[pencilneck]

If you bought this place for $300-350k I don’t think you’d save vs rent (or even come close to breaking even). A place like this is going to have steep HOA fees as well. If you add these fees to the interest payments, It would probably have to sell for much less to beat renting.

My opinion. I haven’t looked at these particular numbers too carefully.

[pencilneck]

Personally, I think both are problematic.

To Bubba99, From Wikipedia: “According to the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, aggregate global CDO issuance totalled USD 157 billion in 2004, USD 249 billion in 2005, and USD 489 billion in 2006.”

That sounds a little low to me, but its been doubling every year

[pencilneck]

Personally, I think both are problematic.

To Bubba99, From Wikipedia: “According to the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, aggregate global CDO issuance totalled USD 157 billion in 2004, USD 249 billion in 2005, and USD 489 billion in 2006.”

That sounds a little low to me, but its been doubling every year

[pencilneck]

Here is the part I find most interesting:

“Investor Redemptions

The Bear Stearns fund halted redemptions after investors sought to withdraw $300 million by June 30, the newsletter Hedge Fund Alert said last week.”

The fund is imploding and current investors can’t withdraw their money. Some of them have allegedly been attempting to withdraw their funds since February, and can not.

[pencilneck]

Here is the part I find most interesting:

“Investor Redemptions

The Bear Stearns fund halted redemptions after investors sought to withdraw $300 million by June 30, the newsletter Hedge Fund Alert said last week.”

The fund is imploding and current investors can’t withdraw their money. Some of them have allegedly been attempting to withdraw their funds since February, and can not.

[pencilneck]

Sales are up on a month to month basis, but sales of new homes are still down 11% YOY. The headline is, of course, highly misleading.

“WASHINGTON (AP) — Sales of new homes surged in April by the biggest amount in 14 years, but the median price of a new home dropped by the largest amount on record. The mixed signals left no clear picture of whether the worst of the nation’s housing slump is over.”

The only mixed signals are deliberate and coming from the press.

[pencilneck]

Sales are up on a month to month basis, but sales of new homes are still down 11% YOY. The headline is, of course, highly misleading.

“WASHINGTON (AP) — Sales of new homes surged in April by the biggest amount in 14 years, but the median price of a new home dropped by the largest amount on record. The mixed signals left no clear picture of whether the worst of the nation’s housing slump is over.”

The only mixed signals are deliberate and coming from the press.

[pencilneck]

I feel like quibbling so I’m going to quibble a bit with Cow_tipping a bit:

“Now the credit bubble it was national, every 2 bit drunk bought a house, be it in Illinois or be it in CA, and every area is bubblicious.?

The credit bubble is much more than national. China, Japan, Europe, Australia and and more also have bubblicious levels of credit, often times manifesting itself in re markets. The cracks are forming in many of these areas as we speak.

Cool 🙂

[pencilneck]

I hate contradict you Noone, but I believe that at one time or another these poor people may have been in close proximity to those under 25, and thus may have been exposed to harmful levels of video games. Preliminary studies have shown that second hand video game violence is almost as bad as direct exposure. I’ll keep you all updated on this fascinating topic.

Frivolity aside, it sounds like the police involved may have been playing too many video games as well. Police shot them both and there was only one gun that they both pointed at the officers at various times? The story I read in the Union Trib doesn’t quite add up. There must be a bit more to the story.

[pencilneck]

A quick comparison between now and 1996 adjusted for changes in population:

In 1996 we had a population of around 2.7 million with 337 foreclosures. Now we have a population of around 3.05 million with 433 foreclosures.

1996- 1 foreclosure per 8,012 residents
2007- 1 foreclosure per 7,044 residents

Even when adjusted for population growth this is a more significant number of foreclosures than 1996.

Also, didn’t we set a record in 2005 or 2004 for lowest number of foreclosures? Its earie how fast we went from setting record lows to record highs.

[pencilneck]

Very funny article! Even the Union Tribune is finally starting to admit Lereah is about as relevant as Bagdad Bob.

Link:

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20070415/news_1b15dean.html

Quote:

As recently as last month, Lereah was assuring the public that the market had hit bottom and prices would rise 1.4 percent in 2007.

(snip)

This wasn’t the first time Lereah said the market had hit bottom. In fact, each month last year, he said the market was bottoming out. And he said it again the next month after the market somehow discovered a new bottom.
September: “The price drop has stopped the bleeding for housing sales. We think the housing market has now hit bottom.”

October: “The worst is behind us as far as a market correction. This is likely the trough for sales.”

November: “We don’t expect to see any changes of note until early next year when we’re likely to see a modest lift to home sales.”

December: “Most of the correction in home prices is behind us. . . . By the fourth quarter of 2007, existing-home sales will be 4.6 percent higher than the current quarter.”

[pencilneck]

I happen to think it may be different this time. Lowering interest rates may destroy the housing market rather than save it.

Over the last several years the yen carry trade has provided the housing market with a lot of liquidity as investors borrow yen at a low interest rate and invest in the U.S. at a higher rate. Much of this money goes into the bonds we use to pay for our homes. If we drop our rates past a certain point, the money will flow out of the U.S. at least as fast as it flowed in. The system hiccuped last week, and we briefly saw a bit of the effects of a tiny bit of this outflow.

In decades past lowering interest rates helped create more liquidity and higher rates meant less. Ironically, today I believe the reverse is true. Keeping our interest rates relatively high will keep the liquidity flowing in and be much more beneficial to (temporarily) sustaining the housing bubble. Lowering interest rates will reveal our housing market (and stock market, and bond market) for the bubble that it is.

All in my humble opinion.

[pencilneck]

Mission accomplished.

[pencilneck]

Yippee! Awesome! Horray!

(direct quote from the advert, offered here with a hint of sarcasm)

[pencilneck]

Yippee! Awesome! Horray!

(direct quote from the advert, offered here with a hint of sarcasm)

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