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Ear to the Ground

Home Prices Plunge With No Bounce in Sight

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Posted on Dec 28, 2010
AP / J Pat Carter

October wasn’t a good month for sales of single-family homes in the U.S.—in fact, it was pretty dismal—and you know it’s bad when number-crunching economist types say there’s nothing good to say about not only the current moment but the foreseeable future as well.  —KA

The Washington Post:

The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller index, long considered a reliable gauge of the housing market’s health, reported Tuesday that prices of single-family homes dropped 1.3 percent in all 20 regions it tracks.

The housing market’s collapse crippled the economy, and a recovery in home prices is considered critical to getting the market back on track. But many economists predict that home prices will continue to fall into the new year and possibly beyond.

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By Prudy, June 20, 2011 at 5:44 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Wow, your post makes mine look fbeele. More power to you!

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By rav, December 30, 2010 at 5:31 am Link to this comment

When will the day come when people deal with people rather than always having to have some mediator like banks,“loans” to close deals.I guess banks are more trustworthy eh! wall street needs to quit smokin crak and turn to grass.

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By Conden, December 29, 2010 at 7:15 pm Link to this comment

Housing prices should go down, a lot—values have inflated beyond proportion and the means of most people over the past forty years.  Housing should be cheap, housing is a human right, and something practical—it shouldn’t be a way for people to make money.  There are homeless people and empty homes; so no, the houses shouldn’t shoot back to 450,000 again.

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By Textynn, December 29, 2010 at 5:21 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

We now need lawyers to assist people buying homes. If I ever buy another home or property, I will not sign any contracts with the banks without going through a lawyer that I trust. 

I am not signing anything until the entire contract is looked over by a lawyer that deals with finances.

The financial elite are running the White House and there will be nothing but outrageous, in your face, usury and theft of the people from here on out until things change.  Which as we all know, Obama’s change translate into “as much theft from working people as humanly possible with no accountability.”

The banks will never change and the people are no longer represented, therefore WE are going to have to change and this means avoiding doing anything that means using banks whenever humanly possible.  People must no longer operate as if the banks are trustworthy businesses. The banks are as dangerous as dealing with the mafia, more so because they are ABOVE the law. 

People need to sue the banks, avoid doing business with them, bank in a home safe, hire lawyers to deal with them, refuse the use of credit cards, and most importantly, we need to create new businesses that help us avoid using their services.  We must make sure that the banks are not running THESE services.  The banks have captured us in a snare like a spider’s web and they have no problem with popping off our heads and drinking our blood.

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By bogi666, December 29, 2010 at 2:36 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

skimohawk, the banksters already have it covered as many loans are guaranteed by the government to the lender. The banksters make money when a house goes into foreclosure, and also make money in the stock market. When stock go up the banks investment arms collude with each other to drive stock prices up and then buy options, puts, that the stock prices will go down and they collude to drive stock prices down after making up on the upswing. By forcing foreclosures it ensures that the stock prices will go down and the investment banksters can engineer the stock prices.

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By Anarcissie, December 29, 2010 at 11:50 am Link to this comment

I am somewhat disturbed by the statement, ‘The housing market’s collapse crippled the economy, and a recovery in home prices is considered critical to getting the market back on track.’  The housing market collapsed because it was vastly overpriced and overbuilt, especially with respect to the declining fortunes of most Americans.  The preceding inflation of real estate was a consequence of the low-to-zero interest rates set by the Federal government in an effort to keep the economy going.  This market probably cannot be gotten back ‘on track’, but if it could, that would simply lead to another collapse, because the track had no ground under it—no basis.  People need to come to grips with the fact that the days of high living on funny money are over, except of course for the financial industry; and their happy hour is not going to last very much longer, either.

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By Inherit The Wind, December 28, 2010 at 11:56 pm Link to this comment

rico, suave, December 29 at 12:04 am Link to this comment

This has to be good news for somebody, doesn’t it? Like home buyers?
********************

Only under ideal conditions.  But with homes for sale and falling prices, and 10% unemployment, and NOW affordable mortgages hard to come by, and the realization that VERY quickly you’ll be upside down…this ain’t a good thing.

Do you realize that about 1/3 of all home sales now are foreclosure sales?  And that foreclosure venture buyers are bottom feeding solely to flip them for a STILL low price?

Think it through.

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By G.Anderson, December 28, 2010 at 9:59 pm Link to this comment

In terms of housing, prices are heading for 1970 levels so we still have a way to go.

Even then, few will buy, except those wanting to invest, from Austrailia and elsewhere…

However, their hopes that the housing market will return, will not be realized, in our lifetime if ever…

The continued collapse of housing, will strain the budgest, of states like Calfornia past the breaking point..

When the next banking crisis happens, unless the government begins to deal with the real issues of debt, then there will be no hope..

Some have already touted the idea of a public debt Jubilee, this would be a mistake…

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By skimohawk, December 28, 2010 at 8:37 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

This is news?
I accurately predicted the collapse of the housing bubble two years before it happened.
The houses simply were not worth the prices they were being sold ( and re-sold ) at.
It matters not how many people are willing to say a dollar is worth five dollars- it’s still only worth a dollar.
When real wages ( adjusted for inflation ) have actually gone down over the last two decades, how can housing values triple or quadruple over the same course of time?
When the house prices drop down to what the houses are actually WORTH, as opposed to what “assessed value” or “market price” might be, this calamity will come to an end.
In the meantime, those who got caught up in it will be stuck paying two or three times the actual value of their home, and those speculators who got caught up in it toward the end will hopefully lose their collective asses.
But don’t think for a minute the banks or lending instutions are going to absorb any loss- they’ll figure out some way to get the US taxpayer to pony up whatever loss they would have otherwise had to eat.

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By Gmonst, December 28, 2010 at 7:23 pm Link to this comment

Not if prices are expected to keep falling.  That’s not good for anyone.

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rico, suave's avatar

By rico, suave, December 28, 2010 at 7:04 pm Link to this comment

This has to be good news for somebody, doesn’t it? Like home buyers?

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By Jake, December 28, 2010 at 5:46 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Dunno what the Wall street is smoking? It is abundantly clear that Main street is getting smoked…

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