Bloomberg:….U.S. Home prices may be lost for a Generation…

[poorgradstudent]

We must be near a bottom in the housing market. The contrarian indicators just keep piling on. Basically, when the main story in the media is “home prices will keep falling forever”, it’s a good hint that a recovery is nigh (similar to how many magazine covers were perma-bullish before the housing and stock market falls).

This is, of course, a dangerous time for anyone thinking of retiring in the next 3-odd years. But I was bothered by the article’s lack of a timeframe focus. There’s a glut of inventory right now, and this will take a while to work out of the system. But a boomer who bought their house in the 70s is still likely to be doing pretty well, unless they withdrew and spent all their equity.

Lumping SF, Phoenix and Vegas together is a little sloppy too. SF home prices will largely rebound when the recession ends, assuming you mean SF proper and not the outer suburbs. It’s the exurbs that may languish for a while; Phoenix and Vegas saw huge increases in sprawl during the boom, and convincing someone to live 40-45 minutes from downtown can be tough when there are much closer affordable options available.

The implication that Texas will keep growing forever also seems somewhat flawed. Texas is doing very well right now, but that doesn’t guarantee it will be 5-10 years from now.

I have sympathy for those who lost equity in their homes, but this is frankly a very exciting time to be a 30-year old non-homeowner. Affordability is getting better, and with medium-term housing market prices looking flat, there’s still time to save a proper down payment.

[patientrenter]

[quote=poorgradstudent]We must be near a bottom in the housing market….[/quote]

poor grad student, real estate is cyclical, and the long term values track real nominal consumer prices / wages quite well.

So check the last RE cycle trough. When was it? What what were the prices then? Adjust those prices upwards for increases in nominal CPI or wages.

Now compare those prices to today’s prices. I think prices in SD in general are still higher than they were at the last cycle trough, with some exceptions.
Perhaps this trough will be naturally shallower because the prior boom was not as big? If you go to the trouble to find a chart of the Case-Shiller home price index for SD, you’ll see as plain as day that the boom that precedes this downturn was the biggest on record, by a wide margin. The only way the trough won’t go deeper than the 1996 trough is if the govt intervenes massively. They are, but how much can it overcome natural economic forces?

I would be very careful before drawing quick conclusions that we’ve reached a bottom.

[patientrenter]

[quote=poorgradstudent]We must be near a bottom in the housing market….[/quote]

poor grad student, real estate is cyclical, and the long term values track real nominal consumer prices / wages quite well.

So check the last RE cycle trough. When was it? What what were the prices then? Adjust those prices upwards for increases in nominal CPI or wages.

Now compare those prices to today’s prices. I think prices in SD in general are still higher than they were at the last cycle trough, with some exceptions.
Perhaps this trough will be naturally shallower because the prior boom was not as big? If you go to the trouble to find a chart of the Case-Shiller home price index for SD, you’ll see as plain as day that the boom that precedes this downturn was the biggest on record, by a wide margin. The only way the trough won’t go deeper than the 1996 trough is if the govt intervenes massively. They are, but how much can it overcome natural economic forces?

I would be very careful before drawing quick conclusions that we’ve reached a bottom.

[patientrenter]

[quote=poorgradstudent]We must be near a bottom in the housing market….[/quote]

poor grad student, real estate is cyclical, and the long term values track real nominal consumer prices / wages quite well.

So check the last RE cycle trough. When was it? What what were the prices then? Adjust those prices upwards for increases in nominal CPI or wages.

Now compare those prices to today’s prices. I think prices in SD in general are still higher than they were at the last cycle trough, with some exceptions.
Perhaps this trough will be naturally shallower because the prior boom was not as big? If you go to the trouble to find a chart of the Case-Shiller home price index for SD, you’ll see as plain as day that the boom that precedes this downturn was the biggest on record, by a wide margin. The only way the trough won’t go deeper than the 1996 trough is if the govt intervenes massively. They are, but how much can it overcome natural economic forces?

I would be very careful before drawing quick conclusions that we’ve reached a bottom.

[patientrenter]

[quote=poorgradstudent]We must be near a bottom in the housing market….[/quote]

poor grad student, real estate is cyclical, and the long term values track real nominal consumer prices / wages quite well.

So check the last RE cycle trough. When was it? What what were the prices then? Adjust those prices upwards for increases in nominal CPI or wages.

Now compare those prices to today’s prices. I think prices in SD in general are still higher than they were at the last cycle trough, with some exceptions.
Perhaps this trough will be naturally shallower because the prior boom was not as big? If you go to the trouble to find a chart of the Case-Shiller home price index for SD, you’ll see as plain as day that the boom that precedes this downturn was the biggest on record, by a wide margin. The only way the trough won’t go deeper than the 1996 trough is if the govt intervenes massively. They are, but how much can it overcome natural economic forces?

I would be very careful before drawing quick conclusions that we’ve reached a bottom.

[patientrenter]

[quote=poorgradstudent]We must be near a bottom in the housing market….[/quote]

poor grad student, real estate is cyclical, and the long term values track real nominal consumer prices / wages quite well.

So check the last RE cycle trough. When was it? What what were the prices then? Adjust those prices upwards for increases in nominal CPI or wages.

Now compare those prices to today’s prices. I think prices in SD in general are still higher than they were at the last cycle trough, with some exceptions.
Perhaps this trough will be naturally shallower because the prior boom was not as big? If you go to the trouble to find a chart of the Case-Shiller home price index for SD, you’ll see as plain as day that the boom that precedes this downturn was the biggest on record, by a wide margin. The only way the trough won’t go deeper than the 1996 trough is if the govt intervenes massively. They are, but how much can it overcome natural economic forces?

I would be very careful before drawing quick conclusions that we’ve reached a bottom.

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