Posted on 02/03/2013 7:18:30 AM PST by Kaslin
Did you read the story home prices are up due to falling inventory? Case-Shiller just reported home prices were up in their 20 city index 5.5% in November all the way back to 2003 levels.
Regarding these price increases one must put them into perspective. As reported at the BusinessInsider, Quinn Eddins at RadarLogic argue the recent rise in home prices reflects the weakness in 2011 home prices more than the strength of 2012 home prices. I concur.
The reason for prices rising? According to the WSJ: “Economists see the report as a sign of the housing market gaining strength. “The house price rally still has a long way to go. The most important driver will be the dwindling supply of new homes. Thanks to a combination of an extended period of under construction … and a fewer foreclosures, the inventory-to-sales ratio fell in December to the lowest level since May 2005,” said Harm Bandholz of UniCredit Research.”
This is a mystery when just in July of 2012 Bloomberg reported the following:
“The shadow inventory of homes – those in foreclosure plus those 90 days late on mortgage payments – is on the rise again, a further indication that the supply side has not yet healed. According to RealtyTrac, foreclosure starts jumped 6 percent on a year ago basis in the second quarter, the first year-over-year increase since 2009. There are roughly 4.16 million homes that could begin to flow to market.
Once one takes the number of homeowners 30- to 90-days late on their mortgage payments and includes the likely default of those that have negative equity on their homes, there is a strong possibility more than 6.5 million additional foreclosures will enter the pipeline. The addition of homes that banks may be holding back suggests a much larger number. Laurie Goodman of Amherst Securities Group has testified before Congress that it could be as high as between 8 and 10 million.”
The Bloomberg report came four months before the FHA announced conveniently the week after the election that they have 789,000 homes in foreclosure or coming soon.
Where have all the houses gone? Not to be a conspiracy theorist, but do you think the big banks who were the recipients of government largesse with bail outs, or the risk free money making turnstile between the Fed loaning them money at near zero to buy treasuries returning 2.5% provided the capital necessary to hold foreclosed properties off the market?
Inventory will be one of the keys to how housing prices perform in 2013, however the three biggest factors remains jobs, jobs, and jobs. Followed by interest rates. Pent up demand drove sales in 2012 because it sure wasn’t due to job growth not able to even match new entrants into the job market. Investors also added to demand accounting for an estimated 28% of all home sales.
The stage is now set for the 2013 housing market and it remains cloaked behind a curtain not yet raised. Will millions of foreclosures mysteriously begin to appear? Will the phantom job market miraculously begin to add to demand?
Release of more foreclosed homes is more probable than job creation adding to demand.
As bad as Q4 GDP falling into negative territory was the collapse in Consumer Confidence. The media wants to blame falling confidence on the expiration of the payroll tax holiday. That is certainly a part of the reason, however that doesn’t give consumers enough credit.
Is it possible the collective wisdom of the consumer after listening to Obama’s inaugural dead left progressive edicts, including Climate Change that has driven up their costs of necessities could have contributed to a crisis in confidence? Could dysfunctional government be a cause?
Sure that’s possibly part of the decline in confidence, but in my opinion they are simply scared. People don’t see or are living any recovery. They see Washington DC and Wall Street thriving while they languish. What a better boost to confidence could there be if main street actually saw jobs being created?
Since jobs are the key to housing sales my outlook is for more of the same. The media will continue to report a non-recovery as recovery, banks will withhold inventory, jobs will languish, and confidence will remain low.
Why? Because only liberal pundits, academia, economists, media, and the new Collectivist Party, formerly known as Democratic, could possibly say that what Obama is doing is working.
I agree...but let me add a few things. In many areas, there are ‘good parts of town’ and ‘bad parts of town’, as far as housing is concerned. Crime, school district, whatever has made some areas the preferred place to buy.
These ‘good parts of town’ areas were sprawling away from the city center, extending utilities like sewer and water as they went.
When the bubble burst, we were left with a zone of failed development, on the edge of the city. There are bare lots, possibly with only pavement but no utilities like power and gas installed. The lots are burdened with developer mortgages, as well as high special assessments to pay for the street. They are poison...nobody is going to buy them.
This band of failed development serves as a giant moat, preventing additional development. Its too expensive to build utilities through these areas, to start new developments further out, on land that isn’t poison.
This all equates to alot less development and building.
Also, most of the developers still standing in my city are now doing very small phases...so as not to become too leaveraged. These small phases can’t keep up with demand; but, they and th banks will not do larger phases for now. I’m talking 16 lot developments.
Whatever happens, it is already popping. Defense spending has already started to decline and it will be reduced tremendously in March.
If anyone is interested, that incomplete remodel in foreclosure appears to have sold as of yesterday for $54,900.00. Needs climate control system, interior finishing, much landscaping work. Nice house though, if you only need two bedrooms and two baths.
Wow, what a steal. $50k to finish it off? Looks like a very nice home.
I have been admiring it for a while. I’d seriously consider taking it on myself, if I were in a position to do so, as I mentioned. Those are Jeld-Wen windows and doors, the doors are clear fir. A lot of recent stone work, great fireplace. The pool’s a disaster though, I’d probably take it out.
If they don't HAVE to move, they're likely hanging on, especially if they bought their homes at the height of the market. They don't want to give their homes away.
You're right. there is an unspoken effort to "keep the show Going" by those that have the MOST to lose if it stops.
As usually happens, the END GAME will occur when we least expect it.
All you and I can do is realize that the best we can do is be prepared for the INEVITABLE.
Austrian economic theory explains this quite readily. Artificially low interest rates lead to malinvestment, that is, investment in things that would be uneconomical at real market interest rates. So we had over-investment in housing. Then the bubble burst. Lots of unwanted housing, and housing people realized they couldn't afford.
I'll give Rudyard Kipling the last word:
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!
Once the Marylander imports succeed in raising NoVa taxes to Montgomery County, MD levels, the bubble will burst. Fairfax County won’t be attractive any more.
Every possible trick is being used to forestall the ultimate collapse and I agree that it has worked longer than I ever thought it possibly could but there is also the huge effort to keep the truth covered up. We have no news media willing to tell the truth. If we had real investigative reporting on TV and in newspapers we would not be in the shape we are in and that shape is far worse than is being reported.
Never happen. Both parties don't want to cut spending. There will be a deal on sequestration "postponing" cuts to out years and increasing revenue thru cutting loopholes. We are just watching another kubuki dance.
"Of course, as Brad Plumer notes in the Washington Post's Wonkblog today, defense spending always trails off in the fourth quarter, because the department, like other federal agencies, tends to squeeze a lot of spending into the third quarter because it's when the fiscal year ends. But a drop that breaks a 40-year record is another thing entirely.
And it's worth remembering that these cuts took place before Defense agencies recently went public with the news that they are slowing procurement spending, cutting contract workers and preparing for civilian employee furloughs in anticipation that a sequester will kick in at the end of February."
Dream on. The GOP still controls the governorship and the House of Delegates by a wide margin. It is a deadlock in the Senate.
Question: what is a slick (and possibly illegal) way to keep property taxes high, when houses won’t sell at all?
The board won out.
Our entire society is a credit based economy. And though there are places for credit, JC's words ring very true today.
Where is your “hometown”? We’re seriously looking into moving to Tennessee. IF we can sell our house. And that’s a big IF.
I feel that too.
Things keep going until God says otherwise. The Bible says that God raises the nations up and brings them down. When God says “go!”, the rug will be pulled out from under!
You should have a detailed email reply from me in your Freeper mailbox. Glad to help!
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