Our Awful Situation

Archive for the ‘Housing Crisis’ Category

Newer Entries »

New-Home Sales Tumbled To a 16-Year Low in March

Posted by Charlie Kilo on April 24th, 2008

CNBC give stats on the obvious:

Sales of new homes plunged in March to the lowest level in 16 1/2 years as housing slumped further at the start of the spring sales season.

The median price of a new home in March compared to a year ago fell by the largest amount in nearly four decades.

The Commerce Department reported Thursday that sales of new homes dropped by 8.5 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 526,000 units, the slowest sales pace since October 1991.

The median price of a home sold in March dropped by 13.3 percent compared to March 2007, the biggest year-over-year price decline since a 14.6 percent plunge in July 1970.

The dismal news on new home sales followed earlier reports showing that sales of existing homes fell by 2 percent in March.

More Americans Are Walking Away From Their Homes (literally)

Posted by Charlie Kilo on April 18th, 2008

This reminds me of Atlas Shrugged:

Increasing numbers of Americans are simply walking away from their houses and mortgages, increasing pressure on banks and the economy.

Rapid house price falls in many parts of the United States will soon leave as many as one in five borrowers owing more on their loan than the house will fetch, removing at a stroke the single most powerful incentive to keep up with payments.The phenomenon of “walk aways” or “jingle mail,” so called because of the noise the house keys make in the envelope mailed to the bank, is hard to measure but shows every sign of gathering pace and having a substantial impact.

Here Comes the Next Mortgage Crisis

Posted by Charlie Kilo on April 18th, 2008

Subprime was just the beginning. Wait until California’s prime borrowers start handing their keys to the bank:

California is to mortgage lending what Chicago is to pork bellies. For years, that meant it was a place with soaring house values; today, the foreclosure rate across the state is twice the national average and going up fast. Riverside County, outside Los Angeles, may be the foreclosure capital of the country, with a rate close to six times the national average. And housing prices are in freefall.

California should be the poster child for a mortgage-loan bailout. In few other places have so many taken on such onerous debts with so little equity. Unfortunately, the crisis in California is going to get much worse, and there is no bailout that will solve it. Why? Because if the first stage of the foreclosure crisis was about people who could not afford their mortgages, the next stage will be about people who have every reason not even to try to pay their mortgages.

Copper is the new underground currency

Posted by Charlie Kilo on April 16th, 2008

More signs of the times:

The gang descended on the house on Penn Avenue like carrion, ripping open wall board and gutting it of copper. They severed the pipes connected to the gas furnace and water heater, then hit the kitchen sink. Piles of lath lay at the foot of the stairs, the wall torn open to expose the upstairs bathroom.

By the time officer Richard Jackson knocked down the door, the gang was gone — along with most of the home’s copper.

Jackson, who’s largely in charge of fighting the growing copper theft trade in Minneapolis’ Fourth Precinct, stepped gingerly around piles of trash, beer bottles, fresh dog feces, dead mice and used condoms.

“Welcome to my world,” he said.

Copper is the new underground currency. Its price has soared to more than $3 a pound, making it a worthwhile target of both novice scavengers and highly organized rings that hit several houses a day, pulling in as much as $20,000 a month. No longer just a nuisance, copper thieves are ransacking neighborhoods and often staying one step ahead of police.

U.S. housing collapse spreads overseas

Posted by Charlie Kilo on April 14th, 2008

Most people don’t realize how interconnected the global economy is:

The collapse of the housing bubble in the United States is mutating into a global phenomenon, with real estate prices down from the Irish countryside and the Spanish coast to Baltic seaports and even in parts of India.

This synchronized global slowdown, which has become increasingly stark in recent months, is hobbling economic growth worldwide, affecting not just homes, but also jobs.

In Ireland, Spain, Britain and elsewhere, housing markets that soared over the past decade are falling back to earth. Experts predict that some countries, like Ireland, will face an even more wrenching adjustment than the United States, with the possibility that the downturn could turn into wholesale collapse.

More

Newer Entries »
{ }

Search

Recent Posts

Sites of Interest

Archives

Categories