[mattb]

and here it is the super mansion!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 01445.html

[Leanan]

Insane. 14,000 square feet for a house? Rooms you never even furnish, let alone use?

This reminds of all those huge mansions built around the turn of the last century. Most of them are now either gone or are historic sites, used as museums, because the owners couldn't afford to maintain them.

[Revi]

A lot of them are going to be returned to the bank. Even around here there are a lot of large homes that people are buying on interest only mortgages. That means that they will have no equity and are only paying interest. If they don't go up in value these people have no incentive to continue paying. They'll turn the deed in to the bank and go live in a trailer.

[Leanan]

Money thinks the cooling real estate market could cause some suffering this winter:

Feeling the Pain

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'H')ere's what consumers can look forward to when the midnight bell-ringing comes to a stop: sharply higher home heating bills, holiday credit card bills, rising interest rates -- and now what looks like a slowing real estate market.

...Although he doesn't expect consumers will buckle over the holidays -- he's predicting a "decent" season with total sales up about 5.5 to 6 percent overall -- watch out for the post-holiday blues, when people realize that they're poorer in the new year than they were a year ago.

[shortonoil]

.

The reason for the end of the housing bubble and the ridicules monster home is summed up very well in this article.


http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_05 ... 11805.html


Like the estates along the Hudson that were built in the 20’s and 30’s by aspiring entrepreneurs, many of these modern day leviathans will one day soon be empty, window broken relics of a era of insane conspicuous consumption, that the planet couldn’t afford.

.

[Revi]

I don't think that a small, well insulated house will lose value. All those people who lose their mc mansions will have to live somewhere. There are lots of houses in small towns that can be purchased for reasonable prices still. They are more like 1200 square feet and have regular sized rooms. They can be heated without bankrupting their owners. They come with enough land to grow a garden or a lawn that you can mow in a few minutes with a push mower. They were a great place to grow up back in the early days of the last century. We're going to be back there, energy wise, soon. The Mc Mansions up on the hills, miles out of town will turn into the houses of the poorest of the poor, and eventually be abandoned.

[Leanan]

I dunno. In the Depression, all houses lost value, not just the large ones. I suspect it's city housing that will hold its value best. Poor people who were left behind in the rush for suburbia may now be kicked out by people rushing back to the cities.

Of course, if you have a small house, you have a better chance of having it fully paid for, in which case you don't have to worry about its value.

I have a friend who is trying to sell her small older home now. (I told her to sell sooner, but she insisted on fixing it up first.) I don't think she's going to get what she's asking. There are 400 homes for sale in the same price range in her neighborhood. No one wants older homes these days, because they are not as energy-efficient.

[Revi]

Small older homes can be made almost as energy efficient as anything built in the 1960's. They weren't thinking of saving energy back then. It is hard to insulate an older home. Practically the only time is when putting new siding on. You can add a layer of insulation to the outside shell. Or have that stuff pumped into the walls.

I think that older houses in walkable neighborhoods will get a second look. People have to live somewhere. They need to be closer to their work. Work is in the towns. They'll move. I was talking to a guy who was spending $130 a week commuting from 40 miles away. He moved to town. People will get it.

[Leanan]

Yes, I think people will move closer to the cities, at least temporarily. But that will likely mean apartments and condos rather than houses. At least, most of the houses in my city have split into smaller apartments.

People do have to live somewhere...but that doesn't mean they have to buy a house. There's room for a lot of demand destruction, IMO. In other countries, you'll have families of a dozen or more, living in one small apartment. Here, we have laws setting limits on the number of people who can live in a residence. I suspect those will be rescinded pretty quickly when TSHTF, or at least widely ignored.

What do people do when they lose their jobs, can't afford to commute, or lose their houses? They don't buy a smaller house. They move in with friends and family. (I already know some people who are renting rooms from coworkers and only going home on the weekends.)

As it always is with real estate, what's important is location, location, location. Large houses can become multi-family units, if they are in a convenient location...and I suspect many of them will.

[Revi]

I think you may be right, Leanan. People will lose their Mc Mansion and won't have the credit or foresight to buy anything smaller. There are still lots of nice houses here in my town that go for around $70,000. That's not the case everywhere. I think you are right about the big houses getting chopped into smaller apartments. I see it happening already. The really poor are already being evicted. It's sad. Where are they going to go?

[Tanada]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Revi', 'I') think you may be right, Leanan. People will lose their Mc Mansion and won't have the credit or foresight to buy anything smaller. There are still lots of nice houses here in my town that go for around $70,000. That's not the case everywhere. I think you are right about the big houses getting chopped into smaller apartments. I see it happening already. The really poor are already being evicted. It's sad. Where are they going to go?

[Leanan]

There are even some advantages. A friend of mine remembers living in a traditional Italian-style house when she was a kid. You know, grandma on the first floor, daughter on the 2nd floor, granddaughter on the top floor. Her mother hated it, because she felt she had no privacy. But my friend loved it. She felt like she had a half-dozen parents, instead of just two. There was always someone around to take care of her, lend a sympathetic ear, etc.

Historically speaking, that is the "natural" human family - the extended family, not the nuclear family touted by the "family values" crowd.

[Leanan]

Mortgage delinquencies seen rising in 2006

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')b]Report: High-cost loan owners will struggle with interest rates, debt

Mortgage delinquencies among homeowners with high-cost loans will rise by 10 to 15 percent in 2006, as borrowers struggle with higher interest rates, high debt levels and higher energy costs amid flattening home prices, a new report from investment analyst Fitch Ratings predicts. Consequently, overall mortgage delinquencies are likely to rise next year, as well, according to the report's authors.

[auscanman]

I found this delightful article on green mansions today on Yahoo! Canada.

Just shows how totally deluded we are, and that no real change whatsoever is going to be made. People will adamantly refuse to sacrifice their standard of living, or move to a smaller home. The energy savings that could be made by downsizing their home to a more reasonable size would surely reduce energy consumption more than one of these 'green mansions' would.

Golden rule of trying to get the consumabots to do anything these days... ensure it involves no personal sacrifice whatsoever.

[Lore]

Had we only been inspired many years ago to follow the lead of Paolo Soleri's vision of arcology and Arcosanti.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')n arcology is a hyperdense city designed to maximize human interaction; maximize access to shared, cost-effective infrastructural services like water and sewage; minimize the use of energy, raw materials and land; reduce waste and environmental pollution; and allow interaction with the surrounding natural environment. Arcosanti is the prototype of the desert arcology.

[billg]

I believe Soleri's primary building material is concrete, which is very high in embodied energy. Nevertheless, I have been fascinated by Arcosanti ever since I saw a former resident's slide show presentation about it.

-bill

[Lore]

His work should really be put into a time capsule as an architectural road map for the post apocalyptic generations, if any. At least we could say that we screwed things up, but left you with this gift for starting over; please don’t repeat the same mistakes.

[LaLaLand]

I'm not sure if anyone linked to this site already. If so... Sorry.


http://ml-implode.com/


This is a good site to track the mortgage and credit markets.

[alokin]

It's maybe not depletion economics, more the revenge of an extremely imbalanced society were the difference between rich and poor gets bigger and bigger. This is an article about a group burning villas and SUV's in the US (in German): spiegel

How many of the US citizens feel sympathy for them, 50% or more?