Chamberlin…blames us for driving home prices down….

[stansd]

It must all be a vast right wing conspiracy…this guy is ridiculous…As long as housing in CA is desirable, there will be a shortage…what makes the current market amazing is that prices have gone beyond what is necessary to balance supply and demand even in an environment of scarcity.

The only conclusion you can draw from his nonsense is that we should all wish for prices to remain sky high so that builders will build more so that more people can continue to consume their future financial security now in order to afford a 3BR 500K bungalow in Bonsall.

Stan

[Allan from Fallbrook]

I couldn’t help it, I wrote him an email. I doubt he’ll answer, but this sort of self-serving BS really chaps my hide. This is another “Baghdad Bob”-type cheerleader, and he is the one intentionally misleading people. What a tool.

George,

I hope you don’t consider this email to be hate mail, but I do have to say that I strongly disagree with the sentiments expressed in your North County Times article on housing. As the events of this week have shown, there is something fundamentally wrong with the housing market in various geographies throughout the country and most especially those in California, Florida, Nevada, Arizona and parts of the Northeast.

While you cite a government study discussing an impending crisis based on a shortfall of housing, you completely ignore the larger issue of affordability. The reason that housing is in the fix it is in has literally nothing to do with supply and demand, but rather the complete lack of affordability found in the California market. The lending market tried to respond with the creation of loans that enabled people with poor credit and insufficient income(s) to buy homes completely out of their price range. At some point, the bill always comes due, and that is what we are confronting right now.

The housing market, like all other markets, is responsive to market forces. The implosion of the credit markets and the repricing of risk will now have a significant impact. This, coupled with the massive tide of foreclosures, is what will drive pricing in housing for the foreseeable future, not some misplaced sentiment or the public’s inability to comprehend the true nature of the situation. When the FED and ECB are forced to inject billions of dollars and euros into the market in order to maintain liquidity, it bespeaks a larger problem than “97.4% of people paying their mortgage on time” and the problems being confined to the sub-prime market. We are literally on the cusp of what potentially might be the biggest housing crisis since the Great Depression.

I am hard pressed to imagine someone of your financial acumen is failing to grasp the totality of this situation. There is a huge overhang of inventory, loans are either nearly impossible to secure or very expensive to secure, foreclosures are at their highest rate since the early 1990s and we are seeing mortgage lenders fail on a daily basis. To say that bloggers are somehow wholly responsible for this situation strains credulity. It also suggests that these selfsame bloggers, who are really the only voice of reason and have been for quite some time, are somehow propagandizing the public at large. This is Orwellian to say the least, and it unfortunately does cause one to question either your objectivity or your honesty. Not to be rude, but after listening to Lawrence Yun of the NAR, and his predecessor David Lereah, pontificate about real estate appreciating ad infinitum, I think the general public has finally wised up to where the true propaganda is coming from.

Perhaps in your next column you might discuss the various market factors at play now, as well as what impact tens of thousands of foreclosures and a rapidly tightening credit market will have on home pricing. While I’m sure that government study is a fascinating read, I am not sure what, if anything, it has to do with the reality right outside our front door.

Sincerely,

Allan R. Mangold
Fallbrook, CA.

[Allan from Fallbrook]

I couldn’t help it, I wrote him an email. I doubt he’ll answer, but this sort of self-serving BS really chaps my hide. This is another “Baghdad Bob”-type cheerleader, and he is the one intentionally misleading people. What a tool.

George,

I hope you don’t consider this email to be hate mail, but I do have to say that I strongly disagree with the sentiments expressed in your North County Times article on housing. As the events of this week have shown, there is something fundamentally wrong with the housing market in various geographies throughout the country and most especially those in California, Florida, Nevada, Arizona and parts of the Northeast.

While you cite a government study discussing an impending crisis based on a shortfall of housing, you completely ignore the larger issue of affordability. The reason that housing is in the fix it is in has literally nothing to do with supply and demand, but rather the complete lack of affordability found in the California market. The lending market tried to respond with the creation of loans that enabled people with poor credit and insufficient income(s) to buy homes completely out of their price range. At some point, the bill always comes due, and that is what we are confronting right now.

The housing market, like all other markets, is responsive to market forces. The implosion of the credit markets and the repricing of risk will now have a significant impact. This, coupled with the massive tide of foreclosures, is what will drive pricing in housing for the foreseeable future, not some misplaced sentiment or the public’s inability to comprehend the true nature of the situation. When the FED and ECB are forced to inject billions of dollars and euros into the market in order to maintain liquidity, it bespeaks a larger problem than “97.4% of people paying their mortgage on time” and the problems being confined to the sub-prime market. We are literally on the cusp of what potentially might be the biggest housing crisis since the Great Depression.

I am hard pressed to imagine someone of your financial acumen is failing to grasp the totality of this situation. There is a huge overhang of inventory, loans are either nearly impossible to secure or very expensive to secure, foreclosures are at their highest rate since the early 1990s and we are seeing mortgage lenders fail on a daily basis. To say that bloggers are somehow wholly responsible for this situation strains credulity. It also suggests that these selfsame bloggers, who are really the only voice of reason and have been for quite some time, are somehow propagandizing the public at large. This is Orwellian to say the least, and it unfortunately does cause one to question either your objectivity or your honesty. Not to be rude, but after listening to Lawrence Yun of the NAR, and his predecessor David Lereah, pontificate about real estate appreciating ad infinitum, I think the general public has finally wised up to where the true propaganda is coming from.

Perhaps in your next column you might discuss the various market factors at play now, as well as what impact tens of thousands of foreclosures and a rapidly tightening credit market will have on home pricing. While I’m sure that government study is a fascinating read, I am not sure what, if anything, it has to do with the reality right outside our front door.

Sincerely,

Allan R. Mangold
Fallbrook, CA.

[Allan from Fallbrook]

I couldn’t help it, I wrote him an email. I doubt he’ll answer, but this sort of self-serving BS really chaps my hide. This is another “Baghdad Bob”-type cheerleader, and he is the one intentionally misleading people. What a tool.

George,

I hope you don’t consider this email to be hate mail, but I do have to say that I strongly disagree with the sentiments expressed in your North County Times article on housing. As the events of this week have shown, there is something fundamentally wrong with the housing market in various geographies throughout the country and most especially those in California, Florida, Nevada, Arizona and parts of the Northeast.

While you cite a government study discussing an impending crisis based on a shortfall of housing, you completely ignore the larger issue of affordability. The reason that housing is in the fix it is in has literally nothing to do with supply and demand, but rather the complete lack of affordability found in the California market. The lending market tried to respond with the creation of loans that enabled people with poor credit and insufficient income(s) to buy homes completely out of their price range. At some point, the bill always comes due, and that is what we are confronting right now.

The housing market, like all other markets, is responsive to market forces. The implosion of the credit markets and the repricing of risk will now have a significant impact. This, coupled with the massive tide of foreclosures, is what will drive pricing in housing for the foreseeable future, not some misplaced sentiment or the public’s inability to comprehend the true nature of the situation. When the FED and ECB are forced to inject billions of dollars and euros into the market in order to maintain liquidity, it bespeaks a larger problem than “97.4% of people paying their mortgage on time” and the problems being confined to the sub-prime market. We are literally on the cusp of what potentially might be the biggest housing crisis since the Great Depression.

I am hard pressed to imagine someone of your financial acumen is failing to grasp the totality of this situation. There is a huge overhang of inventory, loans are either nearly impossible to secure or very expensive to secure, foreclosures are at their highest rate since the early 1990s and we are seeing mortgage lenders fail on a daily basis. To say that bloggers are somehow wholly responsible for this situation strains credulity. It also suggests that these selfsame bloggers, who are really the only voice of reason and have been for quite some time, are somehow propagandizing the public at large. This is Orwellian to say the least, and it unfortunately does cause one to question either your objectivity or your honesty. Not to be rude, but after listening to Lawrence Yun of the NAR, and his predecessor David Lereah, pontificate about real estate appreciating ad infinitum, I think the general public has finally wised up to where the true propaganda is coming from.

Perhaps in your next column you might discuss the various market factors at play now, as well as what impact tens of thousands of foreclosures and a rapidly tightening credit market will have on home pricing. While I’m sure that government study is a fascinating read, I am not sure what, if anything, it has to do with the reality right outside our front door.

Sincerely,

Allan R. Mangold
Fallbrook, CA.

[davelj]

My response (circa 2005):

Let me begin by passing along my congratulations to the many people who are celebrating the current situation in the housing market. In concert with much of the national and local media, they have been able to artificially construct something that has never —- I repeat, never —- been done before: drive UP housing prices to a heretofore never seen level of insanity unsupported by any rational evaluation of housing fundamentals.

[His rant is so rich in irony it’s priceless.]

[davelj]

My response (circa 2005):

Let me begin by passing along my congratulations to the many people who are celebrating the current situation in the housing market. In concert with much of the national and local media, they have been able to artificially construct something that has never —- I repeat, never —- been done before: drive UP housing prices to a heretofore never seen level of insanity unsupported by any rational evaluation of housing fundamentals.

[His rant is so rich in irony it’s priceless.]

[davelj]

My response (circa 2005):

Let me begin by passing along my congratulations to the many people who are celebrating the current situation in the housing market. In concert with much of the national and local media, they have been able to artificially construct something that has never —- I repeat, never —- been done before: drive UP housing prices to a heretofore never seen level of insanity unsupported by any rational evaluation of housing fundamentals.

[His rant is so rich in irony it’s priceless.]

[BuyerWillEPB]

“I couldn’t quite grasp the unbridled joy that the doom-and-gloomers seemed to have about the possibility that many families might lose THEIR HOMES in a downturn.

———————————————————–

Sorry George,

They are not THEIR HOMES until they pay back every penny of principal + interest on the suicide loans they signed to get into these homes. If every one of the families you mention would simply PAY THEIR MORTGAGES, not a single one of them will lose THEIR home.

But of course, almost none of 80% of the Loan-owners who took out the suicide loans could actually afford to make the real payments on these because that was never the intent to begin with. The intent was to continue to run up housing prices ever higher in order to steal the money from the next greater fool before the ARM resets kicked in. That way they could run away with the cash and leave me holding the bag.

It is this greed filled ponzi scheme that I take “unbridled joy” in seeing destroyed.

Just like you, George, I simply want, “a place to live for the rest of my life.” But because of the fraudulent housing price run ups you helped facilitate, my family and all future generations are now priced out forever.

Well, thanks to us on these blogs, maybe not “forever.”

[BuyerWillEPB]

“I couldn’t quite grasp the unbridled joy that the doom-and-gloomers seemed to have about the possibility that many families might lose THEIR HOMES in a downturn.

———————————————————–

Sorry George,

They are not THEIR HOMES until they pay back every penny of principal + interest on the suicide loans they signed to get into these homes. If every one of the families you mention would simply PAY THEIR MORTGAGES, not a single one of them will lose THEIR home.

But of course, almost none of 80% of the Loan-owners who took out the suicide loans could actually afford to make the real payments on these because that was never the intent to begin with. The intent was to continue to run up housing prices ever higher in order to steal the money from the next greater fool before the ARM resets kicked in. That way they could run away with the cash and leave me holding the bag.

It is this greed filled ponzi scheme that I take “unbridled joy” in seeing destroyed.

Just like you, George, I simply want, “a place to live for the rest of my life.” But because of the fraudulent housing price run ups you helped facilitate, my family and all future generations are now priced out forever.

Well, thanks to us on these blogs, maybe not “forever.”

[BuyerWillEPB]

“I couldn’t quite grasp the unbridled joy that the doom-and-gloomers seemed to have about the possibility that many families might lose THEIR HOMES in a downturn.

———————————————————–

Sorry George,

They are not THEIR HOMES until they pay back every penny of principal + interest on the suicide loans they signed to get into these homes. If every one of the families you mention would simply PAY THEIR MORTGAGES, not a single one of them will lose THEIR home.

But of course, almost none of 80% of the Loan-owners who took out the suicide loans could actually afford to make the real payments on these because that was never the intent to begin with. The intent was to continue to run up housing prices ever higher in order to steal the money from the next greater fool before the ARM resets kicked in. That way they could run away with the cash and leave me holding the bag.

It is this greed filled ponzi scheme that I take “unbridled joy” in seeing destroyed.

Just like you, George, I simply want, “a place to live for the rest of my life.” But because of the fraudulent housing price run ups you helped facilitate, my family and all future generations are now priced out forever.

Well, thanks to us on these blogs, maybe not “forever.”

[Bugs]

All his arguments are based on what he thinks “should be”. All of our arguments have been based on what “is”.

We correctly identified how overstretched the markets are, we correctly identified each of the elements that contributed to those distortions, we correctly identified the risks each of those elements posed to the whole, and (so far) our projections about how it would unravel have been coming true. We literally wrote the list and as these events unfold its as if the market is going down our list and checking each box off in the sequence they were originally forecasted. The only thing we couldn’t know for sure was timing, which is why many of us characterized our projections on timing as guesswork.

Strage how he doesn’t apparently attribute any of the increase to media spin but he wants to lay the majority of the blame for the decline on the spin.

The facts remain:

– People haven’t been paying their mortgages in sufficient numbers to cause the foreclosure rate to skyrocket.

– Those foreclosures have caused massive losses in the secondary market because of the way the salesmen packaged them into derivatives.

– The losses in the secondary market have caused a number of lenders to go down and has forced investors to withdraw from those derivatives as best they can.

– All of these elements are contributing to tightening of underwriting of mortgages, reducing options, and increasing pricing on financings – all of these elements reduce purchasing power thus putting more pressure on an alreadyt weakening pricing structure.

– He’s whining about job growth but he neglects to consider the composition of the job market and how its degrading away from the high-paying jobs necessary to pay mortgages.

– The media’s reporting of these elements absolutely does have an effect on buyers – it makes them more informed. They are using this information to make decisions, including the decision to withdraw from the market or to lowball their bids.

Inasmuch as Mr. Chamberlain works in the media, I should think he’d go a little easier on his peers who, after all, are just reporting the news. Reporting that the hedge funds are going bust and mortgage lenders are going out of business is not spin – it’s fact.

Here’s another fact – Mr. Chamberlain was 100% wrong about the 2006 market being strong and we were 100% right about it being fundamentally weak. He’s wrong about it coming back after another mere 5% frop and we’re 100% right about it taking a long time before it reverses. Time will bear all this out, just as it has for the things we projected that have already transpired.

He’s not in the driver’s seat right now, and if he continues to ignore the realities in front of him he’s going to lose the remaining 17 readers who apparently still think he has credibility.

[Bugs]

All his arguments are based on what he thinks “should be”. All of our arguments have been based on what “is”.

We correctly identified how overstretched the markets are, we correctly identified each of the elements that contributed to those distortions, we correctly identified the risks each of those elements posed to the whole, and (so far) our projections about how it would unravel have been coming true. We literally wrote the list and as these events unfold its as if the market is going down our list and checking each box off in the sequence they were originally forecasted. The only thing we couldn’t know for sure was timing, which is why many of us characterized our projections on timing as guesswork.

Strage how he doesn’t apparently attribute any of the increase to media spin but he wants to lay the majority of the blame for the decline on the spin.

The facts remain:

– People haven’t been paying their mortgages in sufficient numbers to cause the foreclosure rate to skyrocket.

– Those foreclosures have caused massive losses in the secondary market because of the way the salesmen packaged them into derivatives.

– The losses in the secondary market have caused a number of lenders to go down and has forced investors to withdraw from those derivatives as best they can.

– All of these elements are contributing to tightening of underwriting of mortgages, reducing options, and increasing pricing on financings – all of these elements reduce purchasing power thus putting more pressure on an alreadyt weakening pricing structure.

– He’s whining about job growth but he neglects to consider the composition of the job market and how its degrading away from the high-paying jobs necessary to pay mortgages.

– The media’s reporting of these elements absolutely does have an effect on buyers – it makes them more informed. They are using this information to make decisions, including the decision to withdraw from the market or to lowball their bids.

Inasmuch as Mr. Chamberlain works in the media, I should think he’d go a little easier on his peers who, after all, are just reporting the news. Reporting that the hedge funds are going bust and mortgage lenders are going out of business is not spin – it’s fact.

Here’s another fact – Mr. Chamberlain was 100% wrong about the 2006 market being strong and we were 100% right about it being fundamentally weak. He’s wrong about it coming back after another mere 5% frop and we’re 100% right about it taking a long time before it reverses. Time will bear all this out, just as it has for the things we projected that have already transpired.

He’s not in the driver’s seat right now, and if he continues to ignore the realities in front of him he’s going to lose the remaining 17 readers who apparently still think he has credibility.

[Bugs]

All his arguments are based on what he thinks “should be”. All of our arguments have been based on what “is”.

We correctly identified how overstretched the markets are, we correctly identified each of the elements that contributed to those distortions, we correctly identified the risks each of those elements posed to the whole, and (so far) our projections about how it would unravel have been coming true. We literally wrote the list and as these events unfold its as if the market is going down our list and checking each box off in the sequence they were originally forecasted. The only thing we couldn’t know for sure was timing, which is why many of us characterized our projections on timing as guesswork.

Strage how he doesn’t apparently attribute any of the increase to media spin but he wants to lay the majority of the blame for the decline on the spin.

The facts remain:

– People haven’t been paying their mortgages in sufficient numbers to cause the foreclosure rate to skyrocket.

– Those foreclosures have caused massive losses in the secondary market because of the way the salesmen packaged them into derivatives.

– The losses in the secondary market have caused a number of lenders to go down and has forced investors to withdraw from those derivatives as best they can.

– All of these elements are contributing to tightening of underwriting of mortgages, reducing options, and increasing pricing on financings – all of these elements reduce purchasing power thus putting more pressure on an alreadyt weakening pricing structure.

– He’s whining about job growth but he neglects to consider the composition of the job market and how its degrading away from the high-paying jobs necessary to pay mortgages.

– The media’s reporting of these elements absolutely does have an effect on buyers – it makes them more informed. They are using this information to make decisions, including the decision to withdraw from the market or to lowball their bids.

Inasmuch as Mr. Chamberlain works in the media, I should think he’d go a little easier on his peers who, after all, are just reporting the news. Reporting that the hedge funds are going bust and mortgage lenders are going out of business is not spin – it’s fact.

Here’s another fact – Mr. Chamberlain was 100% wrong about the 2006 market being strong and we were 100% right about it being fundamentally weak. He’s wrong about it coming back after another mere 5% frop and we’re 100% right about it taking a long time before it reverses. Time will bear all this out, just as it has for the things we projected that have already transpired.

He’s not in the driver’s seat right now, and if he continues to ignore the realities in front of him he’s going to lose the remaining 17 readers who apparently still think he has credibility.

[PerryChase]

Another good post, bugs.

[PerryChase]

Another good post, bugs.

[Author]

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