patrick.net

From the CNN story on New Century. The have arranged to refinance $710 million of loans. I am assuming this is to get the FBs more favorable terms so they don't default... oh, and to get them out of purchase money, non-recourse loans. (Here Mr. FB, let me handcuff you to your front door.)

So I guess October 2007 may be the start date of the bubble burst.

They're pretty much guarenteed to go bankrupt at this point. Good job to the shorters who caught the wave! :D

The question is how far will the subprime storm go.

I read that wall street firms are buying up subprime loans. I guess they are making friendly announcements before doing anything now. :)

Peter P

I hope you are wrong, but there are several factors pointing both ways -
in favour of a deflation or slow bursting

increasing inventory, I will post a chart about that later today.

unaffordability relative to local incomes

log run up in prices

strengthened Canadian versus US dollar

not in favour

baby boomer retirees selling up and moving to Victoria from Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto etc

Conservative lending practices that have not seen a proliferation of ARMS etc

Relatively strong local economy etc.

I still think HELOCs and other economic motors for the local economy may start grinding to a halt, but we will see what that means for local prices.

The last significant local price bust happened in around 1995-1996, a few years after it started in California.

We will see if the same pattern repeats itself this time.

tsusist, I do hope that sanity will return soon.

However, I laugh whenever someone says everybody wants to live in the Bay Area, but I am less rude when someone says everybody loves British Columbia.

It is also possible that the BC bubble may stay somewhat inflated (with some corrections) until the 2010 (winter olympics). Anticipation can be powerful at times.

Somehow locals there seem to be very bullish about the area. Well, they do have one of the prettiest city in the world.

They were bullish up until the Hong Kong handover to China, with an influx of moneyed Hong Kong chinese. The crash started about a year before the handover, though.

The Olympics will be nice advertising, but whether it can sustain a long term population influx of that much incluence remains to be seen.

How much effect did the winter olympics have on real estate prices in Salt Lake? I have no idea....

I know it didn't make that much difference to Calgary back in the 80s.

Personally, I think it is just another popular sentiment for realtors to hype.

Real estate is already so expensive in Whistler, more exposure can't do a lot to the market there.

The Olympics will be nice advertising, but whether it can sustain a long term population influx of that much incluence remains to be seen.

Whatever possible optimistism about the upcoming Olympics has already been priced-in. Reality will decide if such optimistism has been overly optimistic.

How much effect did the winter olympics have on real estate prices in Salt Lake? I have no idea….

You cannot compare SLC to Vancouver. Everybody wants to... ;)

And Calgary? It is soooooo cold. Lower tax though.

Some more perspective from the archives (courtesy of S&P Case Shiller Index). So how bad was it in LA during the early nineties?
Peak: 100.24 (June 1990)
Low: 73.07 (March 1996)
Percentage drop: 27.1%
Depending on whose inflation numbers you use, this comes to about a 50% haircut in real terms.

EB Guy,

I will settle for a 25% haircut here in real terms, as long as it doesn't take until 2012!

I will settle for a 25% haircut here in real terms, as long as it doesn’t take until 2012!

What if the poles reverse in 2012?

Maxed Out on credit card debt: the movie:

http://www.maxedoutmovie.com/debtcrisis/index.html

Will there be a housing bubble movie?

Will there be a housing bubble movie?

If there was, it would be rather long! :lol:

There is more going on in Seattle. But I think Vancouver is cute, nicer and gentler.

I like having fewer things going on... :)

This is why I prefer Victoria to Vancouver. My wife will strongly disagree though.

I prefer museums in London.

PAR said:
EBguy, the Shiller index is already adjusted for inflation.

You are thinking of the Shiller graph on Randy's website www.capitalism2.org, which takes into account inflation. The S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices are NOT adjusted for inflation.
http://www.homeprice.standardandpoors.com./spf/pdf/index/SP_Case_Shiller_Home_Price_Indices_Methodology_Web.pdf

If I offended you yesterday, I apologize.

You have overestimated your ability in offending me. :)

BTW, when might you have offended me?

The British Meseum is a place that I’ve always wanted to visit.

I have never been there.

I always prefer a science, technology, or natural history museum. I am not too patience with art, although I do love Vincent van Gogh.

I have never been to Victoria, mainly due to the difficulty of getting there.

Just drive up and take a ferry near the border. The buffet on the boat was not very good though.

http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_5387915

It's virtually impossible to find a reputable expert who believes a basic home purchased in the Bay Area today will be worth less 10 years from now. History, and continued restrictions on new residential construction, indicate prices will rise over the long term. But the value certainly can drop or stagnate during any 10-year span.

Mark Martel and his wife, Anita, are renters in Mountain View who began looking to buy a townhouse in the middle of last year. They say the conditions for buyers were kinder last summer than they have been early this year, because there are fewer homes on the market now, and more competition. They made their first purchase offer, on a Mountain View townhouse, last month and lost out in a field of seven. They offered 6 percent more than list price, Martel said, but the winning bid was 12 percent over.

"There are a few people I've talked to who are listening to the nationwide hype, who think the market is declining," Morgan said. "In the Bay Area, we're in a unique bubble ... we're not really seeing prices go down per se."

That's that. Fortress Mountain View.

"I don’t think the housing will crash this year. No way. I am uncertain that I made the right choice to sell my condo now, as opposed to selling it in 6 months."

You know better than to hold out for the last marginal dollar...

Some people are always drawn to listings that are under-priced. It seems more reasonable to find something a little bit overpriced and have my agent break theirs. :)

Anyone here ever taken the ferry up Alaska's Inside Passage? I'm thinking about doing that for my big trip this summer (before all the Glacier melts)

Anyone here ever taken the ferry up Alaska’s Inside Passage? I’m thinking about doing that for my big trip this summer (before all the Glacier melts)

I haven't. But I love cruises. Choose one with good food, they may have lobsters!

PS - Anyone here (other than GOOG employees, you know who you are) played around with Google's new custom search? I would love to build a patrick.net housing bubble metasearch...if you guys are willing to help...

Peter P,

I can't afford a good cruise (I have very little after tax money after student loans, living costs, Roth 401K and I spend most of that on clothes and books and kitchen implements) .

I was thinking of the government runned ferries that goes between Seattle and Alaska.

Astrid, they may have good cruise deals from time to time. Last time we took Princess to Vancouver and the food was decent (though not mindblowing) and it cost us less than $100 a person-night. An Alaskan criuse may cost more though.

http://res.cruisecheap.com/travel/cruise/sailplan.rvlx?CruiseItineraryID=78375

I heard good things about Crystal but they are very expensive.

THE BAY AREA IS SPECIAL

What is not special? ;)

What is your philosophy on ordering daily specials in restaurants?

Pretty quiet here.

The print edition of WSJ has a nice article about the yen carry trade. (Couldn't find it online and even then it will be subscription based.)

So the article says, currency trading is gone retail in a major way. People come back from office, sit in front of the computer and do night-trading. Mostly on margin. Common ratio is 1 to 20, but sometimes it can be 1 to 100. Talks about a trader who deposited like 15K (USD equivalent) and shorted USD 1.5M of British pound.

The striking fact was the retail trades total the same amount as the hedge fund trades. Astounding. The people are desperate to earn some investment income as interest rates are almost zero.

The "globalness" of the economy was the most illuminating aspect I learned after I started researching the housing bubble. Not good or bad. I am simply awed.

Astrid,

scenery on the Washington to Alaska ferry is the same as on a cruise - you can get a stateroom and if you dig the back-packer in Europe travel style, you'll probably like it, for a fraction of the cost.

No pool, though.

tsusiat,

That sounds very good. I've done a decent amount of *budget* travelling in China including the long hellish boat ride from Shanghai to Port Arthur (The cabins were hot and suffocating and really disgusting, everybody was sea sick, and the company wasn't all that great either.)

I can barely swim anyways and I would be way too tempted to pig out at a cruise buffet.

Can I camp on the ferry?

D Says:

March 9th, 2007 at 4:14 pm
Hello PEOPLE THE BAY AREA IS SPECIAL JUST READ THE SJ MERCURY to know better …Propaganda perhaps
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_5387915

Not only is the Bay Area special...."experts advise" on what to do. I feel better already.

Q What would we do without those handy-dandy experts?

A Basic economics and common sense.

I heard today that the market was flat because people are waiting to see who has loaned money to the people who are now bailing out of the subprime loan industry. Apparently there was a lot of money lent to those folk from unexpected places.

GC,
San Francisco has several good museums. The Legion of Honor has good European art, Monets, etc. The De Young is in a really amazing new Herzog and DeMeuron building and has some very interesting new collections, including an amazing Papua New Guinea collection. The Asian Museum and the Museum of Modern Art are also quite good.

We will soon have an absolutely astounding natural history museum. The new California Academy of Sciences will open spring 2008 in an amazing Renzo Piano building.

The British Museum is wonderful. It is one of those amazing, enormous museums with something for everyone. They have enclosed the courtyard and opened the reading room up to be part of the museum (it was private to scholars when I was in grad school). It is worth a trip to see.

If you don't like the Met or Louvre type museums the British might be overwhelming for you, though.

Hot off the presses:

Countrywide Financial ends no down-payment lending

I am still not buying the argument that has often been made here that BA housing prices are strong and will remain strong. Statistics never tells the complete story.

I am not the only one. Here is a supporting view.

Here is Realty Times
http://realtytimes.com/rtcpages/20070309_lowervalues.htm

Calhoun says the month-to-month price jump likely doesn't signal the flat and falling prices trend is changing.

"There's a huge geographical diversity in how fast properties are selling. The expensive geographic areas are making up a large percentage of sales and they are selling with multiple offers. Other areas are having price depreciations. It shows you the market is not in equilibrium," Calhoun added.

It is physically impossible for Bay Aryan house prices to go down. Just look at the typical BA first-time buyer:

Countrywide Financial ends no down-payment lending

I can see some anal-ist pulling this out ...

"We are encouraged by the steps taken by CFC to reduce risks in the face of rising uncertainties. Our model indicates that this move will lend a good support to the bottom line on a going forward basis. We reiterate our buy rating. CFC continues to be our top pick in the mortgage industry."

(Then turns around and whispers ... "Mr. Mozilo, you can now proceed to place your sell order with us.")