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May 18, 2006 at 8:43 PM #6614May 18, 2006 at 10:01 PM #25653John FParticipant
70% overvalued and 70% correction are not equivalent statements.
If a house is presently worth 170k but its intrinsic value is 100k the property is 70% overvalued. But a drop back to 100k is a 41% correction.
An analogy is a stock increasing in value by 100%. A 50% reduction takes you back to the original value and a 100% reduction takes you to zero.
Sorry to be anal but your headline exaggerates the situation.
Take care
May 18, 2006 at 10:16 PM #25654sdduuuudeParticipantIn the 8 years from 1990 to 1998, when the price-to-income ratio decreased by 30%, what was the actual % median price reduction ?
May 18, 2006 at 10:22 PM #25655BugsParticipantPrice declines were uneven. No price range was exempt, but some did worse than others. I saw some segments that only declined by 15% and other than declined by as much as 45%. 20% – 25% declines were pretty common. The outlying areas got hurt the worst, areas like La Jolla and Rancho Santa Fe got hurt the least. But no area escaped – there was no safe haven during the last bust.
May 18, 2006 at 10:25 PM #25656sdduuuudeParticipantI’m talkin’ median county-wide price, specifically.
May 18, 2006 at 10:35 PM #25659sdduuuudeParticipantJohn F – you’re my hero.
In Rich’s graph, a reduction of 37% would bring the chart back to the median, but only if it happened instantaneously. If it takes 5 to 7 years, if incomes rise with inflation, it would take less of a reduction.
May 18, 2006 at 11:08 PM #25661sdduuuudeParticipantThanks, Rich. How come you don’t plot this Case-Shiller Index regularly? Sounds useful.
May 18, 2006 at 11:15 PM #25662daveljParticipantI found a graph that has the median in 1989 at about $190K and the median in 1986 at about $160K which amounts to a 16% decline in nominal terms and (of course) a lot more in real terms. Condos got hit a lot harder.
My guess is this time around we’ll decline by 30% or so from peak to trough and I think we’ve already hit the first 10% decline if the stats were correctly reported/adjusted.
As much as I’d like to see things completely implode, there’s a BOATLOAD (many $billions) of well-heeled/institutional investment money sitting on the sidelines waiting for problems in the residential market that will come into that market if prices decline by more than 30% which will put a floor on the decline. It’s shocking how much unlevered liquidity is sloshing around on this planet. That’s the only reason I don’t see 40%-50% declines coming, despite evidence that they probably “should”. Also, history suggests that the uber-bears are almost always wrong, just as the perma-bulls always ending up getting their clock cleaned every few years. In markets, things tend to be “never as good as you hoped, nor as bad as you feared.”
May 18, 2006 at 11:31 PM #25663daveljParticipantdisregard.
May 18, 2006 at 11:31 PM #25664daveljParticipantand again…
May 18, 2006 at 11:34 PM #25665daveljParticipantAlso, if you were to draw a trendline of median San Diego prices starting at 1980, and excluding the period 2002-2005, you’d come up with an estimated median price of about $350K. Instead we hit the peak at around $600K, so you’d need a 42% immediate decline from that point to get to $350K. But, if you assume a 30% decline from peak to trough over 3-5 years and another 5 years of flattish prices, the long-term trendline reestablishes itself around 2015. Consequently, there’s no “need” for prices to drop by 40%-50% in order to mean revert if you assume several years of flattening prices. Just a thought.
May 19, 2006 at 7:55 AM #25667powaysellerParticipantThanks, I need to pay more attention to the percentage stuff. You’re absolutely right!
May 19, 2006 at 7:59 AM #25668powaysellerParticipantIf we get institutional investors buying SFH, this would change the decline significantly. Is this realistic? They look for billions to invest, do you think they would buy up a bank’s REO division and deal in individual properties?
If we didn’t have negative savings rate, highest level of personal debt, stagnant wages, and exotic loans, I would vote for a 15% drop. But all the factors I mention, esp. the exotic loans resetting and resulting foreclosures, are making me the ueber-bear.
Another concern: from where come the high wage jobs to save the economy? There is no new buzzword on the horizon. It used to be high tech, then biotech. Lately, the headlines are ominously silent…..
May 19, 2006 at 8:47 AM #25671JJGittesParticipantIf so, this decline could mirror the last one in terms of the % decline. i.e. about a 5-6 year slump with prices declining 15%, along with inflation taking up the remainder of the slack. Not pretty, and it probably will be much worse in outlying areas, but it is not doomsday either.
May 19, 2006 at 8:47 AM #25672BugsParticipantThe numbers make sense except for that pesky inflation. The 30% price correction up front is balanced out with another 10%+ or more correction in the way of inflation. The net result is the same either way.
That’s the problem with the Soft Landing. They aren’t making any distinction between PRICES and VALUE. If prices remain flat for 10 years the value of those prices have still declined just as much as if there had been a correction because of the effects of inflation on the dollars that comprise the price.
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