patrick.net

MM,

I agree with you. It seems as though there's an elephant dancing on the head of a pin and everyone is waiting for something to push him one way or another.

Here's my question:

We know wages are so far behind inflation there's no add'l dollars in most people's pockets....so.....where's the money coming from that allows for continued consumer spending? Housing is taking an ever increasing bite out of the budget, REAL inflation continues to be an issue, and people are still spending money like there's no tomorrow.....HOW??????

Back in the days of Prez Jimmy's economic nightmare, I was scrimping and saving while my friends were blowing and going. Fast forward and they are still on a spending binge and I'm looking for ways to NOT spend money. How in blue blazes do they continue to dodge the credit bullet?

I feel like I'm the last sober person at a drunken orgy.

The link to "The Star" was possibly.......... no, definitely the longest 28 seconds of my life. Sadly that includes several motorcycle accidents that were not quite as....... painful. Anyway!

The fact that the two Oregon towns represented showed little if any decline leaves me in NO WAY disheartened! They're not increases! Just having a "high end" market in Portland is something of a new development. So we're still kind of attached to it, unwilling to relinquish this new found status symbol. If nothing else Oregonians have an admirable sense of self preservation. Money doesn't come easy here and I'm supremely confident that push come to shove we'll distance ourselves from McAlbatrosses like an ugly girl at a dance!

In ways, having the RE market meet FAB's "Black Monday" would be a lot like hearing your nemesis..... your archenemy........pffft, a dickhead O.K? died in a car crash! You're numb. You're beside yourself with disbelief. How could this have happened? I didn't cut his brake lines (like I'd planned)? I didn't get to have one active part in dickhead's demise! (All my best laid plans, up in smoke?)

Oh in time you'll come to appreciate the fact that your karma (and trail) are clean and you didn't have to so much as lift a finger but for now you're just........numb.

SFWoman,

mike* had a great post 2 threads back that addressed this very scenario in some detail. He doesn't post often but when he does, he nails it.

If we can't get the workforce to save, maybe....... we can have/create a catalyst by which we can drive real int. rates into the neg? With favorable tax legislation already in place we can eliminate/diminish the need for savings/retirement accounts (which we know they don't much care for anyway!)

This is the inception point of Debt=Wealth. Obviously (they) grossly miscalculated our appetite for MEW and are now conceeding that further tweaking is necessary?

Woo hoo! Fort Collins, CO is forecast for a -6% bottom by February '07! I'm already seeing stagnation in DOM and lowered selling prices. I bet some ranges pressure into -15% though. Lots of people lost high end jobs in tech in the last two years. If you take two years ago as a baseline, the ratio of sellers vs. buyers has tilted almost 2.5x at this point. There's also a steady stream of foreclosure notices converting into REO. This jives pretty well with my plan to get a 6 month apartment lease and keep checking the market.

I've noticed a lot of REO and pre-foreclosures on $1M+ properties. A builder just finished a huge golf course development north of town (5000+ sq.ft. homes on the high end) and I don't think anybody is buying those.

It would be nice to have the drops now, but I'll be ready after the banks and flippers have a long, cold winter of taxes, HOA fees and heating bills on a bunch of empty properties.

The Moody's report seems disengaged from reality. The example I know reasonably well is Boston. They call for a peak in 3rd Q 06 (ie, just passed) and a 2.2% decline. It's already well documented by more than one source, the MAR and the Warren Report, that home prices have already dropped 6-8% YoY nominal, even more so real prices-wise. And they are continuing to drop. I call bullshit on them.