses want.

I have read some stuff out there about housing that is just positively false. During the subprime meltdown I watched a lot of material from local reporters and even network correspondents who clearly didn't fully understand the issue.

To be fair, the mainstream media is just that, mainstream, and having been one of those for many years, I know it's very hard to jump into a complex issue, often given one day to do it, and not just follow the hype.

The mortgage market is extremely complex. I have the advantage of being a specialist at a business channel, so I have more time to learn as much as I can about the sector.

HP: Many "analysts" are predicting the housing crash will finish up this year. What do you think?

DO: I think housing is a tricky storm and a slow moving one at that. Housing will recover of course, but it will do it locally and anecdotally at first. There is still a lot more fallout from readjusting ARMs and subprime loans.

I expect things to look better in 2008, but I wouldn't look for any dramatic improvements, overall nationwide, this year.

HP: What do you think about the housing bubble blogs? Do you read them yourself? Do you think they've played a role in deflating housing expectations and the bubble?

DO: I think blogs are wonderful. I have one myself (http://realtycheck.cnbc.com/), but the fact is that blogs are opinion and just that.

Many blogs include data and can be very informative, but as with anything, check the source, consider the blogger, and be careful.

I've learned a lot from blogs, I've also found some blogs to be wildly inaccurate. I don't, however, think that blogs are mainstream enough in the real estate market yet to have a profound effect on current sales. I say yet.

HP: What's the chatter at CNBC? I assume almost everyone there owns a home - are you getting any pressure to lighten up on the real estate crash, since it's costing everyone there some money? And do you think reporters like yourself should have to disclose whether they have real estate investments when they do a real estate article, just as they do with stocks?

DO: Well thanks for the compliment, but I don't think anyone truly believes that I can move the real estate market.

No, nobody at CNBC has told me to dial up or down on anything. As I said before, I report data, I interview experts, industry professionals and corporate leaders. I chat it all up in my blog, but on TV I am a reporter, and I do my best not to skew anything any specific way.

Look, I own a house. Do you think I want the value to go down? No, but I also don't think my reporting of real national and local numbers are going to change any values out there. There are far greater forces than me moving the housing market.

I do not have any real estate investments, other than my own home, and I, like all CNBC reporters, am not allowed to own any individual stocks, so I could not invest in a public home builder even if I wanted to.

I don't think the downturn in housing is "costing" regular homeowners any money, unless they are about to sell their homes. Investor, speculator, flipper-types are a different story.

HousingPANIC Stupid Question ofthe Day

Won't it be weird in a few more months (or weeks) when it seems EVERYONE is talking about the housing crash, especially those brilliant market forecasting realtors? When the masses and MSM are saying how it was all such an obvious mania or Ponzi scheme, and how they knew it was all going to crash all along?

In other words, won't it be strange when HousingPANIC is mainstream, versus this cultish little quixotic fight-club? Or will that never happen, as the masses are too dumb to understand what's happening to them even during the downfall, too stubborn to admit they were wrong, or too lazy to find HousingPANIC?

If that comes to pass, I'll miss the days when it was little HP versus the world, a voice in the wilderness.

When the world panics over housing, which is right around the corner now, it might not be as fun to write HousingPANIC.

HousingPANIC Stupid Question of the Day

Has the HousingPANIC blog changed your life in any way, shape or form? If so, how?