United States Heading towards a Depression?

I think it will take years to plateau, let alone recover.

Too much empty inventory of houses, along with tightened credit requirements for housing, and a large diminuation of creditworthy buyers, due to existing foreclosures suggests that it will take a long time to sell off this volume of unsold housing inventory.

The surge in home ownership over the couple of years of the sub prime mortgage run up increased home ownership totals from something like 67% of the population to 69%. It is not likely that in the existing environment there exists a ready able and financially sound....2% of the potential homeownership market that can relatively quickly buy up the unsold vacant properties.

Mass buying of discrete single family homes has never taken place on a large scale.

Some enterprising groups might try it....but that is a tough managment process.

I think it will take years to buy up and occupy the current (and growing inventory of vacant houses. There is no magic bullet.

On the other hand, some enterprising folks might take a stab at mass buying. That would be new and interesting. If I were to give it a shot.....I'd need to buy at rock bottom prices.....and I'd need lots of management capabilities to manage, clean up, and resell lots of houses to make lots of money. And of course I'd need lots and lots of money I'd be willing to put at risk or else have lots of access to OPM (other people's money).

The short answer is that it will take years to stabilize, IMHO. On the other hand real estate is dramatically local. Some markets may recover relatively quickly while others drag on forever.

 

The misuse of credit and is just as much a problem as high gas prices.

 

It's a great time to start planning investing in property. When they finally do hit such a low low rate, snag it all up with mineral rights.

 

Property has done terrible in Japan since 1990. The situation in the US seems even worse.

At least the Japanese had savings and low unemployment.

 

Fed Sets Price of Money Today, 2:15pm ET

 

It's going to get worse. Home prices posted a record 15.3% drop but in some areas prices are up as much as 200% from the year 2000. A lot of mortgages at the market peak involved fraud or lax credit standards. A lot of the buyers have little or no down payments and the small drops we have seen have caused a crisis.

Prices will drop at least 30% more so we have a long way to go.

Inflation and unemployment will be the driving forces for pushing prices lower. It's really sad but some people are just not able to pay the inflated prices they paid for homes. When the teaser rate ends they are in forclosure in a heart beat.

Bernanke credibility is on the line if he doesn't start to raise rates.

The lower dollar and higher international shipping costs are providing cover for domestic producers to raise prices.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aa8yym0Dfc00&refer=news

 

We've had low unemployment too.. Still do.

 

Anything below 6% is low.

 

I used the "Anything but Carter" scale myself.

 

Sure the average unemployment rate might be at 5 or 6% but what should also be considered is the fact that a lot of jobs are taken by illegal immigrants, as well as salaries have been stale for years while inflation is killing everybody. So the percentage means nothing when you have high cost of living all while you have been making the same amount of money for the past 5-10yrs. Some will call me a doom and gloomer I just call it as I see it. Things are bad and are getting worse by the day.

 

Speak for yourself. Some of us are doing quite well. And if you factor in all the illegals working, the unemployment rate would drop!!!

 

I'm not speaking for myself, I'm speaking for the rest of the people in this country. Unlike YOU, even though I am very, very well off, I still care about the rest of the people. You see, that's the problem, people like you that are arrogant, ignorant, selfish and missinformed, so long you are doing well you could care less for the rest of the world. Don't forget that whatever you might think you have can be gone in an instant. Learn to be more humble and caring and just because you and I are doing well that does not mean that the rest of the country is.

P.S. Let's not get into a pissing competition again, cause we all know where you stand.

 

No, I just happen to believe in taking personal responsibility for my life and my actions. Do that, and everything else will fall into place.

Not doing that? Well, that leads to your attitude which is one of the true arrogance, ignorance and selfishness.

The harder I work, the more people benefit. That means I hire more people, buy more services, contribute more tax revenue, and so on.

Seems you have selfish confused with selfless. Ignorance confused with innovation, and arrogance confused with integrity.

I'd expect no less given your past rants.

 

You sound bitter man...not to mention while you are quick to swap words you left no room for one important word that makes us human: COMPASSION! You are one cold individual. Not everybody is ohh so 'perfect' and 'smart' like you. God forbid you ever run into hard times, loose your arm or loose your business. What are you going to do than? You need to fall hard on your nose one of these days so you put your tail between your legs and realize that you are not as perfect or as strong as you might think. Try to be more humble next time and don't measure everyone else with your yard stick.

 

I've been up down and all around. I just never cried about it.

You have me confused with someone else. My American English is probably not coming across in a way you can understand. For that, I humbly apologize.

 

There you go again. One of these days, you will find what's coming to you, for arrogant, ignorant people like yourself its just a matter of time.

P.S. It's not your English that I don't understand it is your inability to have common sense.

 

The US has just started a recession and we are still in the 1st inning. We are already using up the bench with a 161 billion stimulus, 13 week unemployment extension and housing bailout. It's time to slow down.

Bernanke has let inflation get out of control. It seemed a good idea at the time to Bernanke to bail out Banks with a trillion dollars. But subprime and all the fraud in it are a bottomless whole that can suck up more money than he can print. Warren Buffett says if he were Bernanke 'I'd tender my resignation'

http://www.clackamasreview.com/us_world_news/story.php?story_id=MAR558542

 

Unfortunately all the signs of a recession are there, but it isn't just the USA that is in trouble.

The problems in the USA money markets have already filtered through to the UK being directly responsible for the current crisis with the Northern Rock building society.

The signs that there was trouble brewing in the USA have been there for a while. Impossible levels of national debt, an ever widening trade gap, a dollar that has fallen in value internationally by 20% in the last year....

The US president pulled a master stroke by creating a myth that there was a real danger from a little underdeveloped country on the other side of the world, and invaded it.

By doing so he was able to create millions of dollars worth of business for american firms that were facing difficulties due to the global downturn. None of them were owned by his family were they?

He also created a jingoistic patriotism that took attention away from the domestic problems.

Truly 9/11 was a godsend because it gave him the excuse to invade Iraq on the grounds of "fighting terrorism". It is hardly surprising that there are conspiracy theories suggesting that it was allowed to happen.

The fact that Iraq was totally hostile to Al Qeeda and was fighting terrorism itself seemed to get lost somewhere....

The problem is that because of the size of the USA economy, any difficulties there affect everyone globally.