Posted on 05/10/2022 3:34:39 AM PDT by Kaslin
Washington never learns. Never. Politicians are like collective Alzheimer's disease patients. They have no short-term memories.
Does anyone remember 2008? It was only 14 years ago. Then, America suffered through one of the most significant and most painful financial crises in our nation's history -- and the worst losses since the crash of 1929. Millions of people lost their jobs. Hundreds of thousands defaulted on their mortgages and lost their homes.
Trillions of dollars of lifetime savings and wealth evaporated. Central billion-dollar banks and investment houses that were thought to be invincible were swept away like straw huts in the face of a tsunami.
The calamity resulted from government policies that intentionally inflated a housing bubble year after year. Few saw the bursting of the bubble coming. When it popped, the carnage was everywhere and felt from coast to coast.
Now there are many of the same flashing signs of a housing bubble -- and again, no one is paying attention.
A well-respected housing affordability index fell last month to near the lowest level ever as home prices surged.
Mortgage interest rates now exceed 5.2% -- up from 3.6% just two years ago. In some markets, rates are nearing 6%. And the Fed is raising rates again, as it should, but this too will likely further inflate mortgage rates.
The average mortgage payment is now $1,800 a month -- 70% higher than before COVID-19 hit. Many people live paycheck to paycheck and are already financially squeezed due to prices rising faster than paychecks. The only other time home payments were as high as they are today was in 2007. Yes, on the eve of the Great Financial Crisis.
A popular mortgage monitor called Black Knight shows home prices are up 19.9% over a year ago. Yes, that's good news for homeowners as their home equity surges. But these gravity-defying home prices are killers for homebuyers, especially young, first-time buyers.
Loan-to-income levels are also rising, which makes defaults more likely. If housing prices fall, borrowers will start to be pushed underwater with unpaid loans more outstanding than the house's value. They will walk away as millions of borrowers did in 2008 and 2009.
If this housing run-up were simply a result of natural supply and demand market forces, there wouldn't be a great cause for concern.
Alas, Congress, the Fed and housing agencies such as Fannie Mae are pumping air into the bubble. The Fed has artificially held interest rates too low for too long as part of its "stimulus" strategy. Meanwhile, the Fed has encouraged home loans by purchasing $2.7 trillion of mortgage-backed securities, and they are held on the central bank's balance sheet. That's precisely what it did in the early 2000s.
Congress has been passing out hundreds of billions for taxpayer-funded rental and mortgage assistance, propping up housing.
Meanwhile, Fannie Mae, the federal guarantor of trillions of dollars of mortgages, is now insuring mortgages of more than $1 million. This program was supposed to help lower-income and first-time homebuyers. Now, millionaires are getting subsidized loans thanks to the tremendous power of the housing lobby made up of realtors, mortgage bankers and homebuilders.
If and when the bubble bursts again, everyone gets hurt. Homeownership rates will crash again -- which is the opposite of the desired result from all of these government programs.
These are the laws of unintended consequences that Congress never learns.
There is no doubt that this will be much worse than 2008.
In 2008, the economy was fairly stable, the supply chain intact, employment solid and the world mostly at peace.
Today, nearly every aspect of the globe is on shaky ground with civil unrest, risk of a world war, China’s covid shutdown, the highest energy prices ever, the supply chain collapse, massive global inflation, food shortages, and currency instability.
I do not see a way out without incredible pain. Given the ulterior motives of the globalists, they want to use this (if they did not stage it) to enact their great reset, wiping away liberty, capitalism and sovereignty in favor of an elitist-led central system that will dictate misery for all.
Do you never learn? The powers that be in DC did not suffer, financial bail outs is how they make money. The bail out dollars go to them and their favored companies.
This is all according to plan. One planned financial crisis after another for their benefit and to bring the country to her knees.
It’s over. The political monster has ruined America. They’re going to give Ukraine $40 billion this week, then in another 4 months, give Ukraine probably $100 billion for another 4 months. Meanwhile, our border is open and we’re caring for millions of poverty-stricken people’s healthcare, education etc. It’s all by design and the Republicans are leading the gang of thieves. It’s sickening.
I’ve held off buying for this reason - prices are ridiculous right now. I know some others who have made the same decision.
So these homeowners now see the equity in their homes rising by the day and want that cash to either pay off debt, make improvements or just spend it and feel good about themselves through retail therapy (most common result). So what do they do? They refinance at a much higher rate to get to that cash and in the process increase their monthly payment. When the bubble bursts and they then lose their jobs or take a pay cut they can’t make the mortgage payment and they default. That’s what is coming.
So how do inflation and bubbles mix? In this case I imagine by over-mortgaged homeowners defaulting, more big banks scooping up the houses, and prices continuing to rise?
This is one of the things I find frustrating about how this site has devolved since the last election, everything that happens in the world and the fact my Latte came with two full pumps of vanilla instead of a pump and a half, are part of some grand liberal/NWO conspiracy. I will let you in on a secret, the rich and 'successful' are not smart enough to pull off something like that. The 'big money' is dumb as rocks as they usually get their money from one method and become 'true believers' who fail to see the market/s turn.
This was going to happen, it would've happened with the events of 2008 had the global governments had not pumped all this money into the system to stave it off.
It would've happened regardless of Covid, China, and the Russian invasion. All of these are just wrinkles that have the potential to make it all that much worse.
This is the end of a debt bubble, which is characterized by 'speculative investments'. I've always held that 'cryptos' are todays flavor of Tulip mania, and that all the flavors or coins were just variations on the same theme with tulips. With the end of debt bubbles everything becomes worthless at the same time because money becomes largely worthless due to the debt backing it getting wiped out. Everyone has to sell everything to clear debt.
I don’t know what the future holds for the housing market, but any piece like this that makes comparisons between 2022 and 2008 should be dismissed as a joke. The biggest difference between 2008 and 2022 — which doesn’t even come into Moore’s analysis — is the massive inflation that’s become ingrained in our everyday life right now. Whether the real inflation rate is the 9% that the government is reporting or the 20% people are suggesting based on their own experience, any competent economist will tell you that higher rates of inflation make it LESS likely that homeowners will end up underwater on their mortgages.
Yep.
“part of some grand liberal/NWO conspiracy...too stupid”
You are confusing the intent of the oligarchs with their ability to pull off what they intend.
Their intent is the conspiracy part.
Their ability to pull it off is a separate question.
Maybe 1-2 years after the 2007/8 mortgage crisis hit, you had politicians whining that underrepresented minorities:
a. Were losing their homes at a higher rate than the rest of the population.
b. Could not get mortgages to buy homes
So, basically, not more than 2 years after the big mortgage crisis, politicians were conspiring to make it happen again.
Assumption; 300,000$ house, 20% down, 240,000$ borrowed:
3%
1,011.85$
5%1,288.37$
7%1,596.73$
9%1,931.09$
11%2,285.58$
13%2,654.88$
15%3,034.67$Assumption; 1,011.85 payment, borrowed amount:
240,000.08$3%
188,489.05$5%
152,088.71$7%
125,754.61$9%
106,250.67$11%
91,470.84$13%
80,023.31$15%
and that all the flavors or coins were just variations on the same theme with tulips.
Indeed, if you look at the charts, almost all the variants echo what Bitcoin is doing.
Marilyn Monroe and Warhol is up.
Two years ago I refinanced my mortgage at 3.75% and paid off my credit cards so that’s the only debt I have now.
You are confusing the intent of the oligarchs with their ability to pull off what they intend.
Their intent is the conspiracy part.
Their ability to pull it off is a separate question.
Where is that triggered gif when I need it.
Compare that to the 2008 crash bottoming in March 2009 (right after Obama took office) when we had the slllllooooooowwwwwwww recovery. This was even with the Fed keeping rates at zero (technically 0.25%) literally until Trump was elected in November 2016 (at the Fed's next meeting in December 2016). This was also with all the QE the Fed was doing.
Now we have Brandon and uber-high inflation, forcing the Fed to raise rates and do QT even though a Dim is in the White House. Brandon is much more of an American hater than Slick Willie was (the last time the Fed raised rates when a Dim was in the WH). When it crashes we won't have a Trump-style recovery like 2020 or a Bush style recovery like after 2002 or a Reagan style recovery after the flash crash in 1987 (with the Fed at least in part causing that by raising rates steadily from Aug 1986 until Nov 1987). This "recovery" will have "moderate", Xi-paid, Brandon at the helm with the Fed at least for now helping him crash the party hard to make the hole bigger that we'll have to crawl back from --- recovering slllllloooooooowwwwwwwwweeeerrrrrrrrr than before like Brandon walking up stairs.
“These are the laws of unintended consequences that Congress never learns.”
Unintended?
Sadly, in so many places around the country, $300,000 homes aren’t even a possibility. Would like to see your numbers based on $450,000 or $500,000.
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.