TropicCat, wow, that article was a long and sound summation of all that we've learned in the last few years. And Kootenay, the Japanese situation rounds out a picture of a stalling 747 with the global economy on board. The exports as I remember, began droping at a 35% yoy pace some months back. And along with the ghost fleet of bulk carriers parked in Singapore and elsewhere around the world, the slowing of the world econ machine is breathtaking and without precendent since the 1930's.
And the thing that kicked off this global synchronous recession with the securitized mortagages debacle and the $900 trillion derivative scam, a the big casino for the big banks and corporations, with untallied counter-party risk many times the whold planetary GDP. UFB.
Anyway, not to dwell on the whole macro mess too long, I was just gonna post a snip and link to the guy I've found to be the best RE analyst out there. He was talking about the RE bubble and coming bust more than two years ahead, and sold his own place in Florida at the exact peak in prices in July '05. Unfortunately for me, I didn't make his acquaintance until '04, 6 months after I'd sold my house for 100% gain in 5 years. If I'd have been plugged into Lee's work, I'd have waited another 18 months and would have realized a gain of 195%. Dang!
I won't buy again until he does. Here's a piece he put out today. Disclaimer: No relation or profit by me.
Case Chiller – False, Phony, and Fictitious | The Wall Street Examiner
Quote:
What’s here is the little chart and the point is that the Case Shiller Index (CSI for your real estate crime fans) is way behind the curve.
Now let me tell you why I think that’s the Case.
The real story of the market is in the new house sales prices. That data shows what happens when the time runs out to take advantage of Uncle Sam’s $8,000 first time home buyer credit. Since the program ends on November 30 and it takes at least 4 months to build a house from date of contract, new house sales prices started to tank in August, completely wiping out the March to May bounce. That bounce, in my view, was entirely due to the government fist time home buyer prop job.
As an old real estate appraiser the first thing I do when considering a sale price is to make sure that it’s a cash equivalent sale price. In this case, the March to May average sale prices should be adjusted down by some percentage of the $8,000 that buyers got from Uncle. That percentage would depend on just what percentage of all sales were impacted by the credit. One source I’ve read says it was 43%. So the credit would appear to account for about $3500 of the price gain that appeared last Spring. This doesn’t even consider the fact that demand was also artificially inflated. That probably had a bit of an impact as well.
|