by shortonoil » Thu 12 Jul 2007, 12:27:06
AirlinePilot said:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'J')ust for data's sake, I'm in a more affluent suburb of Atlanta and home prices here vary a god bit. I'm in an upper middle class neighborhood and have seen very little shrinkage in home value. I have not seen any sort of value "crash" here or nearby yet either. Home sales are taking longer by a good bit, but values are not off significantly yet here.
I see a lot of talk about the fed, the subprime crisis and the obvious US debt/credit crunch, but the news doesn't seem to back any of this up. Just today CNBC is talking about how positive things are.
It's amazing. We potentially are on the verge of serious energy issues and a possible giant recession, but everyone is just whistling along like there isn't a problem. Yikes.
It is true that home prices have not declined equally across the nation. Some areas like California and Florida have been decimated. It does not appear to have anything to do with the affluence of the area. In my area, which is very affluent being the retirement center for the nation’s DC made millionaires, property values and sales have totally collapsed. Growth here in the last six years has been absurd, to say the least. It seems to have more to do with the amount of growth that occurred in an area, before the unwinding started.
But, in time this devaluation of property values will spread to other areas. One main reason will be that lending institutions will have to raise rates to compensate for the $trillions that will soon be lost in the subprime debacle. A one percent increase in mortgage rates, eventually, reduce housing values by about 10%. As interest rates go up, property values go down.
Every one is whistling along because the Media is not addressing this situation, just like it is not addressing is compatriot, Peak Oil. In both the oil industry and housing and mortgage industries, there are vast sums of money to be lost if the public becomes too keenly aware, too soon. The majors, in both, will have done everything possible to have covered their butts, before the final finale is announced.