[ex-Texan]

“The critical variable in this judgement is the price of homes in the United States” * * *

“I would expect home price declines to continue until the rate of inventory liquidation reaches its peak"

And this proclamation comes from the guy who is most responsible for everything that is happening today. Thus Sprach Zarathustra . . . The real estate god is dead. Long live real estate. Do you see what is happening now all over the America . . . ? Do you really understand?

The builder was reported to be having "money problems" back in July. Now they are having a Banruptcy sale Nothing to see here. Time to move. Move alonmg people, move along now.

Prices reduced from $ 359,000 to $ 99,000 — !!! And even less. Want more details?

Casa Grande

Fiesta homes range from just under 1,500 square feet to over 2,100 square feet in size and most have 4 bedrooms with 2 to 2 1/2 bathrooms. Celebration homes are larger and range in size from just under 2,000 square feet to nearly 3,400 square feet.All homes to be auctioned in Casa Grande are BRAND NEW homes and starting bids will be as low as only $89,000. This is an amazing opportunity to own a beautiful home in this fast growing community.

Maricopa

aricopa is a charming city located just 20 miles south of Phoenix. Maricopas early influence from the hearty local farm economy which still thrives today has led to unprecedented growth and development. Know as A Community With A Heart, the safe neighborhoods, educational excellence, endless recreational and cultural opportunities and strong business community anchored with a unique small-town feel makes Maricopa a great place to live and work.Twenty-seven brand new homes in the Celebration and 26 brand new homes in the Fiesta communities of Maricopa will be featured at auction. Previously listed at over $353,000, starting bids on select units will be as low as $99,000!

Source Here

For all the real estate and mortgage shills out there i say "Save your bovine squat for your industry message boards. Nobody is buying it today. Except other people in the business."

These empty houses have been on the market for at least six months. The builder could not sell them. Even in the good times. So how much will they sell for? I suggest a few will sell slightly over the required minimum bid. Others may sell for a 40% price reduction. Others will sell for about 50 cents on the dollar. Maybe. Hurry, hurry, hurry! You can join the crowd and even put in bid yourself. Want to learn more? Or do you just want to throw stones at the messenger.

[Brilliant]

Give me a break, Greenspan. We make a lot more than just houses.

[Petronski]

[djf]

Hey, the biggest banks in the world can lose their keisters and the stock market just goes to new highs!

Kum Bay A, m’Lord, Kum bay A...

Somethins gonna hit the fan real quick here.

[Popocatapetl]

Wise homebuilders should finally bite the bullet and evolve into a new market that hasn’t ever existed much in the US.

For years, homes have been “cheap and cheerful”, slapdash construction of biodegradable properties, that even with their poor quality have continued to appreciate in value. The pressure to change, to improve, has only resulted in the creations of “McMansions”, which are still cheaply built affairs, but written on a much larger scale. When homes and other buildings age at all, they are just torn down and replaced with the same.

But at no time has the idea of “quality” entered the picture. That is, building homes and other buildings on the idea that the US is no longer wildly growing, but is becoming a mature nation where property starts to become a long term family asset, with the same home owned for generations by the same family.

In all fairness, in years past this was much harder to do, because building materials were far less durable or prohibitively expensive. But this is much less the case today. In addition, there was always the problem that “castles” tended to be very expensive to maintain. But this, too, has been alleviated to a great extent with technology.

So why not build homes that will last a family for generations, without complete rebuilding, and designed for low cost operation and maintenance?

The design will be somewhat different, as it will have to be fashioned to support the needs of several generations at once, yet comfortably for all. Its initial costs will be much higher, because it will need to integrate features that while expensive, will save much money over time.

As much as possible, it will have to be self sustaining, with few resources entering and little waste leaving.

If such homes exist, the one great expense would be property taxes. The elimination of those would make this a popular model for everyone who could afford it.

[BeckB]

It sounds to me like a lot of international investors have been fueling the building speculation in this country.
Let them exploit some other country. ( maybe Greenspan is about to lose some investment money of his own ) .

[stylin19a]

oh no...a fly by night developer,
that's been around only a little bit,
took out huge loans/revolving lines of credit in 2004 using 450 desert "lots as collateral
is the basis of your today's "sky is falling" alert ?

[jpl]

Far be it from me to question someone as smart as Greenspan, but I would think that things such as the price of oil, the continued growth of China, and the stability (or lack thereof) in the Middle East would have far greater impact on the world economy than the real estate market correction in America.

[abercrombie_guy_38]

He fails to mention he had a (large) hand in the problem.

[DungeonMaster]

Fate of World Economy Lies with U.S. Housing --Greenspan

BS. This statement seems to be a setup to blame Bush for a lot of stooooopid loans. So now I suppose Bush is supposed to bail out the whole industry.

[AZLiberty]

The biggest unspoken factor in current real estate prices is uncertainty about immigration. Immigration, substituting for our sub-replacement birth rate, has been driving the real estate market, providing a continuing flood of people entering the bottom of the market and allowing everyone else to "move on up". Without this, real estate will revert to its real value, which is what people are willing to pay out of cash flow rather than what they can pay out of their increasing equity.

Let's resolve the immigration crisis, cutting off the flow of illegals, and replacing it with a flow of deserving, capable, legal immigrants.

[quant5]

I am not buying yet. The pricing is going to go lower. The downturn is a snowball (as your demonstrating) in some areas and a wimper in others. My home value in Southeast Maine has gone up slightly his year, because it was flatlined during the boom. I will be looking to buy at the end of 2008, at what will be the worse housing conditions we have seen in our lifetimes. That means bargains galore.

[HockeyPop]

ex, put me on your ping list!

[WLR]

I see this a little different..

Banksters decide to end the con and recoup a great deal of wealth which was as a part of a bait and switch operation temporarily out of their hands.

Crashing the Housing Market is a way to continue to steal the wealth of the American People..

No accident just part of the design.

BTW there is no Hyperbole... We just lose our a$$eS as planned..

Proud your $300,0000 home is “paid for”?

Oh it is now worth $65,000.... Sucker

W

[listenhillary]

Outstanding time to buy that first house. Wow!

[RockinRight]

“Starting Bid” doesn’t a final sale price make.

They’ll sell on average for 70% of full market value as listed.

[discostu]

Wait some idiot home builder decided to run multiple subdivisions in Casa Grande, a town NOBODY lives in or wants to live in, and you’re using this as evidence of a bad economy. And really the situation in Maricopa is the same, they are two towns that exist as support for gas stations that looked for a while like they might be attracting people willing to do big commutes to work, then gas prices went up and people realized that big commutes are for big dummies. That’s evidence of an idiotic builder that should be sued by any investors or lenders for fraud. This company started poor projects too late.

[raygun]

I wish the clown would just sit at home and knit booties for his grand kids.

Every time he opens his mouth the market goes down.

Perhaps he timed his comments for Monday post-record setting Friday.

On the other hand, maybe he timed it perfectly to throw wet wood onto the fire. There are certain maxims about the market that he just plain negated today. If anybody remembers, he was the one that warned about "irrational exuberance" (something xClintoon was not keen on damping).

If but for Bush, then Grandstanding Jenny's campaigning may have to have been something about (gasp! Heaven Forbid!) her performance, rather than casting aspersions to he predecessor (or policies of the present POTUS that she politically disagrees with).

Astonishingly enough (well, not really, or very), she had nothing more to say about shutting down MI State Gov except that her predecessor squandered a huge suprluss.

Fancy that, a huge inherited surpluss that was squandered by whom? Clearly its the States CEO (not the State's Demoncrat legislature) that had any hand it that. NOw there are a vast number of freshman politicians on both sides of the aisle that know only the thing that Tocqueiville (sp?) warned about: the voting of largesse by the hoi polloi through a legal method of plunder.

What are we talking 'bout again? Oh, yeah, knitting of booties. I heard 'bout that.

[HereInTheHeartland]

http://money.cnn.com/2007/10/01/real_estate/manhattan_prices/index.htm?postversion=2007100212