HousingPANIC Stupid Question of the Day

Where did all the "you guys are all chicken littles, brown shirts and winged monkeys" now-is-a-great-time-to-buy-there-is-no-housing-bubble realtor trolls go?

(I guess bubbles weren't for bathtubs, eh Kendra?)

(Extra credit - everyone look at that price chart from Vegas (thanks Doom). Anyone see the toxic-loan-speculator-fed bubble now? That one's gonna take some time to deflate)

Housing bubble enabler Blanche Evans of Realty Times in an illogical diatribe again blames media for housing panic

Blanche, Blanche, Blanche...

Blanche, Blanche, Blanche...

Panic Working Like A Charm; Home Prices Mostly Down In June

by Blanche Evans Realty Times

Despite positive fundamentals such as low unemployment, rising wages, and low borrowing rates, consumers are panicked about the housing market and sitting out a golden opportunity to buy at low interest rates with plenty of inventory to choose from. One reason is the constant drumbeat that housing prices are softening by the press, but consumers aren't getting much insight or perspective along with the daily drip of bad news.

If the media and economic experts are saying that home prices are going to fall further and then recover, is it so strange that buyers are waiting? My question is why is it "denial" for sellers to wait out the falling prices part to cash in on the recovery part?

That's what makes this whole thing so funny. Somehow it's okay for buyers to panic, but not for sellers to remain cool.

It was all an illusion. And the lenders and homebuilders have to do whatever they can do to keep the illusion going. Otherwise they stop going.

Cramer had an interesting point on his freak-out on Friday. He recommended that companies like Bear Stearns, who are obviously imploding, should just remain quiet

"Just keep your mouth shut during this period - don't say a thing" he said.

Some companies, like IndyMac and Countrywide, are trying the opposite tact - talking aggressively and confidently on how they're well-positioned for the downfall, how they'll gain share as all their competition goes belly-up, how they have great liquidity and funding and business models, blah blah blah.

In the case of Countrywide, that talk is actually corrupt, as their orange CEO desperately dumps $118 Million in shares as fast as he could while the company at his direction was buying back shares to try to hold the price up for him (unsuccessfully).

So why the lies? Why the aggressive spin?

Because they're scared. They're scared because they know that this whole Ponzi Scheme is now dominoing. And if they show any sign of trouble or weakness publicly, they can get American Home Mortgaged out of business right quick.

Then you have Loan Center of California, which is hilariously and stupidly trying to sue anyone who talk bad about them, or expose the truth.

In the end, none of their spin and blather will matter. Funding lines will get yanked. Toxic loans will get recalled. Market demand for buying junk loans is at zero. Business models will have gone kaput. And hundreds of thousands of REIC will be on the streets, box and plant in hand, unable to make their own mortgage payments.

It's over folks. It's all over. Don't listen to REIC lies. Don't listen to realtors on commission. Don't listen to the Investment Banks. Don't listen to homebuilders who call bottom. And especially don't listen to the liars at the NAR.

It's over.

And all of us here saw it coming. Almost all of us.

HousingPANIC Stupid Question of the Day

Still believe what the government, NAR, ratings agencies, analysts, REIC and MSM tell you now?

Talking Points for NAR's "Buy Now" Campaign - November 2006

Conditions are now ideal for buyers. Interest rates are comparable to 40-year lows, and inventories are higher than they have been in decades. Consumers have exceptional choice. But these conditions may not last. August pending home sales rose 4.5 percent, and prices are expected to rise again next year. Even the vice chairman of the Federal Reserve says that the housing market outlook is improving.

Real estate is an outstanding investment. House values rose 88 percent on a national average over the past decade. The number of U.S. households is expected to increase 15 percent during the next decade, creating a continued high demand for housing.

Conditions are improving for sellers. This year will be the third-best on record, and prices are expected to rise modestly next year.

The campaign opens on Friday, November 3, 2006, with full-page advertisements in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today, and will run Sunday, November 5 in the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and Chicago Tribune. It will run in the same six newspapers again on the weekend of November 12.

This is the beginning of a campaign that will also include two new network television and radio ads, to begin airing in January 2007 as part of NAR's $40 million Public Awareness Campaign.

Suzanne and Nicholas Retsinas - the two biggest jokes of the housing bubble and crash

I'm not sure what I like looking back on more, now that we know what we know - the Suzanne video, or Nicholas Retsinas' (of the discredited and corrupt Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies) hilarious and mistimed diatribe against HP'ers and "Chicken Littles"

Suzanne and Nicholas, well done! HP'ers - any other nominees for biggest joke of the housing bubble & crash? List 'em here.

So here's Suzanne and Nicholas. What a nice couple! Enjoy!

The housing wail

by Nicolas P. Retsinas September 24, 2006

"HOUSING BUST AHEAD." The headline hints of catastrophe: a dot-com repeat, a bubble bursting, an economic apocalypse.

Cassandra, though, can stop wailing: the expected price corrections mark a slowing in the rate of increase -- not a precipitous decline. This will not spark a chain reaction that will devastate home owners, builders, and communities.

Contradicting another gloomy seer, Chicken Little, the sky is not falling. Let me alleviate some fears.


And now here's Suzanne, in all her glory:

Alt-A / "Liar's Loan" mortgage king IndyMac's newest spin - "It's all good - we suck only just as bad as Countrywide"!!!

I think this would be like WorldCom saying that everything was OK because Enron was in a similar boat. Or buggy whip Company A saying all would be fine because they were tracking nicely against buggy whip Company B.

These guys really are amazing.

Yes, I'm short IndyMac via put options. I figure one day this company will have to stop with the spin and report the truth - but my guess is that it'll be the public auditors or Feds who come clean first, not IndyMac, their CEO or their PR flak Grove Nichols. What they don't mention in this posting are three very very important words, the 800 pound guerrilla in the room:

MARK TO MARKET

Here's just some of IndyMac's latest spin:

Update on Delinquencies in Our Mortgage Loan Servicing Portfolio
July 20th, 2007

In line with our expectations and as we communicated last quarter, delinquencies in our $184 billion servicing portfolio increased in the second quarter of 2007. As the following table illustrates, 30+ day delinquencies for our servicing portfolio in the second quarter of 2007 were 5.35 percent, up from 4.10 percent a year ago and 4.37 percent last quarter. Foreclosures also increased to 1.15 percent in the second quarter, up from 0.89 percent in the prior quarter.

While our delinquency rates have increased, they are comparable to Countrywide Financial Corp., which was ranked by the National Mortgage News as the No. 1 residential mortgage originator and the No. 2 residential servicer in the U.S. for the first quarter of 2007. On July 16, 2007, Countrywide reported a 30+ day delinquency rate in their servicing portfolio of 4.77 percent for the period ending June 30, 2007. Indymac’s modestly higher delinquency rate can be attributed to the fact that Countrywide carries a much higher mix of agency/conforming loans in their servicing portfolio relative to Indymac.

Grove Nichols
Communications Director

HousingPANIC Homework: Email Miami, Phoenix, Vegas and San Diego realtors, ask them if now is a good time to buy an investment condo, and report back

Here's local market conditions (alternate reality version), courtesy of RealtyTimes.com

Miami

Phoenix

Vegas

San Diego

Today's project is to email two random realtors in these housing crash hotspots, letting them know you're out of state and thinking of buying investment property, and asking them if now is a good time to buy.

Then report back here. NO NAMES ALLOWED - no need to kick the little guys when they're down. Just report the city and what they have to say.

When picking your two to email, I'd recommend the ones with the most hilariously head-in-the-sand write-ups on RealtyTimes, like "Now is a good time to buy!" and "there are signs the market is leveling off" and this gem: "Finally a normal market. Don't believe all of the gloom and doom you here in the media about the housing market." (actual realtor quotes from Phoenix)

Enjoy!

Extra credit - try any of the other risky and overpriced cities like Orlando, San Francisco, Chicago, Cincy, KC, Naples, DC, Honolulu, NYC, Boston, San Jose, LA and Sacramento

I do love RealtyTimes - it's like reading notes from the Flat Earth Society or White House PR. Always a hoot

I am so digging CNBC's Diana Olick these days... And so counting the days until Harvard's Nicholas Retsinas is fired

Here's Diana picking up HP's flame of the corrupted and laughable Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, and its discredited REIC poodle Nicholas Retsinas

Yes, folks, blogs can make a difference. Thanks HP'ers for fighting the good fight. Now do the right thing - contact Harvard's president here and ask for the immediate firing of Nicholas Retsinas

Here's Realty Check:

Housing Crisis Solution For U.S.: More Immigration?

An interesting op-ed in the Boston Globe last week from Nicholas P. Retsinas, director of the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University. The premise: baby boomers had better embrace immigrants, because they’re the ones who are going to buy their homes.

Retsinas makes a strong supply and demand argument, citing that “the cornerstone of housing robustness is strong demand, and the foreign-born constitute a major segment of that demand.” He throws out some strong numbers; like that 40% of net new household formation in the first five years of this century was foreign-born, up from only 15% in the 1980s.

I get it, but is this really the argument we want to be making as a solution to the nationwide downturn in housing sales and prices? I don’t know that I want to jump into the immigration debate, but here goes: this feels something like the outsourcing argument. If we can’t support our own housing industry, then should we just bring in more foreigners to save it?

FLASH: The center no longer holds, and today was the day when it all fell apart. S&P admits to the biggest financial con game of all time.

In order for the Great Housing Con Game to work, the bagholders (the buyers of the toxic subprime and liar's loan crap) had to believe that one day they'd get paid back. Even though this garbage was being lent out to people who lied about their jobs, their income and their ability to pay. Or worse yet to people with no jobs, no credit, no income, no honesty, no problem gaming the system themselves and absolutely positively no possible way to make good on the loans once the Ponzi Scheme ended.

Yes, think Casey Serin. Think David Crisp. Think of all the get-rich-quick failed flippers, think the $30,000 income families buying $800,000 homes, think Phoenix, think Miami, think all the sheeple who thought real estate could only go up and up.

So why did the bagholders of these mortgages (China, hedge funds, pension funds, overseas investors), which were so nicely bundled up into neat little CDO's, think they'd get paid back? Why did they think that obvious hilarious loan garbage was worth the price they were paying?

Because the "unbiased ratings agencies" told them so.

Well, not anymore. S&P, one of the three major CDO ratings agencies, now staring lawsuits, jail sentences and the collapse of their game straight in the face, bitchslapped the housing and mortgage market today and simply came clean, in one of the ugliest financial mea-culpas I've ever seen. Simply put, the charade is over. And hundreds of billions, more likley trillions, will now be lost.

So now, the housing collapse goes into overdrive. The Subprime and Alt-A industries die. Hedge funds worldwide fail. Pension funds screw their retirees. Markets crash. China gets pissed. Lending tightens even more. Demand plummets even more. And home prices crash even faster.

It's all over folks. Now we just count up the damage and look for someone to blame.

S&P finally says subprime is mostly junk - New methodology is death knell for the troubled industry

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - Standard & Poor's just drove a huge harpoon into the heart of the mortgage credit bubble and it's going to take a long time to clean up the mess once the beast finally dies.

S&P, one of the three main credit-rating agencies that served as enablers of the subprime mortgage boom, announced Tuesday that it would lower its ratings on 612 bonds, a small portion of the mortgage-backed securities it had given its seal of approval to.

But the bigger news is that S&P isn't going along with the charade any more. S&P said it would change its methodology for ratings hundreds of billions of dollars in residential mortgage-backed securities.

And it would review its ratings on hundreds of billions of dollars in the more complex collateralized debt obligations based on those subprime loans.

A lot of debt will be downgraded to junk status. A lot of that debt will have to be sold at fire-sale prices. A lot of pension funds and hedge funds that once thrived on the high returns they could get from investing in subprime junk will now lose a lot of money.

S&P's announcement is a death warrant for the subprime industry. No longer will mortgage brokers be able to help buyers lie their way into a home. Fewer stressed homeowners will be able to refinance their mortgage, thus extending and exacerbating the housing bust.

"We do not foresee the poor performance abating," S&P said. Prices will fall, and foreclosures will rise. More mortgage fraud will be uncovered as the tide goes out.

For true HP wonks, you can read the whole nasty report here.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the wise words of Lawrence Yun, newly appointed "Senior Economist" of the National Association of Realtors

Tar and feathers anyone?

I was going to go (kinda) nice on the little guy. No more. Lawrence Yun is a discredited hack, spewing baldfaced lies for an evil organization, and perhaps even more pathetic (is that possible) than the discredited hack that came before him, our friend The Corrupt David Lereah.

Lawrence Yun and the National Association of Realtors are today the laughingstock of America. But sadly, nobody is laughing.

Here's the latest from Yun. And keep up to date with his BS over at http://lawrenceyunwatch.blogspot.com

Consumers are hearing a lot in the media about the correction in housing, and they’re understandably concerned about whether now is a good time to get into the housing market.

To a great extent, we can thank steady media coverage of the real estate market “correction” for unfounded consumer concerns.

If there’s a correction in markets today, it’s in home sales volume and housing starts, not in home prices.

Even a relatively large price decline, such as the 12 percent drop we saw in Sarasota, Fla., cannot reasonably be called a correction when that market had a 150 percent price increase during the boom.

FLASH: Treasury Secretary Paulson says housing crash over, everything fine. RELATED NEWS: Iraq war going great, US debt paid off, global warming over

I think it's entertaining to watch the worst Presidential administration in the history of the United States do their thing. They keep on shocking and surprising with their incompetence and mismanagement.

But at the same time, it's so sad. So very sad.

Folks, your leadership is clueless, incompetent, corrupt and negligent. This cozy little club lies with such ease, it's borderline psychopathic.

Here's Hank, trying to sell Americans a bill of goods. Note to Hank - they're not buying. And if you haven't read it, HP recommends Manias, Panics and Crashes. Idiot.

Paulson: Housing slump likely near end

WASHINGTON - The major slump in the housing market is nearing an end and should not have a significant impact on the overall economy, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Wednesday.

Paulson refused to comment specifically on the market impact of troubles confronting two large Bear Stearns hedge funds that invested heavily in subprime mortgages — loans made to borrowers with spotty credit histories.

"We have had a major housing correction in this country," Paulson said in an interview with a small group of reporters at the Treasury Department. "I do believe we are at or near the bottom."

Paulson said he realized there would be losses along the way but said he believed those losses have been "largely contained."

"It doesn't pose a risk to the economy overall," he said.

CNBC's Diana Olick rips the homebuilder CEOs. HP takes it up a notch from there.

HP has a simple message for the stock-pumping, lying, deceiving, illegal-immigrant-hiring, system-gaming, short-term-thinking, insider-stock-trading homebuilder CEO swindlers whose bloody hands are all over the dead housing industry's corpse.

F@*$ you.

You ruined yet another American industry, you enriched yourselves at the public's expense, you've ruined lives, you've destroyed families, and some of you will now be heading to jail.

Sleep well at night?

Here's excerpts from Diana's latest post. I hope the knives really come out soon (and the cuffs)

Home Builder Sentiment Down: And They’re Mad At Me??

If you happened to read my blog last week, you’ll remember what a warm reception I got from the CEOs of the major public home builders at the JP Morgan Basics and Industrials conference. As they summarily rejected my polite requests for interviews at our live camera, they also made it abundantly clear that it was media hype fueling the negative sentiment among healthy home buyers across the nation.

And then again today I had the joy of reporting yet another negative number for the housing sector. This is a fave of mine, because it’s not about the buyers and the government stats, or the real estate agents and their sales figures--it’s about the builders and their feelings, nothing more than feelings (sorry).

And the number is down again--down to 28, a low not seen since February of 1991.

So despite the fact that all these CEOs were telling me that I’m the only one shouting from the rooftops that the housing market is in trouble, they were busy quietly telling the bean counters at NAHB, that they really kinda felt the same way.

Yes, I know, the CEOs need to pump the stocks and pump up the stockholders’ enthusiasm, but come on

So I’d just like to throw out a big ol’ thank you to all those home builders out there who told their industry representatives that they think there might be some problems still to work out in housing. Forgive me for reporting your number. Didn’t mean to seem too bearish. And do let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.

You wanted it, you got it. Announcing "LawrenceYunWatch" and TCLY

David (from DavidLereahWatch and Bubblemeter) and I have put together Lawrence Yun Watch, a little tribute site to the new hack at the NAR (TCDL who?)

I do kinda feel sorry for the little guy - for all I know he's a nice guy, had a good education, just wants a paycheck. But at the same time, there are honest ways to make a living. Lying, deceiving, manipulating and distorting can't be high on the list of what people want to do with their short time on earth. Right?

Lawrence - if you're listening, it's not too late. Resign immediately, apologize for your lies, and throw the NAR under the bus. It would be a housing bubble seminal moment. You can do good in this life - the choice is yours.

Enjoy the new blog HP'ers. It's 100% Yun, 100% of the time. The more he yaps, the more we'll post. Got any TCLY gems post them here and on the BubbleTalk thread so we can get them up at lawrenceyunwatch. Here's one from last week:

As senior economist Lawrence Yun explained further, "... we see that the existing-home market is stabilizing in a broad cyclical trough and moving in the right direction, with a modest gain from the fourth quarter."

OK folks, time for a little street theatre. We're gonna send ramen noodles to Lawrence Yun at the NAR

You know the little guys are hurting - with home sales cratering, and realtors (and the NAR) completely discredited and disintermediated, it's time for...

The HousingPANIC "Realtors are People Too" Top Ramen Drive

Here's all you have to do

Pick up a few packages of ramen at your local store, and send 'em off to:

Lawrence Yun

National Association of Realtors

430 N Michigan Ave.

Chicago, IL 60611

Include a note "Keep up the great work Lawrence! Your lies and spin make us laugh every day! Love, your friends at HousingPANIC". Or just do your own thing. He'll get the point.

Post here if you've sent a package off, and I hope he finds a fair way to distribute the goodies to the 1.2 million hungry little guys. At least they'll get something for their NAR dues.

Great news everyone! According to Yahoo and Realty Times, there was no housing bubble, real estate to be just fine

My question - Is it possible to sue these people? Nice to see Yahoo allow Realty Times to pollute their real estate section with this spin and blather. And nice to see Realty Times do their best to completely discredit the REALTOR profession.

Real Estate Sky Won't Fall: Here's Why

Real estate hasn't made much of a case for itself lately and it's not getting much help from any of the sub industries, such as builders and mortgage makers. Just in the past few weeks, so called experts from the mortgage industry, the building industry, and the resale real estate industry have all been quoted as saying that the sky is falling.

Nice job guys!

And while real estate's reputation as the number one investment is on the ropes, the general media and other investment categories have stepped up their attacks on real estate value. What do you need to know?

1) The Sky isn't falling.
2) Real estate is unique.
3) There is no bubble.
4) Value is a complicated cocktail.
5) There is always a baseline of demand.
6) There is always a baseline of mortgage defaults.
7) There is no risk.
8) Real estate is a great way to build wealth.

So, perhaps, don't believe every "the sky if falling" report or article. Educate yourself on the market and happy wealth homeowning!

FLASH: NAR (for the fourth straight month) changes its mind, says home prices are gonna fall even further than forecast. Yes, they're run by monkeys.

These monthly predictions from the Incompetent Lawrence Yun and the NAR are hilarious. Too bad they're still not even close to reality.

Come on NAR - just come clean. You're not fooling anyone. Your forecasts are a joke, your data is a joke (got incentives? got cash back?), and your ramen eaters are getting hungrier and hungrier while you spin, lie and deceive.

Home sales, prices to slip further in 2007: NAR

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Home sales and prices will fall at a faster pace in 2007 than originally expected, a leading U.S. real estate trade association said on Wednesday.

The National Association of Realtors trimmed its sales forecast for the fourth straight month and said it now expected sale prices would drop more sharply than it previously forecast

Pigs Fly Alert: USAToday front page story exposes $59 Trillion US Debt ($516,000 per household)

Man, the MSM is going HP it looks like. We've been screaming about this issue forever, and I do believe this is the very first MSM article that I've seen.

Meanwhile, do Americans even care? I think when you say "$59 Trillion" people's eyes gloss over. What's on America's Top Model?

It's sickening that our government so blatantly deceives us, and the MSM goes along for the ride. Bravo to Dennis Cauchon at the USAToday for doing his job. Too bad it's too late, and too bad his MSM peers are so pathetically incompetent.

Folks, we're either going to have to go insolvent, cancel entitlement programs, or print dollars like Wiemar Germany to get out of this mess.


Taxpayers on the hook for $59 trillion
By Dennis Cauchon, USA TODAY

The federal government recorded a $1.3 trillion loss last year — far more than the official $248 billion deficit — when corporate-style accounting standards are used, a USA TODAY analysis shows.

The loss reflects a continued deterioration in the finances of Social Security and government retirement programs for civil servants and military personnel. The loss — equal to $11,434 per household — is more than Americans paid in income taxes in 2006.

"We're on an unsustainable path and doing a great disservice to future generations," says Chris Chocola, a former Republican member of Congress from Indiana and corporate chief executive who is pushing for more accurate federal accounting.

Modern accounting requires that corporations, state governments and local governments count expenses immediately when a transaction occurs, even if the payment will be made later.

The federal government does not follow the rule, so promises for Social Security and Medicare don't show up when the government reports its financial condition.


Bottom line: Taxpayers are now on the hook for a record $59.1 trillion in liabilities, a 2.3% increase from 2006. That amount is equal to $516,348 for every U.S. household. By comparison, U.S. households owe an average of $112,043 for mortgages, car loans, credit cards and all other debt combined.


BALANCE DUE
The cost per U.S. household of unfunded promises made by federal, state and local government:


Medicare
$255,280


Social Security
$144,251

Federal debt
$43,380

Military benefits
$25,863

State and local debt
$17,537

Federal civil- servant benefits
$14,374

State and local retiree benefits
$13,114

Other federal obligations
$2,548

Total
$516,348

Was the MSM's performance yesterday the worst you have ever seen?

Here's how today's cheerleader MSM would have spun the 1929 stock market crash (based on their sickening performance yesterday)

Stock market trading soars! Record increase in sales!

Folks, I am dumbfounded, ashamed, sickened and not surprised by what we saw yesterday.

This is of course the same MSM who jumped on tanks with their little American flags blowing in the top left corner of the screen as we bumrushed Iraq to get those bad WMD's that were definitely there

This is of course the same MSM who throughout the housing bubble ran with "real estate only goes up", "new paradigm" and "buy now or be priced out forever" even though it was obvious we were in a historic bubble.

And this is of course the same MSM who refused to report the truth as millions and millions of illegals stormed our border.

I am ashamed of the American journalism profession. I'm not sure exactly when it died, but it is dead. There may be a good reporter or two out there, who wants to report the truth and who wants to dig beyond the press release, but they must be miserable today, surrounded by a ship of fools, and controlled by businessmen with an agenda.

Thank god for blogs. How else would we know what was REALLY going on out there?

Pretend you're a realtor or the new Chief Economist of the NAR and tell us why there's no housing crash underway

Oh, man this will be good.

Have at it.

Post-houisng-bubble regulation: Will the REIC and MSM have to expose conflict of interest in the future?

One good thing that came out of the dot-com collapse is that analysts and media have to expose when they have any potential conflict of interest - stock holdings, investment banking relationships, etc.

Well, as we all know, that doesn't happen today with real estate.

You have people like The Corrupt David Lereah out there cheerleading housing, while speculating in investment condos, having his salary paid by six percenters, and making money off of "housing never goes down" books.

You have Nicholas Retsinas at Harvard's Joint Center for Housing putting out "there is no bubble" statements, when his salary is paid for by the who's-who of the REIC.

You have MSM reporters cheerleading housing because their salaries are paid for by REIC ads, and on a personal level their house is their biggest financial asset (or risk). In other words, their entire career and financial well-being rests on house prices going up.

And you have real estate clerks giving their expert unbiased views to the MSM on how we've "hit bottom" and how "it's a great time to buy or sell", when the only thing standing between them and a lifetime of Top Ramen is getting suckers to believe that it's a great time to buy or sell.

Real Estate and stocks should be treated the exact same way. Anyone with a vested interest in the asset in question should be required by law to expose their potential conflicts.

Until then, the public will continue to be duped, conned, lied to, deceived and crushed.

HousingPANIC full disclosure: I don't own any real estate thank god.