Kudos to Rich and the Piggington site

[Bubblesitter]

The mainstream media seems to have finally caught on to the big story of the on-going mortgage implosion and upcoming credit crunch.

The Piggington site and Rich were pointing out these systemic and obvious problems with the mortgage industry for a couple years now, e.g., Liar loans, no doc, Option ARMS, Negative AM, etc. This site was voice in the wilderness as they say.

We’ve had a systemic failure of regulation, moral hazard in the mortgage industry, irresponsible or duped buyers, along and a long list of other have failed us in allowing this bubble to escalate. We are now reading daily of the terrible fallout on ordinary folks and we are likely approaching the start of a housing-led recession.

I wanted to personally thank Rich and Piggington folks for alerting me early to the full extent of the systemic problems. I firmly believe that I personally avoided a costly financial mistake (probably in the 100Ks) and secured a stronger financial future for my family.

[anxvariety]

Ditto!

[sdrealtor]

Absolutely, postively the best bubble blog on the net!

Cheers to you Rich!

SDR

P.S. I’ve discovered the next bubble and its a Housing Bubble Blog Blubble! They are popping up all over the place now and have definitely missed the window of opportunity to build a vital audience such as the one you have.

[michael]

Thank you Rich. My days, prior to your site, were filled with numerous Google searches for data and information. Piggington is a blessing! Your hard work and knowledge provided me with the information and support that I needed to “stick to my guns” when all around me were jumping on the real estate band wagon. Thank you so much!

[kewp]

Yes, indeed, thank you Rick. I have you to thank for providing the data and analysis to make me feel better about renting.

[CAwireman]

Way to go Rich. Now, if I can just convince my wife…..

😉

[guitar187]

I feel your pain cawireman.

[JWM in SD]

Yeah, me too. I get the constant barrage of “but honey, so and so just bought an 800K house in Poway. Isn’t that a good price?”

[temeculaguy]

A year ago I got divorced after being a married homeowner for 15 years I didn’t have much of a clue about Real Estate other than the two houses I had owned. I assumed I would be fine, I made over 100k a year at a stable job that I’ve had for 15 years with an 800 fico, no debt other than a small car payment, no alimony, and a small chunk of money from being bought out on the house in my divorce. I was wrong! Prices were crazy and I found I could only buy something below my standards yet for the lionshare of my income. Where are all these people getting this money? This is insanity. Refusing anything other than a 15 or 30 fixed with 20% down, I was made to feel like someone clinging to an ancient religion. One saleswoman at a new development didn’t even know how to calculate those “old loans” on her computer.

Then I found this site and have been an avid reader here and in the news, watch the mls regularly and have become a student of the game. Thanks to this site I didn’t buy last year even though I almost had to. I am in a cash position and have watched things fall with each passing day while I save more. I don’t want to claim this site changed my life but it did, without it I would have bought in February of 2006, ten years from now we will look at graphs and that may end up being the peak of the graph, for that I thank you piggington. I will buy again, I could today but i won’t. I will keep my eye on the ball and hopefully I will be able to lean on others to guess the bottom or near bottom of this cycle.

[ibjames]

I too was looking at places and put in offers that were rejected in March 2006. After wondering how these places could reject my offer at such crazy prices, I decided to do more research.

After finding this site all my wondering stopped, because the data was here for me to analyze.

I was even able to show my wife the graphs and she too won’t even look at MLS data until 2008. (I just wanted to show her how prices are coming down)

I’m glad I found this site, and enjoy the intelligent and sometimes not so intelligent banter it provides.

Thanks guys!

[kev374]

Great job Rich!

[justme]

Rich has saved a lot of people from ruin, Alan Greenspan has not. That makes all the difference. Rich for the Fed, instead of Fed for the Rich!

[Mark Holmes]

Yes, ditto ditto ditto. Thanks Rich. My partner and I look at 2009 – 2010 as our probable purchase of a house. It’s good to know the hows and whys of this insanity.

[hipmatt]

I also appreciate this site tremendously and I feel that I have made better financial decisions too. I usually pop in every day for over a year now.

Just remember everyone, that this has been the biggest and longest housing bubble ever in this country’s history. To think that its gonna take only 1-3 years to bottom is a little naive considering that the last correction took about 6 years (1990-1996) and that was following a 4-5 year bubble(1985-1990). This has been a 10 year bubble period. (1996-2006). I just think it is possible that we won’t see a bottom until after 2010, maybe up to 2012. Housing prices aren’t falling as fast as we thought they would, and they haven’t really fallen that much at all, yet…

Maybe this will be different due to MASS foreclosures and “internet awareness”, but I expect the fed + current homeowners + the whole RE industry/home builders/lenders to come up with numerous ways along the road to try and prevent economic nature from running its course so that they can lock in profits, buy time to get out, keep shareholders invested, or postpone the inevitable, and blame the next guy or pass the buck.

If I had to guess what was more likely to happen in the next 6 months..

Scenario A: the dollar continues to lose value and inflation remains very high(higher than the fed wants us to believe) due to the fed creating even more credit and/or lowering rates again. This scenario would have its own problems, the first being that the purchasing power of the dollar is lost, thus goods and services cost more, and our quality of life suffers.

Scenario B: America gets smart, realizes its mistakes, and lets housing do its thing (collapse) and then the stock market follows, then employment follows eventually leading to a (somewhat healthy)recession. I call this the REAL wake up call.

I tend to think scenario B is the best thing to do, but I think scenario A is easier to do, and will catch less “flack” from investors/wall street. If they choose A, they can kind postpone scenario B, which someone else may have to deal with and take the blame for. BTW scenario A will make scenario B much worse. I think America needs a wake up call, but I’m afraid they don’t have the strength, so I will put my money on A for now.

Think its never been done before, Alan Greenspan did it for about 5 years, then handed a strong “looking” economy over to Bernake last year. Take away the easy credit(including subprime), and now how strong are we?

Hopefully this time, the housing correction happens faster than in the past, but I really don’t expect any big bargains in 08 or 09. Hopefully I’m wrong. Happy investing.

[Bubblesitter]

Pulled this one from the vaults……look at the post date.

I still feel the same way.

Rich, Great site for info, discussion on real estate and economics.

Bubblesitter

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