patrick.net

The Wells Fargo CEO Kovacevich can speculate on the state of the market:

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2006/09/18/daily11.html

"Wells Fargo CEO sees silver lining in housing slowdown:

"We were getting into bubble territory," Kovacevich told those attending Bank of America's 36th annual investment conference at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in San Francisco. "As everyone knows, when a bubble bursts, the smaller the bubble, the better it is."

Whew. Looks like we dodged THAT bullet. Thank goodness the slowdown happened just as we were getting into "bubble territory." Now we can resume normal 8-10% annual price appreciation and get on with our lives! Excuse me while I pull my head from out of my ass.

Can Sauce really be back for more? Interesting...

Muggy,

Your landlord sounds like he/she is in fantasyland. You're in Florida, there ought to be huge numbers of rentals looking for a steady renter. I suggest you start looking for a new rental and lock down some good terms.

If you were renting way below market before...well, that's the way the cookie crumbles. You might have to take a hit rentwise.

What are your contract terms? Are you doing month to month or is this a lease renewal.

The home 'investment' industry

I'm sure others have noticed, as I have, the increasingly desperate pleas from the housing-bubble cheerleaders, especially National Association of Realtors Chief Economist David Lereah. A longtime bubble denier — who, I think, is more interested in protecting his constituency of six-percenters than in offering realistic housing-market commentary — Lereah began asking the Fed to protect his bubble a couple months back. At the same time, he and his associates have tried to spin the situation with the news media, who, hungry for soundbites, are usually all too happy to parrot headlines such as "Existing-home sales down with softening prices."

That's the title of the latest "no reason for fear" release, which you can find here. You can see, especially in the remarks toward the bottom, the NAR's devotion to trying to convince Americans that housing is a no-lose "investment."

That doesn't quite square with the soundbite available via a Bloomberg story on the numbers. There, Lereah reportedly said, "It's very important that the Fed understand the fragile state of the housing market. It's very important that the Fed maintain the status quo, keep rates where they are."

Translation: "Pleeeez Gawwwd don't take away their free money! Do that and we're all sunk!"

If it's disconcerting that the most prominent housing bulls are, when we're not looking, begging for economic policies aimed at shoring up their crumbling story, then this might be much worse.

How about if the last shred of the housing bull story turned out to be — how do you say? Untrue?

Housing bust could get ugly - Motley Fool - MSNBC.com

yep, no need to think about getting a hybrid for a while yet...

Carmakers sued over global warming

Carmakers sued over global warming

This is completely wrong. What is California thinking? Is this a publicity stunt? I thought global warming is not proven.

SFWoman Says:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/09/20/BUGA7EQCSS1.DTL

Nice job digging through the archives. Too bad idiots like him can't be held accountable for their words.

marinaprime/martybingular,

If that's really you, WELCOME BACK!

How's the flipping going these days?

I thought Yogi Berra died a long time ago.

At this site: http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/mld/myrtlebeachonline/business/15561481.htm

"Maeser expects inventory to be absorbed once the market gets more permanent home and second home purchasers."

I think he said......houses will sell when we get more buyers?

DUH!

I'd just like to congratualte whoever it was who supplied the fabulous graph for this thread. I laughed my arse off!

Judging by the state of the housing market as depicted above, we're all in deep trouble. Either that, or the 'Service Engine soon" light in my car has turned itself on....

....took another look. Yes, i'm still laughing. Class! :-)

Can this graph be scaled? How accurate is this projected housing graph.

The graph is random. I put it there so that HARM will not complain. :)

That's certainly a novel use for cane toads.

I’d just like to congratualte whoever it was who supplied the fabulous graph for this thread. I laughed my arse off!

Thanks! I am glad you like my creation. :)

astrid Says:

That’s certainly a novel use for cane toads.

Guess it beats running them over in your Ute.....or licking them.

Peter, that graph is priceless. You should frame it.

LOL. That was a 3-minute-job using windows paint. I felt bad for not having thread graphics.

ToadJus. ewwwwwwwwwwww. the march of the frogs hasn't reached here yet...

That was a 3-minute-job using windows paint.

no, really? you coulda traced over this one at least... actually, someone somewhere mapped the housing spike to the dotcom boom/bust spike by changing the scales and compressing the housing timeframe to match curves -- it looked pretty frightening...

astrid Says:

That’s certainly a novel use for cane toads.

Not as novel as this, I'll bet:

http://www.roopooco.com/shoulderpurse.htm

skibum,

That made my skin crawl. Might be perfect for Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohans of the world. Just lick the purse and then hurl into it.

SFWoman (Newly appointed CIO at Patrick.net)

HARM and I have discussed this on previous occasions. If you're moving to Oregon it's always best to "bring a job with you". Oh and money (lots of it).

The State of the Market?

Are others seeing the disconnect I am? A big screen TV if you buy this newly minted house? An all expense paid vacation? We'll throw in a pool!

Uh, every time I've bought a house it's been time to "knuckle under" hunker down and keep your nose to the grindstone! There's so much that needs to be done! (Yes even if it's new). With all of the window treatments (unless your wife is o.k w/bedsheets on the window) organizing the garage and sorting out what goes to which room who has time to watch TV, lounge by the pool, let alone take a vacation?

Has home ownership really changed that much in the last 2 years I've been bubble sitting?

Realtors continue to come up with desparate defenses, yet read Thornberg's comment at the end.

From insidebayarea.com

"Traditionally, August is one of the slowest months in real estate," said Earl Rozran, a Realtor with the Pleasanton office of Prudential California Realty.

It's possible that the month-to-month gain in homes sales could be due to sellers lowering prices and consumers opting to buy in response to stabilizing interest rates. But just where things are going in the future is hard to pin down, Rozran said.

Still, Tuesday's move by the Fed to leave a key interest rate unchanged is an encouraging sign when it comes to the outlook for the housing market, he said.

That's not the case if you ask Thornberg, the economist.

"This is way beyond the Fed," he said. "It's just so out of whack, it's going to take a long time to clear out."

http://www.insidebayarea.com/trivalleyherald/localnews/ci_4368091

I'm getting sick of this Larry Nusbaum troll. I took a peek at his blogspot page and it seems to be from the Robert Kiyosaki school of financial guru-dom. He's not saying anything on topic and he's obviously here to troll his worthless book & website.

Surfer-X, a little troll-be-gone, please!

astrid,

This is a Peter P thread, so no one else can mod the comments.

I was thinking about your comment (and other's) regarding women in the workforce; in particular regarding my wife. I think the mismatch is based on industry/profession. My wife is in finance, and came up through public audit accounting. That particular field has had a heavy professional woman presence for some time, and in many subpractices is now becoming female dominated, complete with an "old girls club". I think other professional fields have experienced similar growth in women professionals. But certainly most high-tech companies or traditional industries are still largely dominated by men with few women role models.

Anecdotally, one of my three greatest mentors was a woman, back when I worked in strategy consulting at KPMG.

And Larry Nusbaum is full of shit. No need to even debunk his bunk. Larry. Kindly download my Bubblizer spreadsheet (click my name) and demonstrate for me where the error in calculation lies. I'll gladly repair any such error and give you full credit here in this forum and others where my model is embedded or linked.

larry simultaneously says there's no trouble in housing prices or loans, and anyway, he's the calm eye of the storm dispensing infinite wisdom, but most of his site is about cashing in on foreclosures, taken wholesale from some seminar guru's handbook -- and foreclosures are up because of the bubble and increasing interest rates... and the rest of his remarks seem to follow in that self-contradictory vein, and just be a random grab-bag of half-baked ungrounded pseudo-advice -- so, you need no business sense, just follow his advice, and you too will be a millionaire now! (the easiest way to become a millionaire is to write a book with a catchy title on how to become a millionaire.)

and kiyosaki lately seems to have started filtering and regurgitating all the common sense economic argument that's out there to bolster his credibility in the same fashion...

Larry Nusbaum Says:

I am in Arizona and just spoke to my guy at WAMU and a gal who works for CTX Mortgage. They both say the same thing: No panic or troubled refinancing.

Larry, Good for you and your "guy at WAMU" and your "gal who works for CTX Mortgage." I guess it's okay with all of you toolbags that, for instance, Phoenix inventory is at an all time high, more than triple the inventory from a year ago:

http://bubbletracking.blogspot.com/2006/09/tracking-phoenixmaricopa-pinal.html

or that prices in your neck of the woods are flat or negative:

http://www.poly.asu.edu/news/2006/09/11/

Good luck!

SP et al,

(With tears of joy in my eyes) Thank you all! That was beautiful.

Peter P, Please unlock my last post - it's got 2 links. Ironically, it's directed towards that douchebag troll, mr. nusbaum.

skibum

I unlocked it.

Suddenly, I am not bother by "trolls" anymore.

Perhaps I am confident.
Perhaps I now prefer a soft-landing (if at all possible)
Perhaps I am just indifferent.

However, if more people object I am willing to take actions.

Randy H,
Thanks for unlocking. Looks like we're pummelling mr. nusbaum-troll pretty hard.

Now back to your comments about women professionals, believe it or not, nationally speaking, both medical schools and law schools have greater than 50% enrollment of women.

Randy,

Thanks for that very interesting observation. I've never quite thought of that angle. Many of the women I've meet may seem to be uncomfortable or indifferent with their jobs because they perceive themselves to be working in male dominated fields or due to the persistence of a glass ceiling.

I hope you don't think I'm dissing women in general. I've received pretty decent mentoring from men offline and I've gotten great advice from some of the women on this blog.

"Now back to your comments about women professionals, believe it or not, nationally speaking, both medical schools and law schools have greater than 50% enrollment of women."

Yeah, but the men still seem to be in power. Even in law school. A lot of the women are very smart and study very hard, but it seems to me that the guys there have the best time there. (There's a couple great exceptions to the rule. One woman was a middle aged former TV executive - she was brillant and funny and obviously enjoyed trading barbs with the professors).

dang!! hate when I do that. Ruins the whole thing.

the google toolbar has a spell checker in it for webforms, and there's a few other plugins out there - e.g. iespell - including one for Firefox called Spellbound.. but beware:

Eye halve a spelling checker
It came with my pea sea
It plainly marks four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.

then you need grammar checking -- that'll cost ya extra...

Prices are "levelling off". So -ve amortization people are in trouble from now on.

Inventory is still high. Wasn't it supposed to start go down at this time of year ?

Sales are off a cliff.

California foreclosure activity is now at 3 year high and continuing upwards.

More and more ARMS will reset as time passes.

So more homes, more desperation on seller's part and no urgency on buyer's part. Hmmm ... what will that do to the price ?

I don't know. I don't know. Hmmm ? I really cannot deduce anything from this. Oh ... wait. I get it. Now I get it. Indicators are market distress are largely absent. I think prices will start shooting upwards after this temporary dip. It has to happen that way. There has never been a period of -ve YOY median change since 2003. So if past is any indication, we will be cruising along just fine from tomorrow.

2 years ago I was looking at a new house by Centex, the CTX mortgage immeidately approved us for a mortgage 5 times our annual income (it took like a day), the wife and I were laughing so hard on how are we going to pay for it.

Did you say 5 times? How did 50K people buy 800K homes then?

Will the hard landing on lower end spread to the higher end?

Not necessarily. Price decompression will occur. SFHs in prime areas may undergo soft landing.

The graph is random. I put it there so that HARM will not complain.

I am touched by your magnanimous gesture and consideration, Peter P! The best part of your graph, aside from it being hand-drawn (a rare personal touch), is that the axes aren't labelled. We might assume X is time (month/year), but what is Y? Inventory? Foreclosures? NAAVLP originations? It's both fun and mysterious --thanks! :-)

And thanks to SP, SQT, Steve & Randy H for opening up the can of Troll-B-Gone in the absence of our regular Blog Enforcer, Sir Fur-X, Esq.

it's all housing boom related...

Someone made off with almost $10,000 worth of jewelry and ear-piercing supplies from a kiosk at Vallco Fashion Park in Cupertino on Monday, the county sheriff’s office reported.

Aren't they building condos there?

I wonder what is the weight of 10K worth of kiosk "jewelry".