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US Housing Crash Continues
It's Still A Terrible Time To Buy

Falling House Prices Are The Solution, Not The Problem

By Patrick Killelea, last updated Thu Oct 15, 2009

  1. House prices will keep falling in most places because those prices are still dangerously high compared to incomes and rents. Banks say a safe mortgage is a maximum of 3 times the buyer's yearly income with 20% downpayment. Landlords say a safe price is a maximum of 15 times the house's yearly rent. Yet on the coasts, both those safety rules are still being violated. Buyers are still borrowing 6 times their income and putting only 3% down, and sellers are still asking 30 times annual rent, even after recent price declines. Renting is a cash business that reflects what people can really pay based on their salary, not how much they can borrow. Salaries and rents prove that prices will keep falling for a long time. Anyone who bought a "bargain" this time last year is already sitting on a very painful loss.
  2. It's still much cheaper to rent than to own the same size and quality house, in the same school district. On the coasts, yearly rents are less than 3% of purchase price and mortgage rates are 6%, so it costs twice as much to borrow the money than it does to borrow the house. Renters win and owners lose! Worse, total owner costs including taxes, maintenance, and insurance come to about 9% of purchase price, which is three times the cost of renting. Buying a house is still a very bad deal for the buyer on the coasts, but it does make sense to buy in the Midwest and some other places where prices have fallen into line with salaries and rents. Check whether you should rent or buy in your own area with this NY Times calculator.

    The bottom will be here when buying a house to rent out clearly makes money. Then you'll know it's safe to buy for yourself because then rent can cover the mortgage and all expenses if necessary, eliminating most of the risk. For a rough indication of the wisdom of buying, divide annual rent by the purchase price for the house:

    3% = do not buy
    6% = borderline
    9% = ok to buy
    

    So for example, it's borderline to pay $200,000 for a house that would cost you $1,000 per month to rent. That's $12,000 per year in rent. If you buy it with a 6% mortgage, that's $12,000 per year in interest instead, so it works out about the same. Owners can pay interest with pre-tax money, but that benefit gets wiped out by maintenance costs and property tax, equalizing things. It is foolish to pay $400,000 for that same house, because renting it would cost you only half as much per year, and renters are completely safe from falling house prices.

  3. It's a terrible time to buy when interest rates are low, like now. Realtors just lie without shame about this fundamental fact. Prices fall as interest rates rise, because a fixed monthly payment covers a smaller mortgage at a higher interest rate. Since interest rates have nowhere to go but up, prices have nowhere to go but down. The way to win the game is to have cash on hand to buy outright at a low price when others cannot borrow very much because of high interest rates. To buy at a time of very low interest rates is a mistake.

    It is far better to pay a low price with a high interest rate than a high price with a low interest rate, even if the mortgage payment is the same either way.

    • Your property taxes will be lower with a low purchase price.
    • A low price gives you the ability to pay it all off instead of being a debt-slave forever.
    • Paying a high price now may trap you "under water", meaning you'll have a mortgage larger than the value of the house. Then you will not be able to refinance, and won't be able to sell without a loss. Even if you get a long-term fixed rate mortgage, when rates inevitably go up the value of your property will go down. Paying a low price minimizes your damage.
  4. The US economy will not recover until interest rates are allowed to rise. To favor debtors and banks, the Federal Reserve forces artificially low interest rates on America, destroying the free market for money itself. The Fed prints up bales of money and lends it to banks at 0%, so the banks feel no need to pay you any interest for your money. While this does temporarily let debtors and banks evade the consequences of their own bad decisions, it also eliminates all investment in businesses, crippling the economy and leading to mass unemployment.

    Investing in business is always risky, and it's especially risky in uncertain times like now. People with money will not invest until they feel interest rates are high enough to compensate them for the risk. Investors and banks refuse to risk their money at the Fed's artificially low rates, because at those rates, they will lose money. Would you loan money to a business at 4%, when the odds of losing your money are 8%?

  5. Buyers borrowed too much money and cannot pay it back. Now there are mass foreclosures, and the Federal Reserve is buying up bad mortgages to let banks evade the consequences of their own foolish lending. Congress also authorized vast amounts of bailout cash from taxpayers, to be loaned to banks that can't even remember how to write a safe mortgage. These purchases and loans reward banks for making very bad gambles on lending.

    The Federal Reserve's manipulation of interest rates punishes savers (did you check CD rates lately?) and keeps debtors in the maximum amount of debt possible without default. The Federal Reserve's motto seems to be "make everyone slave away for the banks, forever". There is a recognition at the highest levels of banking/government that debt is essential for creating obedient workers. And once a buyer has trapped himself with debt he is reluctant to admit he's made the biggest mistake of his life. People want to believe that they're not stupid.

    We also have legal contracts being modified to stop even well-justified foreclosures. No one was forced to borrow money. It was a choice -- a very bad choice, but completely voluntary. Grownups should be responsible for their own actions. To prevent a justified foreclosure is also to prevent a deserving family from buying that house at a low price, not to mention what this does to faith in contract law. No one in government or the media will even mention that everyone in foreclosure trouble got themselves into that spot by voluntarily borrowing money to spend on luxuries like a house they couldn't afford. No one ever died because they had to rent.

    Should taxes and artificially low interest rates and newly printed cash be used to pay the debts of irresponsible borrowers, no matter how much they over-borrowed or overpaid, or whether they refinanced to party in Vegas? Should savers be forced to pay the debts of other people who cannot afford "their homes" no matter how far it is beyond their actual financial means? If so, go buy the most expensive house you can right now! Borrow as much as you possibly can to buy a bigger house, and don't pay it back, knowing that the Fed and Congress will force the real repayment obligation onto savers, onto people who are living within their means, so that you can stay in "your home" rather than in a house you can actually afford.

    Banks happily loaned whatever amount borrowers wanted as long as the banks could then sell the loan, pushing the default risk onto Fannie Mae (taxpayers) or onto buyers of mortgage-backed bonds. Now that it has become clear that two trillion dollars in foolish mortgage loans will not be repaid, Fannie Mae is under pressure not to buy risky loans and investors do not want mortgage-backed bonds. This means that the money available for mortgages is falling, and house prices will keep falling, probably for another five years or more. This is not just a subprime problem. All mortgages will be harder to get.

    A return to traditional lending standards means a return to traditional prices, which are far below current prices.

  6. Extreme use of leverage. Leverage means using debt to amplify gain. Most people forget that losses get amplified as well. If a buyer puts 10% down and the house goes down 10%, he has lost 100% of his money on paper. If he has to sell due to job loss or an interest rate hike, he's bankrupt in the real world.

    Higher-end houses especially are now set up for a huge fall in prices, since there is no more fake paper equity from the sale of a previously overvalued property. Without that equity, most people don't have the money needed for a down payment on an expensive house. It takes a very long time indeed to save up for a 20% downpayment when you're still making mortgage payments on an underwater house.

    It's worse than that. House prices do not even have to fall to cause big losses. The cost of selling a house is 6% because of the realtor lobby's corruption of US legislators. On a $300,000 house, that's $18,000 lost even if prices just stay flat. So a 4% decline in housing prices bankrupts all those with 10% equity or less.

  7. Shortage of first-time buyers. From The Herald: "We were all corrupted by the housing boom, to some extent. People talked endlessly about how their houses were earning more than they did, never asking where all this free money was coming from. Well the truth is that it was being stolen from the next generation. Houses price increases don't produce wealth, they merely transfer it from the young to the old - from the coming generation of families who have to burden themselves with colossal debts if they want to own, to the baby boomers who are about to retire and live on the cash they make when they downsize."

    High house prices have been very unfair to new families, especially those with children. It is foolish for them to buy at current high prices, yet government leaders never talk about how lower house prices are good for pretty much everyone except bankers, instead preferring to sacrifice American families to make sure bankers have plenty of debt to earn interest on. If you own a house and ever want to upgrade, you benefit from falling prices because you'll save more on your next house than you'll lose in selling your current house. Every "affordability" program drives prices higher by pushing buyers deeper into debt. To really help Americans, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the FHA should be completely eliminated, along with the mortgage-interest deduction. Canada has no mortgage-interest deduction at all, and has a more affordable and stable housing market because of that.

    Government "affordability" programs just encourage debt, making prices higher, not lower. True affordability is not more debt -- true affordability is lower prices. The government's false affordability programs have created more debt than can ever be repaid. Credit rating agencies then lied about the value of this debt, ending trust in the whole system.

    The government keeps house prices unaffordably high through programs that increase buyer debt, and then pretends to be interested in affordable housing. No one in government ever talks about the obvious solution: less debt and lower house prices. That solution would harm bank profits! The real result of every "affordability" program is to keep you in debt for the rest of your life so that you remain an obedient worker. Lower house prices would liberate millions of people from decades of labor each. There is never anything in the press about the millions of people that were hurt and continue to be hurt by high house prices.

    The government pretends to be interested in affordable housing, but now that housing is becoming affordable via falling prices, they want to stop it? Their actions speak louder than their words. The government will step in or stay out only if it helps corporate profits for congressional campaign donors.

    Why is the failed market in health care exempt from anti-trust laws? Because the insurance cartel makes the most profit that way, and the cartel uses that money to pay lobbyists who get congressmen to vote against change.

    Why is the failed market in housing propped up with taxpayer-subsidized loans? Because banks make the most profit that way, and banks use that profit to pay lobbyists who get congressmen to vote against change.

    It is not government itself that is the problem, but corporate control of government, using congress to forcibly extract profits from you.

  8. Deflation. There is fear of inflation, but it's not likely in the next few years. The actual amount of money created by the Fed lately is a trillion dollars, which sounds huge, but is small compared to the $10 trillion drop in housing "values" and another $10 trillion drop in stock market capitalization. The US government will not print extreme amounts of cash like Zimbabwe did, because significant inflation would mean that foreigners would no longer lend money to the US government unless interest rates were much higher to compensate them for inflation losses. Higher interest rates would push more people with adjustable mortgages into default, leading to more bank losses. So the Fed won't do it. The most likely scenario is like Japan: low inflation and low interest rates, with falling house prices for years to come.
  9. Baby boomers retiring. There are 77 million Americans born between 1946-1964. One-third have zero retirement savings. The oldest are 62. The only money they have is equity in a house, so they must sell.
  10. Huge glut of empty housing. Builders are being forced to drop prices even faster than owners. Builders have huge excess inventory that they cannot sell, and more houses are completed each day, making the housing slump worse.
  11. Failure to re-regulate finance. The Graham, Leach, Bliley Act did away with the depression-era safety constraints placed on banks. This paved the way for record profits in the finance industry and an effective takeover of the US government by large banks, which has not yet been reversed.
  12. The best summary explanation, from Business Week: "Today's housing prices are predicated on an impossible combination: the strong growth in income and asset values of a strong economy, plus the ultra-low interest rates of a weak economy. Either the economy's long-term prospects will get worse or rates will rise. In either scenario, housing will weaken."
Next Page: Who disagrees that house prices will continue to fall?
Forum topic: 11 Ute Ct, San Ramon, CA 94583
On 2009-11-20 08:44:22, totallyscrewed123 said:

crash-olah says


ever heard of bishop ranch? lots and lots of jobs…

Yeah ... Bishop Ranch does seem to provide some job support for the area.
But the last time I drove through there I noticed tons of sq. footage for lease.
Hacienda in Pleasanton is even worse. I know CRE is cyclical but it seems
like there is a lot advertised. I can't remember seeing so much
commercial space for lease. It reminds me of the peninsula around 2003
during the post dot com bust. It would be interesting to get vacancy stats.

I am struggling to think of what could fill this out. Green tech? Nano tech?
Web 3.0? Mobile apps? LOL. With all California's revenue problems, and
the bay area's pricey-ness specifically, I think that the area will become an
even less attractive place to do business in the next few years. I hear Applied
Biosystems (Now Life Technologies) may be moving or are already is packing up
their Pleasanton production for Texas.

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Fri Nov 20 2009
Honolulu house list prices drop (starbulletin.com)
SoCal rent costs fall, 1st dip in 14 years (lansner.freedomblogging.com)
Colorado foreclosures hit record in third quarter (aspentimes.com)
Ohio Borrowers Behind in Mortgage Payments (wcpn.org)
N.J. troubled mortgages grow to 14.5% (northjersey.com)
Despite Government Aid, Foreclosure Crisis is Not Improving (cnbc.com)
Prime Borrowers Are Latest "Victims" Of Their Own Borrowing (huffingtonpost.com)
Mortgage delinquencies hit record high (msnbc.msn.com)
One in 7 U.S. mortgages foreclosing or delinquent (reuters.com)
MBA Forecasts Foreclosures to Peak in 2011 (calculatedriskblog.com)
Walking Away from Mortgage More Common Among Twenty-Somethings (blogs.wsj.com)
Foreclosure, delinquency rates spike amid growing unemployment (washingtonpost.com)
Housing Starts "Green Shoots" Wither On Vine (Mish)
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The Great Disconnect Between Stocks and Jobs (robertreich.blogspot.com)
The jobless rate-interest rate conundrum (themessthatgreenspanmade.blogspot.com)
Risk versus the US dollar (theautomaticearth.blogspot.com)
FHA-Backed Lending Is a Train Wreck (bloomberg.com)
Online government auctions deceive newbie foreclosure buyers (heraldtribune.com)
How to prepare for 'global collapse' (telegraph.co.uk)

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Thu Nov 19 2009
Mortgage delinquencies hit another record in 3Q (apnews.myway.com)
Mortgage Delinquencies Still Rising (benzinga.com)
Government Favors Obedient Debt-slaves Over Defiant Renters (blogs.wsj.com)
How the tax code encourages debt (newyorker.com)
Cheaper Prices Motivating House Buyers, Not Tax Gift (usnews.com)
Real Estate, On the Wane, Fights to Stay Politically Relevant (opensecrets.org)
House construction at lowest level in 6 months (money.cnn.com)
U.S. mortgage applications drop even as rates fall (reuters.com)
Fed May Not Increase Rates Until 2012 (bloomberg.com)
Fed Busting (opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com)
The Fed is sending gold higher (blogs.reuters.com)
Paulson Protege Pellegrini on Bernanke's Fed: "Sheer Lunacy" (businessweek.com)
FDIC's Bair: Bank Bailouts Were 'Not a Good Idea' (pbs.org)
FDIC Real Estate for Sale (fdic.gov)
Fannie's, Freddie's Woes Threaten Apartments (online.wsj.com)
Goldman is "vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity" (bloomberg.com)
California Pension Reform - Fun Numbers (californiapensionreform.com)
Chinese-American Hybrid Monster (nytimes.com)
$2.8 Million Off, Such A Deal (patrick.net)
Area Man Passionate Defender Of What He Imagines Constitution To Be (theonion.com)

Wed Nov 18 2009
Mortgage delinquencies hit another record in 3Q (finance.yahoo.com)
S.F. house value drop, jobless drain city budget (sfgate.com)
South Orange County cities see distressed inventory swell (freedomblogging.com)
Florida faces hard choices as residents flee slump (sun-sentinel.com)
5 myths about houseownership (washingtonpost.com)
10 Questions on the Volatile Housing Market (online.wsj.com)
15 Biggest Congressional Recipients Of Wall Street Campaign Cash (huffingtonpost.com)
Loan Audits and Qualified Attorneys (iamfacingforeclosure.com)
Silverdome sale price disappoints (detnews.com)
FTC Rules Against Michigan Realtors' Group (dsnews.com)
America's Newest Land Baron: FDIC (online.wsj.com)
Fed Officials Wondering: Should We Ever Raise Rates to Burst a Bubble? (blogs.wsj.com)
Fed Proposes Hiding Investors From Debtors (nytimes.com)
Bernanke vs. Meredith Whitney (Mish)
Obama, China, and Wishful Thinking About American Jobs (robertreich.blogspot.com)
"They can make this rally last for years" (theautomaticearth.blogspot.com)
Timothy Geithner Lies About The "Strong Dollar" (moneymorning.com)
A land tax is 200 years overdue (guardian.co.uk)
Uninsured trauma patients are much more likely to die (latimes.com)

Tue Nov 17 2009
My Lender and I Are No Longer Lovers (open.salon.com)
Mid-to-High End Housing Market - A Slower Moving Train Wreck (mhanson.com)
High end custom houses in Aspen down 30 to 40 percent (aspendailynews.com)
Inflated Prices Part Of Mortgage Fraud (indiannewslink.co.nz)
Bay Area foreclosures tracked - The Reporter (thereporter.com)
Vacant house regulations increase (freep.com)
Bankers hold houses, manipulate market (post-gazette.com)
Housing Wasn't a Free Market (watchingmarcitz.com)
Unemployment Projections, Bad At Best - Downloadable Spreadsheet (Mish)
Worst yet to Come: Americans Should Hunker Down for More Job Losses (rgemonitor.com)
What If US Government Defaults? Not All Bad! (thelastgoodidea.blogspot.com)
Wall Street unrepentant after ruining economy (bloomberg.com)
Bernanke Blames Banks For Unemployment, Ignores Fed's Guilt (huffingtonpost.com)
How Government Bailout Created Commercial Real Estate Catastrophe (businessinsider.com)
Elizabeth Warren on the Economy (pbs.org)
China has now become biggest risk to world economy (telegraph.co.uk)
The FHA's nose dive (washingtonpost.com)
Will the FHA Housing Agency Need a Bailout? Duh. (time.com)
Freddie Mac stock is cheap for a reason (usatoday.com)

Mon Nov 16 2009
Irvine condo's price plunges 50% in three years (irvinehomes.freedomblogging.com)
More pain in store for East Bay housing market? (sfgate.com)
Silicon Valley housing: foreclosure sales up, affordability down (mercurynews.com)
Flood of bank-owned foreclosures to hit Bay Area in 6 months (contracostatimes.com)
Filings for house-purchase mortgages sink to nine-year low (marketwatch.com)
Housing Bust Next Chapter: 2010, 2011 Face Big Resets In Alt-A, Option ARM (dailymarkets.com)
Animation of Unemployment In US (cohort11.americanobserver.net)
The new flipping: short sales (heraldtribune.com)
Glass-Steagall repeal: "We Should Not Have Done This" (blog.rebeltraders.net)
The Fed's airheaded bubble orthodoxy (washingtonpost.com)
China Says U.S. Rates Cause Dollar Speculation (bloomberg.com)
US Still Ignoring Oversupply Of Housing (interest.co.nz)
Cash For Craters (billdahl.net)
Good song about the bankers and the bubble (patrick.net)
Obama's "Affordability" Program Set Up By Lobbyists To Fail (associatedcontent.com)
House Builders (You Heard That Right) Get a Tax Gift (nytimes.com)
In House, Many Spoke With One Voice: LOBBYISTS' (nytimes.com)
How to Speak Tea Bag (motherjones.com)
Senate+Teabagger+Lobbyist Health Bill a Windfall for Big Insurance (alternet.org)

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Fri Nov 13 2009
U.S. Foreclosure Filings Surpass 300,000 for 8th Straight Month (bloomberg.com)
2009 house foreclosures hit record in North Texas (star-telegram.com)
Hawaii foreclosure filings remain high (startribune.com)
House prices falling even though short-term data might state otherwise (doctorhousingbubble.com)
Mortgage Debt Harms Children (theage.com.au)
Manhattan Rents Fall 9 Percent Amid Employment Cuts (bloomberg.com)
US House Buying Slips In October. Now What? (dailymarkets.com)
Housing Recovery 'Still In Uncharted Territory' (cnbc.com)
FHA Reserve Ratio Falls to 0.53%, Lowest in History (bloomberg.com)
Monetizing the housing debt (themessthatgreenspanmade.blogspot.com)
Downgrading America, one loan at a time (theautomaticearth.blogspot.com)
Commercial Real Estate Crash Debunks Myth Of Predatory Lending (businessinsider.com)
God's Work and Goldman's Prayer (Mish)
Lobbyists Defeat Congress Again, Change Law To Benefit Wall Street (sott.net)
Making Wall Street Pay (guardian.co.uk)
What Will It Take to Break Our Trance? (informationclearinghouse.info)
CNN Front Page (patrick.net)

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Thu Nov 12 2009
Default On Mortgage, Get Unsolicited Loan Reduction Offer (calculatedriskblog.com)
Portland foreclosure rate more than doubles in year (blog.oregonlive.com)
Orange County foreclosure notices hit record 8,800 (mortgage.freedomblogging.com)
Housing market still faces a big glut (money.cnn.com)
New Rules Let Banks Hide Commercial Loans (Mish)
Commercial Real Estate Crisis Looming for U.S. (bloomberg.com)
10 states face looming budget disasters (news.yahoo.com)
Fannie and Freddie Waste Taxpayer Money (online.wsj.com)
Life on Severance: Comfort, Then Crisis (online.wsj.com)
The Dow priced in gold (blogs.reuters.com)
Roubini believes the stock bubble is about to burst (bloggingstocks.com)
Under Attack, Fed Chief Studies Politics (nytimes.com)
Boom or Bust Leaves Central Bankers With Bum Choices (bloomberg.com)
Why Some Countries Are Stopping Their Stimulus (time.com)
The Lie: Treas Sec Geithner reiterates "strong dollar" bullshit (baltimoresun.com)
The Truth: Dollar Drop Gives U.S. Exporters Gains (bloomberg.com)
How the Nation's Only State-Owned Bank Became Envy of Wall Street (motherjones.com)
World Bank warns unemployment threatens US economy (sfgate.com)
How Laws Are Made (media.mcclatchydc.com)

Wed Nov 11 2009
Click ANYWHERE on the map and you see the address. It's magic! (patrick.net)
Maui house prices drop 4.4% (honoluluadvertiser.com)
Housing market still faces a big glut (money.cnn.com)
House Buyer Tax Credit Impact: Mostly in Our Heads (blogs.wsj.com)
Attack of the House Buyers' Tax Credit (economix.blogs.nytimes.com)
"Affordability" - Housing's Red Herring (mhanson.com)
Job Losses Could Trigger Round 2 of Banking Crisis (finance.yahoo.com)
Petition: Too Big To Fail Is Too Big To Exist (sanders.senate.gov)
FDIC Disowns Geithner Embarrassment (thestreet.com)
FHA's reserve fund hits 7-year low (washingtonpost.com)
I'm doing 'God's work'. Meet Mr Goldman Sachs (timesonline.co.uk)
Rosenberg and Yellen on the State of the Economy (Mish)
Commercial Real Estate Is Next Manageable Shoe to Drop (seekingalpha.com)
Homebuilders Rape Uncle Sam's Largesse (seekingalpha.com)
California budget boss jumps off before train wreck (sacbee.com)
Reduce your California Withholding NOW! (watchingmarcitz.com)
Mansion's missing fixtures add up to felony charges (signonsandiego.com)
Did Christianity Cause the Crash? (theatlantic.com)
'Collapse' and the end of the world as we know it (latimesblogs.latimes.com)

Tue Nov 10 2009
Bay Area Price Change By Zip Code (dqnews.com)
$100K houses dominate FL market (floridatoday.com)
46% of South Florida houseowners are underwater (miamiherald.com)
Three decades of subsidized risk (finance.yahoo.com)
What Is Inflation and How Does One Measure It? (Mish)
Widening gap between gov't data and reality (nytimes.com)
China's Premier Warns Obama to Get America's Deficit to an "Appropriate Size" (finance.yahoo.com)
Gold Rises to Record as Falling Dollar Boosts Investment Demand (bloomberg.com)
Gold Buying Places Rip You Off (lifehacker.com)
Learn to Fish Or You're F'ed (reallyf'edhomeowner.com)
Roubini's Predictions: Economy, Dollar Carry-Trade, Housing (seekingalpha.com)
IMF Says Low U.S. Rates Funding Carry Trade (bloomberg.com)
Deflation is worth hedging against (app.com)
The Bailout Has Transformed Into Bad-mortgage Buying Program (businessinsider.com)
Federal Reserve opposed as big bank savior by odd allies (washingtontimes.com)
Kill All the Bankers? There's an App for That (dvorak.org)
Lobbyists get paid to rape America (omaha.com)
Professor Steve Keen from Australia on Debt and Economy (rocktrueblood.blogspot.com)
My house lost more value than yours! (dilbert.com)

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Mon Nov 9 2009
Looming foreclosure wave will derail recession recovery in California (centralvalleybusinesstimes.com)
California's best years have passed, voters say (latimes.com)
Santa Cruz borrowers may not benefit from Fannie Mae's Deed for Lease (santacruzsentinel.com)
This Just In... More Borrowers Behind in San Diego (voiceofsandiego.org)
Hawaii real estate continues decline (westhawaiitoday.com)
Even the Rich Are Treating Their Houses Like Piggy Banks (online.wsj.com)
Default notices rising in upper echelon ZIPs (sfgate.com)
The 237 millionaires in Congress: Do they vote in YOUR best interest? (politico.com)
Congress Rescued The Very Rich, Left The Bottom To Fend For Itself (huffingtonpost.com)
Broader Measure of U.S. Unemployment Stands at 17.5% (nytimes.com)
Congress dumps another $24 billion into same perverse incentives (northstarnational.com)
Reinflating the housing bubble makes no sense (except for banksters) (twincities.com)
Why the new $6,500 homebuyer tax credit is wrong (news.yahoo.com)
Ticking Prime Bomb: Fannie Mae (seekingalpha.com)
Fannies Draws From Emergency Treasury Fund Reach $60 Billion (bloomberg.com)
Richmond Fed: GSEs Encourage Mortgage Defaults (seekingalpha.com)
Radical fixes for 'too big to fail' gain support (marketwatch.com)
Senator Proposes Legislation to Break Up Large Firms (but not Fannie Mae?) (bloomberg.com)
Foreclosures crisis caused by investors. And lenders. And politicians. And buyers. (tampabay.com)
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Fri Nov 6 2009
Get Serious About Selling Your House: Lower The Price (nytimes.com)
L.A.-area agents holding open mansions (latimes.com)
"Wells Fargo Madness" a Reader Reply to Fear and Shame Tactics (Mish)
Personal bankruptcies climb 9% in October (money.cnn.com)
Fannie Mae offers borrowers rental option instead of foreclosure (news.yahoo.com)
Fannie Mae seeks $15 bln to flush down toilet after 3Q loss (finance.yahoo.com)
Ron Paul explains CORPORATISM vs Captialism (dailybail.com)
The 4 Things Needed To Fix Banking In The USA (rocktrueblood.blogspot.com)
Roubini Says Bank Mergers May Create Bigger Monster (bloomberg.com)
Legislation coming to break up big banks? (blogs.reuters.com)
Homedebtor Subsidy Should Expire (examiner.com)
Senate bill to make housing more expensive, using your taxes against you (washingtonpost.com)
Lobbyists Defeat America: Homedebtor Tax Credit Extension (housingwire.com)
Top Bailout Recipients Spent $71 Million Lobbying Since Bailout (huffingtonpost.com)
Bankers Get Flu Shots First, Because They Own The Government (cnbc.com)
Reglar Americans now competing with Mexicans for day-labor jobs (lasvegassun.com)
GMAC posts third-quarter loss on its mortgage loans (cityam.com)
Commercial property market to hit bottom in 2010 (latimes.com)
How the Colt Peacemaker outshone gold (marketwatch.com)
Making Health Care Better (nytimes.com)

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Thu Nov 5 2009
More walk away from mortgages after neighbors do too (usatoday.com)
Shame and Fear Benefit Banks (PDF - online.wsj.com)
High-end House Down 55% On SF Peninsula (patrick.net)
Price Slump to Last to Mid-2010, Pimco Says (bloomberg.com)
Florida class-action suit accuses builder of inflating prices (tampabay.com)
Feds Try To Prop Up House Prices, $729,750 At A Time (cbsnews.com)
This Loan Is Example Of What Went Wrong In America (huffingtonpost.com)
The Recession and the Paradox of Thrift (economix.blogs.nytimes.com)
FHA Digging Out After Loans Sour (online.wsj.com)
Wall Street Banksters Cry "Feed Me or World Will End" (bloomberg.com)
Arrogance, Ignorance Recurring in Economic History (pbs.org)
Australia lifts interest rate to 3.5 percent (google.com)
Fed sees rates near zero for extended period (reuters.com)
The significance of the IMF-RBI gold sales (themessthatgreenspanmade.blogspot.com)
Treasury expects to hit debt limit next month (msnbc.msn.com)
Is Debt-Deflation Just Beginning? (Mish)
History of Banking and Money (long) (wanttoknow.info)
Predicting the Future with Harry S. Truman (dvorak.org)
'Money-Driven Medicine': How we got this mess (sfgate.com)

Thank You Justme ($40) for your kind donation.


Wed Nov 4 2009
Debt-slave Bait Still In Congress (Please Protest Now!)
Housing Needs To Keep Falling (businessinsider.com)
Economist says housing remains in crisis (missourinet.com)
U.S. Houseownership Has Become Financially Dangerous (bloomberg.com)
Foreclosure filings spike in affluent Chicago counties (chicagotribune.com)
October Personal Bankruptcies Highest Since 2005 Law Changes (bloomberg.com)
Housing-bubble states lag in recovery (statesmanjournal.com)
Canada may slash monopolistic real estate fees (yourhome.ca)
Australian house prices surge, may force interest rate hikes (marketwatch.com)
Commercial Real Estate Loans Growing Problem For Banks (investors.com)
Treas. Sec. Geithner "Burned Billions," Shafted Taxpayers (finance.yahoo.com)
At What Point Is A Bank Bailout A Crime? (dailybail.com)
States Are Pondering Fraud Suits Against Banks (dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com)
Has the Government Been Bailing Out Sprawl? (dc.streetsblog.org)
Goldman Eyes Tax Credits Fannie Mae Doesn't Need (nytimes.com)
Goldman left foreign investors holding the subprime bag (mcclatchydc.com)
Keeping America afloat with hot air (haaretz.com)
Dollar "Carry Trade" Creates Global Asset Bubble That Will Burst (sandiegoreader.com)
Health "Insurance": A Criminal Enterprise (huffingtonpost.com)

Tue Nov 3 2009
Debt Slave Bait and Audit the Fed Bill Gutted: What You Can Do (Mish)
The Slow Decline in Healdsburg Real Estate Prices (healdsburgbubble.blogspot.com)
First Time House Buyers and Investors Dominate the Housing Market (benzinga.com)
Resale house inventory lingers (cape-coral-daily-breeze.com)
Unemployment driving up foreclosures (pressofatlanticcity.com)
Possible Credit Dislocation: Be Warned (market-ticker.denninger.net)
The case for deflation (theautomaticearth.blogspot.com)
Goldman takes on new role: taking people's homes (news.yahoo.com)
Wall Street's Naked Swindle (rollingstone.com)
Stiglitz Says U.S. Paying for Failure to Nationalize Banks (bloomberg.com)
U.S. Bank Failures: Nine in One Day (seekingalpha.com)
Failed Banks Graphic (s.wsj.net)
Fed official says banks at risk over property loans (financialpost.com)
Bank cushions are thicker but don't get comfy (blogs.reuters.com)
Federal Agency Loan Exposure Killing House Values in Georgia (seekingalpha.com)
Stocks Ends Streak of Seven Monthly Gains (bloomberg.com)
New Market Bubble Is Brewing (newsweek.com)

Mon Nov 2 2009
Why U.S. Doesn't Need More House-Buyer Perks (smartmoney.com)
Extending house-debtor credit: another clunker? (features.csmonitor.com)
Job losses, lack of available credit hurting housing market (pittsburgh.bizjournals.com)
Foreclosures Hit the Unemployed Middle Class (newsweek.com)
Luxury Houses With Slashed Prices (forbes.com)
Walking Away Makes Sense For Many (Mish)
How Bloomberg Fabricates U.S. Housing Numbers (seekingalpha.com)
Ireland: House prices 25% down from peak (rte.ie)
Wilbur Ross Sees "Huge" Commercial Real Estate Crash (bloomberg.com)
Is Fed Abandoning Bailout Of Commercial Real Estate? (zerohedge.com)
How Goldman secretly bet on U.S. housing crash, and won (mcclatchydc.com)
Wall Street Throws Vast F-you Party At Expense of USA (bloomberg.com)
FDIC's Bair Wants Broad Authority To Ban All Future Bailouts (dailybail.com)
9 more U.S. banks fail; $2.5 billion hit for FDIC (marketwatch.com)
Small banking empire collapses; 9 fail in 1 day (marketwatch.com)
Lenders abandon properties (daytondailynews.com)
Investigating the Mortgage Crisis (thenation.com)
Madoff documents reveal incredulous, unfocused SEC (reuters.com)
Savings Glut, Investment Drought (motherjones.com)
Feral Houses! (sweet-juniper.com)

Thank You George L. ($100) and Saju D. ($40.00) for your kind donations.


More links from the past


Essential reading:

Case-Shiller House Price Indices
Other housing crash blogs
Real estate listing sites
Sites linking to patrick.net
What should you pay for a house?
Sell or hold from landlord's point of view
Subprime Primer
The famous mortgage-reset chart
San Francisco Tenants Union
Tenants and Foreclosure
This page in Russian
This page in Spanish
Patrick Recommends Free Firefox Flashblock To Kill Video Ads
Secrets!
Become a patrick.net fan on Facebook


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