Posted on 03/21/2023 7:20:03 AM PDT by Kaiser8408a
I have good news bad news for you.
The good news? US existing home sales SOARED in February. Up 14.5% MoM in February to 4.58 million units SAAR sold.
The bad news? On a year-over-year basis, existing home sales plunged -22.64%.
And the median price of existing home sales declined slightly to -0.2% YoY.
Dr. Jill Biden gets a professional clothing designer to rate her wardrobe.
(Excerpt) Read more at confoundedinterest.net ...
Can anyone explain what’s going on in the market——everything is all over the place. Gold rises almost $100 in a few days now is down $35 today. Market up after being down for a week straight. Dollar up even though we’re spending like crazy. Is everything being manipulated because this seems completely antithetical to “money 101”...
I’ll be in the market when prices drop about 30%. That would get them back to at least somewhat reasonable considering prices in this market jumped 66% in 2 years.
We're in big heap trouble.
Median Home Prices need to drop 10-20 times that amount before the market is back to anything remotely looking like reality.
FED QE policies are coming home to roost...
Really nothing more complicated than that.
Main street will once again take shots to the groin while the folks who create the mess get rewarded.
Sorry that should be 100-200 times that, not 10-20 times that, to return to reality.
Honestly if they fell 500 times that or more would still be more realistic than the garbage it is now.
Sorry not 500 times but 300 times...
Been a long morning
1. The “experts” finally figured out that rapid increases in interest rates make most banks insolvent. This has been known by serious economists for several centuries, but these “experts” just figured it out...
2. Large depositors (business working capital and wealthy individuals) panicked about their deposits over 250K in a couple of large banks—since those deposits are not insured by the FDIC. That was a “run” on those banks.
3. A couple of those banks failed.
4. The Treasury stepped in and promised that it would cover all deposits in those banks, including amounts over 250K.
5. Then Treasury Secretary Yellen told Congress that the over 250K bailout was for “systemically important banks” and that most bank depositors were out of luck if they kept over 250K in the unspecified other banks.
6. Large depositors figured better safe than sorry and started doing a run of all the medium size and smaller banks for amounts over 250K.
7. That made hundreds of banks insolvent and running out of cash in a hurry.
8. The Fed came to the rescue in the last couple of days and promised it would provide any cash any bank needed—come and get it.
Needless to say while this is going on bank stocks and the stock market as a whole are going up and down like a yo yo.
I will try.
The general real estate market is in a stalemate.
In most markets(not Nashville, Austin, San Fran, Boise, Salt Lake and a few others) there is very little inventory available. There is almost NO new construction.
In some of the above mentioned markets the big home builders had too much inventory and had to reduce prices to dump houses that were under construction. In some of those markets new home prices are down 20%.
Meanwhile in the northeast and upper midwest there is virtually nothing available for sale. IF you put an existing home on the market, there is no competition. So, no houses available means NO SALES.
Interest rates are now around 6-7% for a 30 year mortgage.
Cheap in relation to where rates have been in the last 80 years, but high in relation to the last ten years.
However, the cost of building a new house is very high due to labor costs and general materials costs. Even though lumber and OSB are down 70% from their highs of 2020/2021.
Lastly, we are in a recession due to inflation. Generally consumer spending is starting to come down. Consumer confidence has decreased. There are layoffs especially in the tech sector. The stock market is down over the last 18 months so people do not feel as wealthy(because of losses on paper) as they did two years ago. So, they are being more cautious.
The only investment outside of regular 401K contributions I have made is the purchase of Series I Treasury bonds that are currently 6.89%. Max $10K/year.
Although, I was thinking about buying First Republic Bank stock yesterday. Up 30% this morning
Good comments—one other point is that most homeowners who have mortgages have low interest cost mortgages.
That means that if they sell their home they will lose a lot of money when they buy another home—because their new mortgage will have a lot higher interest rate.
That has “frozen” a large part of the housing market—nobody wants to take that loss if they can avoid it by staying put.
Sorry, I left out that there is a serious shortage of multifamily housing in the USA. We need more apartments. Especially in places like Boston, San Fran, NY, etc.
The other type of housing need is 50+ over free standing condos. A house with 2-3 bedrooms where the older owners do not need to mow the lawn or worry about cleaning the gutters or snow in the winter.
Our country is demographically getting OLDER. We are not in bad shape like Japan, South Korea or Italy. Our kids and grandchildren are not having as many kids as the Baby Boomers. Which is why we need immigrants(legal).
FYI, IF it was up to me(trying to persuade Mrs Woodbutcher) I would buy a retirement house/apartment in Italy.
Here are a couple examples:
https://www.idealista.it/en/immobile/23876531/
https://www.idealista.it/en/immobile/25631111/
Where in the USA can you buy a condo/apartment on the ocean for under $300K?
Apartments in the interior of Italy are under $100K. Especially, in the southern half of the country.
If you are willing to rebuild a house they can be bought for under $40K. As little as $1 EURO. Then there are tax incentives from the government to rebuild them.
The Italian government REALLY wants Americans and Brits to move there and retire.
OR they are like me. I paid off my mortgage a few years ago. I am turning 60 next month.
I really don’t feel like going into debt again.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.