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Save A. I. Lazamataz
Posted on 05/09/2011 10:25:16 AM PDT by Justaham
If you thought the housing crisis was bad, think again.
It's worse.
New data just out from Zillow, the real-estate information company, show house prices are falling at their fastest rate since the Lehman collapse.
Average home prices are down 8% from a year ago, 3% over the quarter, and are falling at about 1% every month, according to Zillow.
And the percentage of homeowners in negative-equity positions — with a home worth less than its mortgage — has rocketed to 28%, a new crisis high.
Zillow now predicts prices will fall about 8% this year and says it no longer expects the market to bottom before 2012.
"There's no way we can get to flat, from these depreciation levels, in the last nine months of the year," says Zillow economist Stan Humphries. "Demand is a lot more anemic than we had previously thought."
When in 2012 does Zillow see the market bottoming out? Humphries won't say.
What a foolish boondoggle those tax breaks for home buyers have turned out to be. The government spent an estimated $22 billion between 2008 and 2010 on tax breaks to prop up the housing market. All it achieved was a brief suckers' rally that ended last summer.
"As we said at the time, it was a giant waste of money," says Mark Calabria, economist at the conservative Cato Institute. "None of these things really turned the housing market around. They just put off the adjustment for awhile."
It's hard to overestimate the scale of the carnage in the housing market. Zillow found prices fell in all but four U.S. metro areas.
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
That's one way to avoid paying China the money we owe them.
The list, ping
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Ah, great, now my property taxes are going to go down again.
There's a name for this: mercantilism. And it was this very system that Adam Smith railed against in The Wealth of Nations.
Fixed.
There are still many areas of this country where you can buy a home with 20% down, 30y fixed rate under 5%, where payment plus taxes and insurance is far less than the same house would rent for. The sky is not falling...at least not yet.
>>I now strongly believe that this will probably lead to Civil War II.
Fixed.<<
You have no idea how much we are in agreement. After I posted I said to myself that I should have said, “certainly lead to Civil war II and probably lead to World War III”
Thanks for fixing it. :)
I am quite aware of the bible prophesy about the army of 300,000,000 from the east, and the current reality that thanks to China’s one child policy, resulting in people killing their female infants to try again for a boy, that we have a contemporary China with not enough females and WAY TOO MANY single young men of military age.
It is as though they intentionally raised canon fodder. But an army the size of the entire US population is something that will get your attention.
HUD is a clown act. I put a decent offer on a home, but since I was a caucasian investor I didn't meet their criteria. After a month they came begging back to me. Too late.
Market is getting marginally worse, however I am noticing bargain sales in good neighborhoods. Especially neighborhoods that had a handful of pretenders (people who had ZERO BUSINESS owning homes in these neighborhoods - too expensive).
Mid 2012 is a good call on bottom.
I'm not in the biz. My opinion is fairly anecdotal. Those that had no business, were probably already eased out. Those you're seeing now, are those (like me) whose income has been reduced from the economy in general. It's why I've always thought Mortgage Mods (HAMP et al) were very poorly conceived. Those that defaulted first, had the least business getting the loan, and are infinitely more likely to re-default. Those that were struggling but making it, should have been the first to get adjustments or Mods. All the Feds and loans servicers have done is start the dominoes tipping.
Let the market operate.
How’s the price of land these days......you know....if your house has 40 acres, fenced, with a pond......compared to the McMansions in the city.....?
I have a water front home on Galveston bay, lovely view, large yard, 2 car garage, swimming pool and a guest house. Listed the place for 250k, not 1 bite. I guess I’ll just keep the place.
You can get a house valued at 8 million for 2 million in West Palm Beach, FL. Quite the deal.
Call me crazy, but I subscribe to the theory of probable value being relative to actual cost. Basically, crap is worth what folks will pay for it.
Wait until rates get to 8% and then watch out bad it gets.
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