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From the article

The number of Americans who had filed for their first week of unemployment benefits stood at 281,000 in the week before. That was a 33% increase over the preceding week and the highest percentage jump seen since 1992.

Goldman Sachs’ estimates were based on the spike in layoffs across various businesses such as hotels, restaurants, airlines and sports.
This is bad news for the U.S. housing market as rising unemployment will put off buyers even if mortgage rates remain low. This could eventually lead to lower sales and force sellers to reduce prices, triggering the next U.S. housing market crisis.

Is it that nobody is buying? Or nobody is selling?

They tell everyone to stay home, so no one can buy or sell.

SHORT TERM:
Supply Side: Construction has stopped while waiting out the Chinese virus.
Demand side: People have stopped looking while waiting out the Chinese virus.

LONG TERM:
Supply Side: Will resume after virus.
Demand side: Maybe less demand ... if enough people die off and enough illegal aliens remain back in their home countries.

Other than Realtors™ trying to collect their commissions, who cares about the quantity of sales? I own one house (shack), and would maybe someday would buy another one (and eventually sell this one). If I do that, I care only about the number of houses on the market. The more the better. What do I care if 5k houses are trading hands every day or 50k houses every day?

In fact, if fewer houses are changing hands, that's good because I'll have more attention from the Realtors™. (Oh wait... I think that might be bad?)

This is bad news for the U.S. housing market as rising unemployment will put off buyers even if mortgage rates remain low. This could eventually lead to lower sales and force sellers to reduce prices, triggering the next U.S. housing market crisis.

Not bad news! Au contraire, this is excellent news for responsible buyers who saved up cash.

Why does the headline never say "Housing becomes more affordable"?

Good.

I don’t care my shack is down in price, it was never more than a roof over my head. Always hated how expensive everything was.

What is ccn?

BayArea says

What is ccn?

I think it is Canadian.

I predict another crash that will mean price declines of 45% off peak highs statewide.

Malcolm says

I think it is Canadian.

Canadian Cuck Network duh!

Malcolm says

I predict another crash that will mean price declines of 45% off peak highs statewide.

I sure hope so. Would be nice to actually be able to afford to buy a house to live in after 30 years of renting. I suspect if you're right that'll be an inflation-adjusted statistic. Too much down the hole to keep assets inflated already. Why would anyone think they (fed/fiscal) would not continue?

Malcolm says

I predict another crash that will mean price declines of 45% off peak highs statewide.

Keep dreaming.

The people being hurt the most right now are the people with shitty jobs. For massive price declines, you need 1) lots of people with good incomes falling on hard financial times AND NOT GETTING GOVERNMENT BAILOUT $$ and/or 2) massive increase in housing supply. Do you see any massive housing being built? I see 2 types of housing being built (I'm in DC area). McMansions and condos. That's it. And not in massive supply either. Watching asset prices go up without having to do any work is too easy/juicy for those who have control over supply.

Please crash I want to by a cabin in the mountains and a few condos to rent.

Housing will trail the stock market by approximately 3mo. There will be impact but nowhere near the % decline of the stock market.

The condo and apartment building in and near Sunnyvale is jaw-dropping. That's what will crash the market. It makes it a worse place to live (congestion, noise, pollution, crime, etc) as well as competing with existing housing on the supply side.

SunnyvaleCA says

The condo and apartment building in and near Sunnyvale is jaw-dropping. That's what will crash the market. It makes it a worse place to live (congestion, noise, pollution, crime, etc) as well as competing with existing housing on the supply side.

Huge apartment complexes along the 680 South north of Mission in Fremont. Did they study any of the street traffic patterns and planning infrastructure before they built these? Of course, they will come with the insta ghetto requirements attached, so they might be tenements before the decade is out. Because all neighborhoods need to share the crime and ugly graffiti.

BayArea says

Housing will trail the stock market by approximately 3mo. There will be impact but nowhere near the % decline of the stock market.

Yes, but housing is sticky, and reflects the true economy. If the economy is just sleeping, housing will ultimately be unaffected when things go back to normal.

Ceffer says

SunnyvaleCA says

The condo and apartment building in and near Sunnyvale is jaw-dropping. That's what will crash the market. It makes it a worse place to live (congestion, noise, pollution, crime, etc) as well as competing with existing housing on the supply side.

Huge apartment complexes along the 680 South north of Mission in Fremont. Did they study any of the street traffic patterns and planning infrastructure before they built these? Of course, they will come with the insta ghetto requirements attached, so they might be tenements before the decade is out. Because all neighborhoods need to share the crime and ugly graffiti.

The target demographic is Tech Yuppies, many of them coming to the Bay Area the H-1 route.

If those units aren't occupied by the target demographic, maybe they can be used to house the homeless. To a large extent homelessness in the region has been exacerbated by the Techies like those H-1's bidding up the rents.

No one is buying anything non essential right now.

Fortwaynemobile says

No one is buying anything non essential right now.

Condos built out of TP would be an instant hit!

TEOTWAWKI says

Fortwaynemobile says

No one is buying anything non essential right now.

Condos built out of TP would be an instant hit!

Not in LA. Bums here would steal it all. One dragged away an empty bucket from my patio last month.

WineHorror1 says

Keep dreaming.

The people being hurt the most right now are the people with shitty jobs. For massive price declines, you need 1) lots of people with good incomes falling on hard financial times AND NOT GETTING GOVERNMENT BAILOUT $$ and/or 2) massive increase in housing supply. Do you see any massive housing being built? I see 2 types of housing being built (I'm in DC area). McMansions and condos. That's it. And not in massive supply either. Watching asset prices go up without having to do any work is too easy/juicy for those who have control over supply.

We'll see. For a few years now, California has been bailing out homeowners who are upside down.
All areas are different, I am seeing the exact opposite of what you are talking about, where it is the high end market that is hurting the most. I can show you houses that have been on the market for years with hundreds of thousands of dollars of price declines.

You do realize that we are already at double digit unemployment right? It is not actually 4.4%. That means the "rich" who depend on customers for their businesses don't have customers.

You do realize that margin calls are happening again on mortgage backed securities right? That's what caused the last implosion.

BTW, there is another word for those low income people who are being hit the hardest. They are called renters. A large component of housing values are based on rental income.

Don't forget the stock market has crashed again. It is not going to simply spring back, there is going to be a year or more lag and if it does spring back it will be because investors see it as a bargain over overpriced investment homes.

As I said on another thread, I see absolutely no upward pressure on housing prices. They had already stalled and were falling in areas around me as there is no more to cut in the way of interest rates.

Just for comparison, this bailout is already twice as big as the one in 2008 and we're only into this thing a month.

Malcolm says

Just for comparison, this bailout is already twice as big as the one in 2008 and we're only into this thing a month.

Now there's a hockey stick!

That was just the first bailout.

$1,000,000,000,000 federal spending / ~330,000,000 citizens

Every time the government spends a trillion dollars the share for every man woman and child in this country is around $3,000, and that's just the feds. The numerator is smaller for what the state's spend. The numerator is smaller still for the people that actually pay taxes.

How can this end well?

Onvacation says

How can this end well?

If the Feds realize that a Basic Minimum Income actually grows the economy and ends up not costing anything. I see this crisis as a very interesting experiment with all sorts of things.

OccasionalCortex says

And where is this 'ends up not costing anything' BS coming from?

For one thing, you don't need any of the agencies that would be replaced by BMI. So picture, no unemployment employees or buildings, no HUD, no food stamp programs, none of it. Hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars right off the bat, that the government doesn't have to spend on administration, would go right into the program.

The other way the program costs zero is because the economy grows. When someone spends their money, the recipient is collecting income, therefore it is taxed, and then when he spends it is taxed and so on and so on.

It is not a way to make everyone rich, it is a way to fairly extend benefits to the lower range of society. Quite simply, everyone would start out with a refundable $10,000 tax credit. As that person earns income, the benefit is reduced as his tax liability increases.

So, the program conceptually, even if the beneficiaries remained the same as now would not cost any more, but there is more to go around by cutting the government bureaucracy.

OccasionalCortex says

Feeding money into the economy that pretty much gets captured by landlords and banksters doesn't 'actually grow' the economy

Since you seem to have a beef with banks and landlords, consider another benefit is that a BMI gives people more freedom to live away from the overpriced areas that exist because they are near to scarce good paying jobs that aren't worth taking, but people have no choice. Small towns can sustain themselves because there is always a base of customers with some sort of an income, so rents adjust, and housing prices follow, when people can move to where it makes sense to live.

WineHorror1 says

Malcolm says

I predict another crash that will mean price declines of 45% off peak highs statewide.

Keep dreaming.

The people being hurt the most right now are the people with shitty jobs. For massive price declines, you need 1) lots of people with good incomes falling on hard financial times AND NOT GETTING GOVERNMENT BAILOUT $$ and/or 2) massive increase in housing supply. Do you see any massive housing being built? I see 2 types of housing being built (I'm in DC area). McMansions and condos. That's it. And not in massive supply either. Watching asset prices go up without having to do any work is too easy/juicy for those who have control over supply.

I just heard that a large health system near me is asking their doctors to work for half salary but work the same hours. They are furloughing as many other workers as they can. Sure this is hurting middle and low income people disproportionately, but if even physicians “on the front lines” have their income cut in half are we not living in a failed economy? This does not end well unless you consider living under a totalitarian state such as Communist China, a happy ending.

Post office is threatening to close down in a few months without bailout that would hit a bunch of sectors.

PeopleUnited says

WineHorror1 says

Malcolm says

I predict another crash that will mean price declines of 45% off peak highs statewide.

Keep dreaming.

The people being hurt the most right now are the people with shitty jobs. For massive price declines, you need 1) lots of people with good incomes falling on hard financial times AND NOT GETTING GOVERNMENT BAILOUT $$ and/or 2) massive increase in housing supply. Do you see any massive housing being built? I see 2 types of housing being built (I'm in DC area). McMansions and condos. That's it. And not in massive supply either. Watching asset prices go up without having to do any work is too easy/juicy for those who have control over supply.

I just heard that a large health system near me is asking their doctors to work for half salary but work the same hours. They are furloug...

If universal basic income would solve the poverty problem, Rosebud South Dakota would not be the shithole it is. The “natives” get free healthcare, free housing and UBI and yet they live in extreme poverty. The fact of the matter is that poverty is a state of mind, not a consequence of lack of UBI.

I really hope for a crash I'm still up 50% and dont care about equity. I would love to upgrade but taxes kill the possibility. Always looking for a cabin in the mountains as a weekend getaway to take kids and family to but everything is overpriced.

Rosebud South Dakota would not be the shithole it is. The “natives” get free healthcare, free housing and UBI and yet they live in extreme poverty. The fact of the matter is that poverty is a state of mind, not a consequence of lack of UBI.

My wife's grandpa was a county commissioner in Rosebud County, Montana. What you are saying applies to this other Rosebud and its Cheyenne population. Uncanny.

RC2006 says

Post office is threatening to close down in a few months without bailout that would hit a bunch of sectors.

When they first came out, I bought a couple thousand dollars of Forever Stamps. This might be their time to shine.

PeopleUnited says

If universal basic income would solve the poverty problem, Rosebud South Dakota would not be the shithole it is. The “natives” get free healthcare, free housing and UBI and yet they live in extreme poverty. The fact of the matter is that poverty is a state of mind, not a consequence of lack of UBI.

Believe it or not, I agree with you. I still like the idea of a UBI though.