Housing bubble still popping

[Doppel]

http://www.doctorhousingbubble.com/...omers-real-estate-housing-home-equity-income/

Home-prices reach new post-bubble low:

Dr. HousingBubble continues to paint a picture of distressed housing for many years to come, in this article tying together the weakening middle class and how it will impact home prices as elders try to liquidate their larger housing to cover retirement.

 

[Texashiker]

Home-prices reach new post-bubble low.

Home prices will continue to go down, hopefully to the point where an average wage earner can afford to buy.

I suspect that when prices hit either the late 1980s or early 1990s price range, things will level out.

 

[spidey07]

Wait, I specifically remember articles stating prices rising in the majority of markets.

 

[Macamus Prime]

http://www.doctorhousingbubble.com/...omers-real-estate-housing-home-equity-income/ ,....as elders try to liquidate their larger housing to cover retirement.

Shit - this.

401k is busted. Social Security will die before I grow old. And the Roth IRA should cover my wheel chair expenses.

One way to ensure I can still pay for my twenty plus pills a day is to sell my home.

 

[Texashiker]

One way to ensure I can still pay for my twenty plus pills a day is to sell my home.

That is what my grandmother and my grandfather did.

My grandparents had a nice 2 story home with several acres of land. When they got to the point where they needed help, they sold the home and land, then moved into an assisted living center.

The family was sad to see my grandparents sell just about everything they worked for, just so they could afford the help they needed later in life.

My grandfather developed alzheimer's. The center they were living in was like an apartment with a nurses station just down the hall. Behind the apartment complex was a special building designed just for alzheimer's patients.

The help my grandparents received was good, but very expensive.

By the time my grandparents died, their savings had been wiped out due to medical cost.

 

[IceBergSLiM]

Shit - this.

401k is busted. Social Security will die before I grow old. And the Roth IRA should cover my wheel chair expenses.

One way to ensure I can still pay for my twenty plus pills a day is to sell my home and move somewhere that the dollar is strong.

fixed

 

[gregulator]

That is what my grandmother and my grandfather did.

snip

By the time my grandparents died, their savings had been wiped out due to medical cost.

This is why we (as Americans) need to start thinking rationally about end of life care. I know it is a terrible topic, every situation is different, and no one wants to pull the plug.. but for fucks sake, are we really better off pumping seniors full of pills and putting them in nursing homes? Maybe we should mandate living wills after people turn 18. I would much rather go down in a blaze of glory (on a hooker and blow binge) than spend years of old age not being able to really function. And I sure as hell wouldn't want to make my family have to make that decision for me.

I know this rant did not relate to housing costs at all.. oops!

 

[Texashiker]

This is why we (as Americans) need to start thinking rationally about end of life care. <snip>

I know this rant did not relate to housing costs at all.. oops!

In a way, I think your post does relate to the cost of housing.

Instead of allowing people to live in their homes at the end of their days, a lot of people take home equity loans, or like my grandparents, sell the home and all of their property.

For the past few decades public opinion of a home has moved from a place to raise a family, to a home being nothing more then an investment.

The purpose of an investment is to make money.

A home should not be connected to being an investment. When that connection is made, prices continue to increase as the next owner hopes to turn a profit.

Could we imagine if everything was treated like a home? Cars would be so expensive that only the rich could afford to buy them. Clothes at goodwill would cost more then new clothes,,,,. For some reason, washing a pair of jeans doubles their value.

Society needs to move away from the mindset that a home is an investment. Its not something you buy and sell for a profit. Nor is it something people should have to sell in their old age to pay for their medical bills.

A home is a place for you and your family to lay your heads at night, it should not be treated like stocks people hope to buy and quick sell for a profit.

 

[fskimospy]

This is why we (as Americans) need to start thinking rationally about end of life care. I know it is a terrible topic, every situation is different, and no one wants to pull the plug.. but for fucks sake, are we really better off pumping seniors full of pills and putting them in nursing homes? Maybe we should mandate living wills after people turn 18. I would much rather go down in a blaze of glory (on a hooker and blow binge) than spend years of old age not being able to really function. And I sure as hell wouldn't want to make my family have to make that decision for me.

I know this rant did not relate to housing costs at all.. oops!

Yeah, probably a discussion for another thread, but I'm actually a fan of death panels. Not in that I want old people to die or anything, but we do need some sort of rational assessment of end of life care and some measure of relative costs and benefits.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

Dr. HousingBubble continues to paint a picture of distressed housing for many years to come, in this article tying together the weakening middle class and how it will impact home prices as elders try to liquidate their larger housing to cover retirement.

This makes perfect sense. According to some sources our nation has lost 10&#37; of it's middle class jobs over the past decade. In the meantime, the number of young people (would-be new entrants to the housing market) with onerous student loans has increased and many of them cannot find anything better than menial work.

In the meantime, the prices of gasoline, food, and other goods have increased (don't even ask about health care), which reduces the amount of money people have to spend on housing.

When you contemplate that, homes are still very much overpriced relative to what average people can afford. It needs to get to the point where a husband and wife who each $10/hour while having shitty health care coverage can comfortably afford an average house, which probably means prices of $50-75,000.

 

[Fern]

Yeah, probably a discussion for another thread, but I'm actually a fan of death panels. Not in that I want old people to die or anything, but we do need some sort of rational assessment of end of life care and some measure of relative costs and benefits.

I tend to agree.

Fern

 

[JSt0rm]

as the boomers retire more they need to dump their homes. Expect more crazy in the markets. Like they are all switching over to more cash then stocks so that probably drives the price of stocks down.

A thinking man would of sold all his stocks before the boomers started to retire and start switching those investments to cash.

 

[Infohawk]

Housing prices are largely controlled by wages. I don't see wages going up

 

[bfdd]

Shit - this.

401k is busted. Social Security will die before I grow old. And the Roth IRA should cover my wheel chair expenses.

One way to ensure I can still pay for my twenty plus pills a day is to sell my home.

twenty plus pills a day? it never occurs to them that maybe they should be dead and you know life is trying to leave them behind? what is it with people being so afraid of death they're willing to dredge on society to get a few extra minutes?

 

[Craig234]

as the boomers retire more they need to dump their homes. Expect more crazy in the markets. Like they are all switching over to more cash then stocks so that probably drives the price of stocks down.

A thinking man would of sold all his stocks before the boomers started to retire and start switching those investments to cash.

The boomers hold a low percentage of stocks. A large majority are in very few hands.

The top 1&#37; reportedly own over 70% of financial assets.

 

[Fern]

as the boomers retire more they need to dump their homes. Expect more crazy in the markets. Like they are all switching over to more cash then stocks so that probably drives the price of stocks down.

A thinking man would of sold all his stocks before the boomers started to retire and start switching those investments to cash.

The boomers hold a low percentage of stocks. A large majority are in very few hands.

The top 1&#37; reportedly own over 70% of financial assets.

Craig, you need to be careful with those kinds of stats. A lot of the stock market is held in retirement plans. That's going to be in everything from 401(k) plans, IRA's and all the way to large pension funds funds like CALPERS. Then you have ton held by insurance companies too.

Legally, those investments are not held/owned by any individual. So, I find accurate stats hard to come by.

His point remains. Many investment professionals think it a valid one too. As you get older an ever increasing share of your retirement assets is shifted out of stocks and into bonds. I'm pretty sure traditional retirement plans do likewise when their participants age.

I think demographics are often overlooked.

E.g., in areas with an older population heading into retirement how will home prices be affected? Take a weak market, compound it by retirees wanting to sell to go to a warmer climate and the problem is exacerbated.

The effects ripple too.

I live in a resort/retirement area. Home construction, and the economy in general was booming. Now, however, retirees elsewhere cannot sell their homes to move here. Construction is dead. But since retirees have a fixed income the economy is otherwise fine. However, I wonder what our housing market is going to look like in a few years. When the retirees here start moving into rest homes or passing away what will that do to our market given other retirees cannot move here because they can't sell their homes in NY, NY or CT? I'm curious to see.

Fern

 

[iGas]

Perhaps the US market, but it is a different story here in Western Canada.

For single detached homes, Metro Vancouver saw prices increase year-over-year by 11.2 per cent to $887,000, while Vancouver’s west side rose 20.7 per cent to $1.99 million, West Vancouver, 15.8 per cent to $1.69 million, Richmond, 11 per cent to $1.1 million, and North Vancouver, 13.3 per cent to $978,000.

 

[Texashiker]

Perhaps the US market, but it is a different story here in Western Canada.

For single detached homes, Metro Vancouver saw prices increase year-over-year by 11.2 per cent to $887,000

How is the average family supposed to afford a home that cost $887,000?

Ask yourself a simple question, could a teacher or police officer afford to buy an average priced home? If not, then the home prices are bloated.

 

[Capt Caveman]

Depends where you live. Markets vary greatly.

 

[Joepublic2]

Interesting, but when the economy started to tank back in the early 2000s because the credit bubble the "middle" (only in their heavily propagandized minds) class had been blowing up for the past half century popped I banked on the govt not making the tough decisions and doing what was required to actually fix it and the public being too caught up in their democrap/rethuglican dog and pony show to hold them accountable for the sorry ass state of the country. So I started snapping up low income housing/apartments and have been making an absolute killing off of it. I would imagine that, before housing prices are depressed by excessive supply to the point where your average young couple can afford to buy one again the people who really own this country, the international bankers and financiers, will cry to the govt about how their assets are taking a beating and whomever is in office will, with the aide of the msm to distort the truth as they are so adept at, pass a new 10 trillion dollar bailout package to artificially prop up housing prices and allow me to continue to make a killing in the tar paper shack market.

 

[Jhhnn]

Wait, I specifically remember articles stating prices rising in the majority of markets.

They did, briefly, thanks to teh ebil stimuhlus and first time buyers credits...

It's called a suckers' rally...

http://seattlebubble.com/blog/2011/11/29/case-shiller-seattle-home-prices-fall-into-fall/

 

[Joepublic2]

Housing prices are largely controlled by wages. I don't see wages going up

They would be largely controlled by wages if we still practiced capitalism, but we don't, we practice state capitalism just like the soviet union did/still does still to a lesser extent and the PRC does (which is about to bite them in the ass, hard, when americans can no longer afford to buy even cheap consumer goods as they still don't have the middle class required to consume the goods their massive manufacturing industry is outputting).

This is a very telling documentary about the house of cards that is the PRC's current economic state:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPILhiTJv7E

 

[Jhhnn]

As you get older an ever increasing share of your retirement assets is shifted out of stocks and into bonds. I

Yeh, stuff like mortgage bonds...

Oh, wait, err, umm, I seem to recall reading something about that...

 

[SilthDraeth]

This is why a families need to establish a long standing home.

My dad is trying it, him and his brother bought 40 acres over 30 years ago, still own it, mom's side of the family not so much. Grandma sold her house when her husband died, and now has nothing. My mom separated from my dad 20 years ago, and she was buying a house but sold it to move to another part of the country that didn't work out, she is buying a place back in town where she sold the first.

I will either take over that house from her, or move onto another 40 acres my dad has in Washington state. With that much land, over time, can have enough houses for everyone.

Now the only hurdle with that plan is yearly taxes...

 

[Rainsford]

Home prices will continue to go down, hopefully to the point where an average wage earner can afford to buy.

I suspect that when prices hit either the late 1980s or early 1990s price range, things will level out.

The problem is that this only helps first time home buyers or people who bought a longish time ago. People who bought in the rather long upswing in the market aren't going to want to sell (or buy a new house), which isn't going to help the overall market recovery. Unfortunately the housing market represented enough wealth for enough people, and it dropped so rapidly, that settling at a new low (which may happen) could do REALLY long term damage to our economy. The ability for some people to buy houses cheaper isn't, I don't think, going to make up for that.