I still don't get the logic of this NAR ad - someone help me here...

Isn't there a circular equation error here? Heck, before I spent $40,000,000 on an ad campaign, I'd check my math and logic...

Oh well. I hope they got some bang for their buck. People stupid enough to not notice faulty logic are stupid enough to buy a home at the start of a crash and pay someone 6% of the purchase price I guess.

Gold at $657 / oz. You don't hear a lot of people making fun of the yellow stuff anymore, do you?

$657 today and rising. Feels a bit lofty again at these heights if you're a trader, but you got to give the yellow stuff it's due, especially long-term holders. How many gold bars will it take to buy a house in 2010?

Inflation up. Housing down. Dollar down. Stocks up. Gold up. What's that tell you?

LONDON (AFX) - Gold headed towards fresh six-month highs, buoyed by fund buying as oil prices moved higher and the dollar moved down.

The dollar's recent slump has prompted hedge funds to turn their attention to gold as it is seen as a hedge against inflation.

Also, in the background speculation is mounting speculation that gold may well turn out to be the next metal to enjoy a good run.

The world needs more guys like these two as it all falls apart

Gotta love Faux News staying with this for four minutes!

When do we get some good housing crash schnanigans?

Enjoy the video, and this one of the "terror spree" being set up,

And enjoy the brief break from the housing bubble for a good laugh.

Baby Boomers partying like there's no tomorrow: US personal savings fall to 74-yr. low

Oooohhh, I smell some baby-boomer-bailout legislation around the corner...

People once again spent everything they made and then some last year, pushing the personal savings rate to the lowest level since the Great Depression more than seven decades ago.

The 2006 figure was lower than a negative 0.4 percent in 2005 and was the poorest showing since a negative 1.5 percent savings rate in 1933 during the Depression.

The savings rate has been negative for an entire year only four times in history - in 2005 and 2006 and in 1933 and 1932. However, the reasons for the decline in the savings rate were vastly different during the two periods.

During the Great Depression, when one-fourth of the labor force was without a job, people dipped into savings in an effort to meet the basic necessities of shelter and clothing.

Economists have put forward various reasons to explain the current lack of savings. These range from a feeling on the part of some people that they do not need to save because of the run-up in their investments such as homes and stock portfolios to an effort by many middle-class wage earners to maintain their current lifestyles even though their wage gains have been depressed by the effects of global competition.

Whatever the reason for the low savings, economists warn that it the phenomenon exists at a particularly bad time with 78 million baby boomers approaching retirement age. Instead of building up savings to use during retirement, baby boomers are continuing to spend all their earnings.

Arizona Housing Swann Dive: Permits down 55%, sales crash 26%. Now comes the massive job loss and crashing prices

Anyone who disputes that home prices will crash harder and faster in Phoenix now, just as night follows day, or that massive REIC and trickle-down job loss won't occur, is either a fool, corrupt or both.

Developers took out 2,275 building permits for homes in December, a 55 percent drop from the same period the year before, according to the latest Phoenix Housing Market Letter released Monday by real estate analyst RL Brown.

New home sales also sagged last month, down 26.6 percent from December 2005. For 2006, there were 51,174 new home sales, a 10.9 percent drop from 2005. Also, builders took out 42,460 permits for homes, 33.2 percent fewer than the year prior.

“2006 activity will cause the industry to pause and recognize that housing in this market area has to be affordable,” Brown said. The dramatic run-up in prices during last year’s housing frenzy was not sustainable, he said. Home sellers will need to price homes according to today’s market or withdraw their listings, Brown said. Builders must also be more realistic if they plan on staying in business, he said.

And this from HousingDoom on January numbers which suck too:

Phoenix Home Sales- January Worst Month in Six Years

In spite of repeated assurances by David Lereah that "the worst is behind us," the Phoenix housing market continues it’s downward slide. One of our favorite agents gave us an unofficial "sneak peak" at January’s numbers:

ALL MLS- January 2007
Sold - 3,895
Active- 44,912
Under Contract- 7,027

According to historical MLS data provided by our friend- realtor Jonathan Dalton, this is the slowest January since 2001, and the first month since that time that sales fell below 4,000. Inventory however, has started to pick up again. 44,912 listings is slightly above December’s 44,247.

Can you feel it HP'ers? The hatred of the Desperate Homedebtors in Denial

It's not just the real estate clerks, appraisers, builders, mortgage brokers and assorted REIC anymore.

Nope, there's some real hatred of HP'ers out there now by, you guessed it...

The Desperate Homedebtors in Denial

And it's only gonna get worse. Tribe versus tribe. Neighbor vs. neighbor. American vs. American as this thing melts down.

Stay safe. Stay cool. And stay renting!

Kiev, Ukraine: The biggest and most obvious housing bubble in the world?

Here's a winning post I found over at the confused"Carnival of Real Estate" or something like that, which looks to be a group love-in for out of work real estate clerks like Greg Swann. No doubt this post got a lot of real estate clerks and their clients all into a lather, and on planes to Kiev:

Best investments in Ukraine 2006
2006 for private investors, having free funds, was successful. Since 1998, when prices for residential real estate were twice dropped, there was possible to purchase one-room apartment for $5K. Now this apartment costs about $80K.

There is 1600% for 8 years and aprox. 60% for 2006 income for real estate deals.

Talking about real estate pricing I have to say about enourmous growth - from $1350/sq.m at February to $2300 at December (at Kiev for sure). Make note, that is not only income from arbitrage. Most of them using for rent business. So potential income about 70% for 1 year.

So, in short-term conditions, real estate investments are most profitable and reliable asset in Ukraine.

So, I decided to dig a bit about this obvious Ukraine Housing Bubble:

From CIA Fact Book:

Ukraine:
GDP - per capita (PPP): $7,600 (2006 est.)

Net migration rate:
-0.43 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2006 est.)

Population growth rate:
-0.6% (2006 est.)

Birth rate:
8.82 births/1,000 population (2006 est.)

Death rate:
14.39 deaths/1,000 population (2006 est.)

Inflation rate (consumer prices):
8.5% (2006 est.)

Average Income (2005): $1,520 / year

And then this article on the impending collapse:

What Kiev's Property Boom and Dot-Coms Have in Common

Property prices in the UK rose by just under 10% last year, according to the Nationwide building society, while many analysts expect a similar figure this year.

But that pales into insignificance compared with Kiev, where the BBC reports, prices have risen by 10-25% in the last two months of 2006 alone…

Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, is now apparently the “most expensive city in Eastern Europe” in terms of property, says the BBC. Prices at one development start at $1m for a three-bedroom flat, while the cheapest one-bedroom flats start at around $100,000.

But of course, the Kiev property boom couldn’t all be down to supply and demand and a small group of hugely wealthy business people, could it? There must be a pretty wealthy population to support a city where the cheapest one-bedroom flat costs in the region of £55,000, surely? After all, that may not be London prices, but there are certainly a few far-flung parts of the UK where you might just be able to get a one-bedroom place that cheaply.

So what’s the typical inhabitant of Kiev earn? $25,000 a year? Maybe $15,000?

No. Ukraine is one of Europe’s poorest countries - apparently the typical salary is around $2,400 a year. So the average Kievite would need to pay just over 40 times their annual salary to buy the cheapest property in the region.

As the BBC concludes, “the main driver for the property boom is speculation.

“It could be a bubble - and if so, there is no way of knowing when it might be burst,” concludes the Beeb ominously.

Could be a bubble? Of course it’s a bubble! Who is buying these places? Why on earth would you choose to live in Ukraine unless you had family or a job there? Not that there’s anything wrong with Ukraine particularly, but has it turned into the world’s financial centre over night? No. Have the streets recently been repaved with gold?

There is no public register in Ukraine, so the honest truth is that no one’s really sure how much prices have risen.

One estate agent in the BBC piece says that she bought a flat for $30,000 three years ago, and it’s now worth “up to $200,000”.

It’s these kind of stories that show the unsustainable hysteria that lies beneath the global property boom. When you hear of properties in Kiev going for 100 times average earnings, that’s when you start to think about the triple-digit p/es of the dotcom bubble era.

And then there was this article on rents (but hey, who cares about fundamentals and the P/E ratio - we're all getting rich!!!)

Real estate rental prices falling
Some good news for renters in Ukraine's capital. On Tuesday, 5 Kanal's Kyivskey Chas news program reported that rent prices have started to fall in Kyiv.

Real estate experts explained that the demand for apartments in Kyiv has recently fallen by more than 30%.