Ignore this advice from Fleck at your own peril. You think the housing crash is ugly today? Just wait six months. This sucker is going into deep freeze, a result of reckless lending drying up overnight.
Meanwhile, my research right now is focused on what companies are going to get crushed during the downfall. All ideas and stats welcome.
As a result of the collapse of the subprime mortgage market, lenders will -- gasp! -- once again require down payments, filling the market with unsold homes and driving down prices.
Dropping like subprime flies Essentially, the subprime mortgage industry -- which lends to consumers with credit issues -- is gone. Alt A lenders, those one rung up the ladder creditwise, will be next. Together, they comprise approximately 40% of the market.
We also don't yet know the ramifications for the dark-matter universe in collateralized debt obligations (CDOs), credit default swaps (CDSs) and other derivatives-related exotica. But I think it's safe to say that the surprises will be negative -- and large.
This credit collapse is an unequivocally important event. Because, as I've been writing, the ability of anybody with a pulse to get a loan for any amount is what drove the real estate market, and the real estate market is what drove the economy.
Sometime in the next three to six months, the real-estate market will basically just freeze up. Of course, inventories are going to explode and prices will eventually drop rather dramatically as a vicious cycle feeds on itself.
One who does is Lou Ranieri, sort of the father of the mortgage bond market. In a recent interview, he warned: "This is the leading edge of the storm. . . . If you think this is bad, imagine what it's going to be like in the middle of the crisis." In his opinion, more than $100 billion of home loans are likely to default.
