Posted on 09/27/2008 8:21:04 AM PDT by AuntB
“Optimism about housing values also led to a boom in home construction. Eventually, the number of new houses exceeded the number of people willing to buy them. And with supply exceeding demand, housing prices fell, and this created a problem.” -- President George W. Bush, explaining the origins if the housing meltdown in his emergency address of September 24, 2008
The now deflated Housing Bubble had many causes. These include promiscuous lending practices, low interest rates, federal policy aimed at turning human credit hazards into homeowners, the baby boomers entering their prime earning years, and HGTV.
The bursting of the bubble also had multiple causes, many of which have been well covered in the media. But in my opinion, one contributing factor has not been covered at all -- because it is politically unpalatable to most reporters and commentators. The huge influx of cheap illegal alien labor during the Bubble years helped fuel a massive nationwide home building spree that resulted in a price-killing oversupply of houses.
In many areas of the country, residential construction and remodeling was transformed during the last decade to be a business based on the easy and open availability of cut-rate illegal labor. New homes have traditionally sold at a steep premium compared to existing homes, in part because of the high cost of trade labor, both skilled and unskilled. With the willful breakdown in immigration and labor laws that marked the Clinton and, more especially, the Bush administrations, this changed.
Suddenly, “McMansions” appeared in huge numbers outside every major city in the United States. A more appropriate term might have been “MexMansions,” because they were made possible by the cheap migrant labor that gathered on every construction site, street corner and Home Depot parking lot in the country.
To be fair, at one point the cheap increase in home building capacity probably acted as a temporary safety valve, keeping prices from peaking earlier. This same mechanism, however, allowed the escalation in housing prices to continue longer and develop into more of a classic psychology-driven mania: years and years of steady home price increases led people to believe that there would be years more of steady increases.
Eventually, however, lax credit funneled into a nearly unlimited work force (measured in hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of low-wage workers), resulted in the obvious outcome: too many houses to sell. Prices peaked, the bubble burst, and we arrived at our current predicament: home inventories that could take over a year to sell at current rates.
And long after the peak, the housing juggernaut kept on borrowing and building until it bankrupted itself though its own relentless “efficiency.” The building binge has now become a housing hangover, and, like all hangovers, it is worse when fueled by overindulgence in cheap stuff.
For years, the open borders lobby touted illegal labor as a panacea for high prices. Unfortunately for homeowners, they were right.
Now for a little poem sent to me in an email this morning.
Take down the bird feeder!
I bought a bird feeder. I hung it on my back porch and filled
it with seed. What a beauty of
a bird feeder it is, as I filled it
lovingly with seed. Within a
week we had hundreds of birds
taking advantage of the
continuous flow of free and
easily accessible food.
But then the birds started
building nests in the boards
of the patio, above the table,
and next to the barbecue.
Then came the poop. It was
everywhere: on the patio tile,
the chairs, the table ...
everywhere!
Then some of the birds
turned mean. They would
dive bomb me and try to
peck me even though I had
fed them out of my own
pocket.
And others birds were
boisterous and loud. They
sat on the feeder and
squawked and screamed at
all hours of the day and night
and demanded that I fill it
when it got low on food.
After a while, I couldn’t even
sit on my own back porch
anymore. So I took down the
bird feeder and in three days
the birds were gone. I cleaned
up their mess and took down
the many nests they had built
all over the patio.
Soon, the back yard was like
it used to be.... quiet, serene
and no one demanding their
rights to a free meal.
Now let’s see.
Our government gives out
free food, subsidized housing,
free medical care, and free
education and allows anyone
born here to be an automatic
citizen.
Then the illegals came by the
tens of thousands. Suddenly
our taxes went up to pay for
free services; small apartments
are housing 5 families; you
have to wait 6 hours to be seen
by an emergency room doctor;
your child’s 2nd grade class is
behind other schools because
over half the class doesn’t speak
English.
Corn Flakes now come in a
bilingual box; I have to
‘press one’ to hear my bank
talk to me in English, and
people waving flags other
than ‘Old Glory’ are
squawking and screaming
in the streets, demanding
more rights and free liberties.
Just my opinion, but maybe
it’s time for the government
to take down the bird feeder.
If you agree, pass it on; if not,
continue cleaning up the poop.
They make more cheap housing, and then leave to free up even more existing housing.
Supply way up, demand way down, which way do prices move?
bump!
I’d really like to see some of the early threads about illegals getting loans. It would be interesting to see who was calling this a warning sign of serious trouble in the future and who laughed it off as conspiracy theorist racism and alarmism.
Just my opinion, but maybe
it’s time for the government
to take down the bird feeder.
If you agree, pass it on; if not,
continue cleaning up the poop.
________________________________
How about if you want the birds to keep coming and keep on being fed, YOU pay for the food and YOU clean up the poop, and the rest of us will just watch...
I’m guessing Lindsey Graham might be one. After all, conservatives are just racist bigots, you know.
The housing bubble existed because people thought they were getting a free built in ATM machine built in their house, and they did not care what terms they had to agree to to get it.
The free ATM is the goat in the living room. Blaming low wage workers is like blaming the kid who touched the goat. It ignores why the goat is in the living room to begin with.
So, let’s see....
1. Illegals enter the USA as Criminals.
2. Government welcomes them.
3. Contractors give them Jobs.
4. Contractors and make lots of money.
5. Government officials makes lots of money.
6. Banks officials make lots of money.
7. Government gives illegals free health care and schooling on our taxes.
8. Illegals sell drugs, murder, rape, rob, scam the banks, make lots of money.
9. The legal community (government) protects the illegal community from locals who’ve had enough, and makes lots of money.
10. Government tries to give them citizenship.
11. The public goes broke having to support them.
12. The financial system crashes and government bails itself out with our money.
13. People clamor for Government to step in and take charge.
14. People choose two pro-illegal alien candidates.
...I guess that about sums it up.
I’m not sure I have the name right, but I think it was Texas Conservative that posted hundreds of threads about the real estate market.
You’ll appreciate this one, Nana.
[snip]Three North Carolina Hispanics who were arrested after calling 911 to report a burglary at their home face deportation and criminal charges.
Local Spanish-language weekly Que Pasa reported Wednesday that Jose Luis Segura Rios, his brother Jorge Segura, Leandro Carvajal and another unidentified Hispanic man called the emergency telephone number on Sept. 16 after burglars broke into their residence in Raleigh, the state capital.
Segura Rios told the weekly that the sheriff’s deputies who responded to the 911 call mistook him for one of the criminals and, amid an altercation, he was beaten by one of the policeman and arrested for “presenting false documents.”
“They ignored me, they didn’t help us. Because we called 911 we’re in prison. We’re the victims, not the thieves,” Jose Segura said.
According to the official report, Segura gave investigators a false name and it was also discovered that he had an arrest record in another state.
His brother and Carvajal also were turned over to immigration authorities because they presented false identification and were illegal migrants.
The fourth man at the house was not arrested because it was determined that he was in the country legally.
http://www.officer.com/online/article.jsp?siteSection=1&id=43410
As someone who has been involved with many of the “flip house” people, this writer has it exactly right. My main things was kitchen and bath cabinets and countertops. As far as the cabinets went, it was not likely to involve the use of illegals because of the language problem which didn’t allow for much communication of design and other specifications. The countertops, though, were done (not by me) very much on the cheap. Poorly fabricated, low-quality granite done by illegals. Everything that these flippers could do with illegals, they did - so busy cutting everyone else’s throat in a blind greed, coupled with very poor - in some cases criminal - financial practices. One who owes me money responded to my request for payment by telling me how he’d badmouth me to his “network of investors”. When I responded that these “investors” owe me so much money I don’t want any more of their business, he became offended at my being “unprofessional”. What a freakin’ laugh.
Here is a good website for immigration news by the Maricopa County Attorney’s office.
http://illegalimmigrationjournal.com/
Emmett, do you think you’ll ever collect what is owed you?
Regardless how we got here, it is this huge over-supply of homes that will keep housing prices down and doom the bailout from the start.......... the bailout counts on a price stabilization, which can’t happen with this over-supply.
Regardless how we got here, it is this huge over-supply of homes that will keep housing prices down and doom the bailout from the start.......... the bailout counts on a price stabilization, which can’t happen with this over-supply.
Some of it will ultimately be collected because of liens on unsold property. Some will not be. Actually, with my one most troublesome account, the guy’s lawyer is of far higher character and integrity than he is and has forced him to make certain payments to me out of escrowed funds which the lawyer controls. This whole “Flip This House” thing is over and 95% of the people in it are looking for their “next racket”. Lots will turn up in areas of natural disasters to do half-assed, over-priced, low-quality insurance work for desperate and unsuspecting homeowners.
THIS IS A NEW ONE——Latino thieves pose as landscapers-— rob family-—drive off in a black Cadillac Escalade
Police reported $7,700 in jewelry was taken when a group of latino scammers lured a couple outside, saying they were cutting down trees behind the home and did not want to damage the property. When the 70-year-old couple and their grandson were outside, the landscaper began speaking Spanish into a walkie talkie and soon an older man joined him.
The thieves created diversions for around a half hour, and even offered $50 for the noise they would make. Later the homeowners found a dozen pieces of jewelry, mostly rings and bracelets, gone.
The latinos then drove off in a black Cadillac Escalade parked on a side street. They were described as a young, short and thin Hispanic male in his 20s with short dark hair with a blue Yankees cap blue, a collared shirt with blue stripes, long blue jeans and black boots....and an older 40ish Hispanic male, heavyset with a round face, with spiked dark hair, blue sunglasses, a beige collared shirt, blue jeans and black dress shoes.
Do you remember "Dane"?
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