Want to see what's really going on out there? Read this HP'ers post

Stories like this one warm HP's heart. More more more!

REM said...

Thanks to this blog, I have just taken the deposit I was going to put down on a new house here in Gilbert, AZ and paid off my credit cards.

My girlfriend and I had found what we thought was the best offer to build a house around these parts at $250,000. When we told the builder we were having second thoughts he knocked the price down to $210,000. $40,000!!!!

Something is not right here. I took it as an insult. God it is nice to be debt free and renting!

HousingPanic Stupid Question of the Day - Bonus Edition

Inventory is at record levels. Sales volume has cratered.

Will home prices now:

A: fall faster and harder than anyone ever imagined?

B: fall slowly and surely for years and years to come?

C: stay the same but lose ground to inflation?

D: keep rising at the pace of inflation?

E: soar just like realtors, David Lereah and the NAR said they would?

HP dedicates this song to all the REIC members feeling a bit blue after this week's beating

Get the feeling that a lot of those fast money cocaine junkie used car dealers who beat their wives became mortgage brokers?

Gee, that's a shocker: Rampant overbuilding means condo boom may go bust

Again, everyone else is stupid, or HP'ers are just psychic.

Why is the meltdown underway such a shocker for most people and the MSM? Isn't this, all of this, just so obvious and predictable? Didn't anyone ever take an Econ 101 class?

During the past six years, South Florida's landscape shifted from low-slung homes to condominiums hundreds of feet high. As the buildings reached skyward, so did prices, topping seven figures for the more luxurious digs.

Today, though, the meteoric rise of condo development is on the verge of crashing down to earth.

The seemingly unstoppable juggernaut has come face-to-face with economic realities making even the most maverick developers gun-shy.

As supply outpaces demand, prices already are leveling off and values of newer condos could tumble by 30 percent or more by the time the market hits bottom, experts say.

"The condo market isn't just breaking lightly," Miami real estate consultant Lewis Goodkin said. "It's screeching to a halt."

FLASH: New Home Sales Tumble Badly (and median price number again is completely worthless)

I think this data is generally suspect, being it's from the government, but here it is anyway - pretty ugly.

We especially know the median price number is completely, totally and wholly bogus and unreliable, as it does not include the massive incentives being offered to move all this dead inventory (cars, pools, cash back, etc).

The media will just report the numbers without actually doing any reporting, so people will be led to believe that prices aren't tanking. Bad news folks. They are.

There's this little thing called supply and demand, and we all know what happens to prices when supply skyrockets and demand tanks. Econ 101.

WASHINGTON, DC, United States (UPI) -- New home sales in the United States last month tumbled 4.3 percent from the previous month`s level, the Commerce Department said Thursday.

Economists had expected sales of new one-family residences to decline 2.7 percent to about 1.105 million.

Instead, the figure was 1.072 million, which contrasts with 1.12 million in June and is about 21.6 percent below the July 2005 level. Meanwhile, the median sales price of new homes fell in July to $230,000.

The new data are expected to reinforce the perception that the U.S. economy is slowing significantly and that the central bank has no reason to resume its interest rate increases next month.

Spin spin sugar: "We're not living in a bubble here"

Bubble? Meltdown? Nah! Keep buying - full steam ahead!

I love the local media and REIC reports that do mention the bubble bursting - but never in that area - it's "those other people"

No, it's not. Here's a hilarious report today from the melting-down Florida market:

Statewide existing-home median sales prices have increased nearly 100 percent over the last five years, according to the Florida Association of Realtors, rising from $127,400 in 2001 to $254,800 this year.

The Jacksonville metropolitan statistical area continues to be ranked high in housing, despite the recent “doom and gloom media reports” to the contrary, according to Mark Carlson, mortgage banker and branch manger of Wells Fargo Home Mortgage.

“We’re not seeing it,” said Carlson. “We’re not living in a bubble here.”

Northeast Florida Builders Association Executive Director Daniel Davis agrees.

“What we’re seeing in other areas in the state — where there was a large amount of condo construction and high volume of investors flooding the market and there’s a ton of inventory — is not healthy for the new construction market,” said Davis, who is also City Council vice president. “In Jacksonville our numbers are much better as far as inventory and investors that are backing out of the market. The quality of life here, the availability of housing and the jobs we are creating are bar none.

“We are insulated from all the other problems that you might see across the nation and across the state where they’re relying on one industry, or they don’t have the natural resources that we have that attract homebuyers.”