Real Estate bubble bust may be worse than Dot Com bubble bust

Alan Greenspan in an unusually festive mood.

In the meantime, I'm gonna let the U.S. financial goatse.cxing ride out, and see what things are like in the aftermath.

btw do you know how many bison ted motherfuckin' turner owns? a shitload!

http://www.jacksonhole.com/index.summer.asp

...I couldn't resist.

http://americangourmet.net/ProductImages/16347.jpg

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4193008.stm

One of the things everyone keeps telling me is "Big condo building going in over there, 50 apartments on that corner, blah blah." Ok, so if there's all this new construction and all these new apartments going in, I guess that means the neighborhood could get much nicer and property values could go up. But couldn't it also mean developers are rushing to cash in on the frenzy, overbuilding, and that demand will outstrip supply?

(granted, not currently bigger than dot com burst, so it seems)

http://money.cnn.com/2006/03/24/news/economy/newhome_sales/?cnn=yes

http://www.lectlaw.com/files/lat06.htm

It's just a matter of finding one...

My friend could have made $100,000 profit in a year on a place he bought if he had sold when I told him to. Oh well, at least he has a place to live, I guess.

Sales strategies in a buyers' market

• Put your home up for sale only if you have to move soon. If you have the option, wait for the market to rebound.

• Understand that real estate cycles are just that: cyclical. What comes down will eventually go back up.

• Price realistically — and stop dreaming of getting as much as your former neighbor got last year.

• Remember that buyers have more choices, so make your house as appealing as possible by cleaning and reducing clutter.

• Anxious sellers create worried buyers, so try to avoid being home when real estate agents show the property.

• Offer to pay some of the buyers' nonrecurring closing costs, like the loan appraisal, loan points, credit report, title insurance and property inspection fees.

• Get a professional home inspection before you put your house on the market.

• SUX 2 B U LOL

Source: Journal News research

"Weehouse" in snow.

Creativity at work.

Developers like Hovnanian are crowing about how they're "bullish" about the market. I guess they figure NYC and its metro area are projected to grow significantly and there's still a housing shortage. With all the new Manhattan construction aiming ultra-high-end, I guess developers are looking to Jersey City as the new place for the merely upwardly-mobile.

Still, it's hard for me to believe these units will move very fast in the short term with so many flooding the market at once at the same time that the boom is ending. In the long run these guys probably know what they're doing though and I'm sure they can afford to sit on some vacant units or reduced rents for a few years to wait out the cycle.

There are a lot of small contractors getting fucked - they made just enough money during the 'boom' to take out $400k+ in loans to build a couple of spec houses (or even better, one really big one) and now there are no buyers (in part because of the market, in part because they were dumb enough to think that the relatively-wealthy would keep moving to formerly rural areas once those spots had become extensions of the 'burbs).

http://www.youdovoodoo.com/80sbubble.htm

So I'm guessing that as more people forward stuff like this around the internet we'll probably see some deflation for a little while, followed by a slight "bounce" that will convince enough people that it's not really all over for real estate, followed by more deflation.

Does anyone have any experience or knowledge with buying foreclosed properties? It's gotten to the point in Portland, OR, that the only affordable markets for first time home buyers is either through condos or foreclosures. The other annoying this is that Portland is about the only coastal city that is not experiencing declining prices in the housing market. The whole thing is kind of depressing.

The other annoying this is that Portland is about the only coastal city that is not experiencing declining prices in the housing market.

link please? this is false based on what I've seen (SF/LA/SD/Vancouver).

false for seattle too

The Portland Tribune had an entire issue devoted to it. Also, you can just do searches on Yahoo or anything and see that prices are going down as expected in PDX. The job market is apparently quite healthy and seems to be offsetting any expected drop in median prices.

My friend did this a few years ago. Sold it after two years and a day, or whatever the minimum time is. More because of the neighborhood than anything else. But it was a good investment, though it required a lot of work.

I thought PDX housing had stabilized, at least in the under 300k market. But it's been a few months since I looked.

Yeah, prices have stabilized, but they haven't really been dropping either.

I'm wondering how difficult it is logistically to buy foreclosures. Do the banks allow inspections? Are the down payments higher? It looks like you can save 20 to 40 percent on these deals, but then again, why isn't everybody doing it? Are real estate agents and flippers scooping up all of the best stuff and leaving the public with the crap?

at least in the under 300k market.
at least in the under 300k market.
at least in the under 300k market.
at least in the under 300k market.
at least in the under 300k market.
at least in the under 300k market.
at least in the under 300k market.
at least in the under 300k market.
at least in the under 300k market.
at least in the under 300k market.
at least in the under 300k market.
at least in the under 300k market.
at least in the under 300k market.
at least in the under 300k market.
at least in the under 300k market.
at least in the under 300k market.
at least in the under 300k market.
at least in the under 300k market.
at least in the under 300k market.
at least in the under 300k market.
at least in the under 300k market.
at least in the under 300k market.

What's your point?

My expectation at the moment is that, although I think prices will ease in the housing market by an average of maybe 15%, there won't be a total collapse of housing prices. Despite speculative froth, most people still live in their houses, so the market tends to get sluggish instead of prices collapsing. Rather, I expect inflation to continue to heat up in food and fuel prices and to spread throughout the economy more and more generally - with no offsetting increase in wages.

The erosion of the dollar will make this trend the worst in the USA, where even the prices for manufactured goods will start to inflate (finally), but the status of the dollar as world reserve currency will mean inflation will spread to the global economy, too. I look for the official inflation rate to go double digit in the USA by 2010.

Just my gut hunch.

don't worry, the amero will save us.

I believe steve shasta might be pointing out that housing has stabilized at what is apparently the new "floor" for urban real estate prices is kind of like saying the music isn't getting any quieter, at least the silent parts.

I'm missing a clause in there but the point stands that the "under 300k market" "stabilizing" is just more sticky-upwards pricing phenomena while buyers continue to wait for the bottom to drop out.

local newspapers bragging about it is a sign the bubble is still at work in your area more than it's a sign of anything else, and yeah sure go ahead and buy something to live in at a fixed rate you can afford but you had better be DAMN sure you aren't interested in real estate as an investment, because if you hadn't been around at the time, 1992 fucking sucked and this is going to only get worse. sup.

If I know anything about market psychology, the bottom will fall out within 24 hours of this thread being revived with a simple 'LOL' after prices have climbed another 30%.