Posted on 05/08/2007 11:04:17 AM PDT by Hydroshock
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Home prices are expected to finish down for the year, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) said Tuesday, which would mark the first drop since the group started tracking values in 1968.
NAR projects a 1 percent decline in the median price of an existing single-family home, to $219,800. The group, in a forecast made a month ago, had previously been expecting a 0.7 percent decline. Prior to that, it had expected a gain of 1.2 percent.
CNN's John Vause tells how China's decision to invest its foreign reserves could boost mortgage costs. (May 5) Play video
The number of home sales is also expected to dip from 6.48 million in 2006 to 6.29 million in 2007, a drop of 2.7 percent.
Prices of new homes, at a median of $246,400, are expected to remain steady.
Big drop in speculation According to Lawrence Yun, a senior economist for NAR, speculative investing in real estate, which contributed to abnormal price growth for several years, has all but disappeared in the present market.
(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...
R.E. has been bid up big time. Time to take a breather. Hopefully, those who are saving can finally catch up without these ridiculous “sub-prime” loans.
There is a big difference between “ever,” and 1968.
You think they’ll lower our taxes or raise them to make up the difference in new purchases?
There is no economic model that allows everyone to win every time.
In 1977 house prices here were low.
1982 here, housing prices were sky high even for old homes.
Five years (1987)later they were dirt cheap again for about ten years, then they started up again.
Now the prices here for NEW mini-mansions are falling like rocks. Lots of new streets with no houses at all, vacant new houses, reposessed homes all around here.
They will go up again soon. too bad I can’t buy about a half dozen before that. Rent won’t make payments on them right now.
That’s true enough, as far as it goes. In this country, real estate markets are more local than national and there have been booms and busts in various places over the years. I think the last really broad significant national price decline probably occurred in connection with the Great Depression.
NAR Says 2007 Will Be First Home Price Drop Since Great Depression
Thursday April 12, 5:57 am ET
The National Association of Realtors, which frequently trumpets the fact that median U.S. home prices haven’t declined since the Great Depression, said yesterday for the first time that they expect prices to do just that. In February the NAR was still calling for a 1.9% increase, but now says prices will likely drop nationwide 0.7% from 2006 levels — underscoring how quickly housing expectations have changed in the wake of the subprime mortgage fallout. Lenders current hyper-cautiousness means less eligible buyers, and a rise in foreclosures is adding to the inventory of houses in already over-stocked markets. The report said “fallout from the subprime loan debacle” will likely delay a housing market recovery until 2008. The good news: “... inventories remain well below the levels experienced during the last housing downturn in the early 1990s, and supplies are close to balance in many areas.” Separately yesterday, the Mortgage Bankers Association said it was allocating $5 million to combat “a torrent of unfair press” about subprime woes, saying, “Misleading information, often reinforced by vivid and frightening anecdotes, is raising the very real possibility of overzealous regulatory and legislative responses.” The group insists, however, that it doesn’t blame media critics for industry woes. Howard Glaser, former MBA lobbyist, says the campaign shows the organization is out of touch “with the reality of what’s happening in the marketplace.”
Yes, much more accurate.
http://www.insecta-inspecta.com/fleas/bdeath/Europe.html
How did the Black Death effect European civilization? It affected Europe’s population and also its economy. Changes in the size of civilization led to changes in trade, the church, music and art, and many other things.
The Black Death killed off a massive portion of Europe’s population. The plague is more effective when it attacks weakened people and Europe at the time was already weakened by exhaustion of the soil due to poor farming, the introduction of more sheep which reduced the land available for corn, and persistent Scottish invasions.
Fleas infected with the Bubonic Plague would jump from rats to travelers, killing millions and infesting the continent with world shaking fear. Normal people were tormented by the threat of death, causing them to change their views on leisure, work, and art. Even children suffered.
Leisure
The Black Death crept slowly into the recreational time of people no matter how much the rich attempted to avoid it or how little time the poor had for recreation. Even the abundant death was used for laughter. Funeral processions were used as jokes. It got to the point where deaths were ignored altogether. Citizens looked for causes and the developmentally delayed, deformed and crazy people outside town were the perfect candidates. Bored? Go toss some stones at the witch and help to stop the plague.
Art
The damage to art is irreparable. As a result of death in the church, written language was almost lost and whole churches were abandoned. Carving was changed. Coffins had pictures of corpses on the lid, usually showing a very flattering likeness of the body inside wearing their best clothes. Some of these dated around 1400 showed bodies with about half of their flesh and shredded garments. A few of the sculptures showed worms and snails munching on the diseased. Painting was effected too.There are a number of paintings containing people socializing with skeletons. These paintings were made on a powerful person’s command, and called “danse macabre”. Artists abandoned old ways of painting things idolized by the Christian religion. They were so depressed by the death that surrounded them that they began to paint pictures of sad and dead people.
Children
Partially due to the lack of children’s skills to provide for themselves, the children suffered. A common nursery rhyme is proof.
Ring a-round the rosy
Pocket full of posies
Ashes, ashes!
We all fall down!
Ring around the rosy: rosary beads give you God’s help. A pocket full of posies: used to stop the odor of rotting bodies which was at one point thought to cause the plague, it was also used widely by doctors to protect them from the infected plague patients. Ashes, ashes: the church burned the dead when burying them became to laborious. We all fall down: dead. Not only were the children effected physically, but also mentally. Exposure to public nudity, craziness, and (obviously) abundant death was premature. The decease of family members left the children facing death and pain at an early age. Parents even abandoned their children, leaving them to the streets instead of risking the babies giving them the dreaded “pestilence”. Children were especially unlucky if they were female. Baby girls would be left to die because parents would favor male children that could carry on the family name.
Effect over Time
After the plague had raised the level of leisure, the people kept it up. This was so injuring to the economy that it has been suggested that Europe is just now recovering from the devastation. The population is also a cause of disruption in the economy because small populations mean few taxes, however the economy improved. If the Black Death had an effect on today’s economy, it would be that prices aren’ as high as they would have been due to the fact that there was a century where the economy made no progress. Art was also a victim of the Plague because paintings are a lasting record. The art is still an easy thing to find and a good reminder of how the most creative people can panic when there’s panic around them. The plague benefited art. Death inspired artists to stray from religious pictorials.
Soon after the last eruption of the Black Death, the views on children changed. Although carrying on the family name was still considered important , the birth rate dropped. Children were considered “not worth the trouble” to raise. It took four hundred years before Europe’s population equaled the pre-Black Death figures. The demand for agricultural workers gave survivors a new bargaining power. Workers formerly bound to the land could now travel and command higher wages for their services. In addition, people left rural areas and migrated to cities for higher wages. The economic structure of land-based wealth shifted. Portable wealth in the form of money, skills and services emerged. Small towns and cities grew while large estates and manors began to collapse. The very social, economic, and political structure of Europe was forever altered. One tiny insect, a flea, toppled feudalism and changed the course of history in Europe.
First ever since it happened before....
hahaha...
boom bust boom bust boom bust boom bust
History of the United States...
Prices rising not falling here in Puget Sound. Our taxed values rose 30,000 this last year, when the average has been 17,000 a year for the last 8 years.
From the Seattle Times today:
Bucking the national trend, the price of King County houses has risen for the fourth month in a row, reaching a median $465,000 in April, according to statistics released Monday by the Northwest Multiple Listing Service.
I really enjoyed reading “Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies,” by Jared Diamond, which goes into detail on the economic effects of disease.
Good book -—
Maybe I went a little too far back, though I’m sure NAR wasn’t happy about the plague.
Capitalism is cyclical. Say it three times so you’ll remember. That is my advice to the media, which seems to “discover” things every day that most people take for granted.
But, but, things were supposed to be different this time. After all, they ain’t making any more land...the population of the U.S. is supposed to grow to 400 million...real estate only goes up...
And Lib Socialists realize we don't care to listen to them and their parallel line of B.S. either too.
yes, but relying on median price averaging is not good...
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