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Those who aspire to become homeowners are enjoying the falling home prices, while those of us ( mortgage payers ) who already own homes want to see home prices stay where they are, or go even higher.
Housing prices are just one part of the equation. What really matters is the ratio of income to housing prices, and the equation is out of balance.
If you take the average household in Grand Junction bringing in less than 35K a year, and compare that to houses selling for close to 200K, you'll see that our kids won't be able to afford to live here without the help of exotic mortgages or other tricks that won't be sustainable in the long term. The smart ones will move to places with better opportunities, and the ones who aren't so bright will stay here and spend 1/2 to 2/3 of their income on rent.
I really don't care whether house prices come down or wages go up, but dropping the house prices seems to be the lesser of two evils.
I'd much rather see wages go up then housing prices go down, but I'm not holding my breath. Getting a rasie out of a corporate entity is like drawing blood from a turnip.
Maybe not in nominal terms, but in real, inflation-adjusted terms, we very probably will see a correction that deep in places like CA, FL and AZ.
I will bet anything that prices in greater San Diego or the San Francisco Bay area will never correct to 33% of today's values. If that happens, I will be buying my retirement home in the Bay Area, somewhere down Santa Cruz. There are just too many people who would love to live there and with the ocean on one side and mountains on the other, there just is not enough room for the demand.
I see a further correction of 33% max or 66% of today's values.
It's not gonna correct to 33% of current values. What is reasonable? $150 per square foot? Looking at it on a global scale, the United States has some of the cheapest housing world wide and with this global economy, even if we can't afford to buy, foreign investors will jump in and buy.
Yep, try and buy a place in London or Tokyo. Hah! I am surprised that more Europeans aren't scarfing up some of the homes here, especially the way the Germans LOVE Florida and the wide open spaces. We've seen the big Belgian brewer recently buy Anheuser-Busch brewery, and I'm sure other deals may be working since the dollar is so weak right now.
There is excellent housing in the Briargate area of COL SPGS for $82 per sq ft and up, with tons in the $100 per sq ft range.
Of course, housing prices aren't everything....people coming here from Germany would have to pay for health care, pay for a car instead of using the outstanding German transit and rail systems, and so on.
You should go onto the Business & Investing forum. I'm telling you... that forum is doom and gloom central. I swear that half of the people on that board have this morbid desire to see our economy collapse.
I've seen it. I get depressed too easily reading the doom and gloom on that forum, so I tend to stay away from it. Even there, I don't get that anyone is taking satisfaction in someone elses suffering. In my mind, the doom and gloomers are maladjusted people who will not accept the way things are. They are stuck in the past ( the good ole days ) when things were more to their liking. I see them as misplaced ( in the sense of living in the wrong place and time ) dreamers, hoping things will revert back to the way they were. The current economic upheaval is giving them hope and keeping their dream alive!
You're damned right I'm nostalgic. I'm nostalgic for a time when borrowers behaved responsibly--borrowed money that they had some hope of repaying. I'm nostalgic for a time when every personal or corporate business decision was not based solely on greed, and ethics and honesty in business dealings was considered a positive quality. I'm nostalgic for a time when people lived within their means, and normal working people did not have to amass a balloon of debt to live an "acceptable lifestyle." I'm nostalgic for a responsible government that did not saddle unborn generations with a yoke of debt that they can not possibly bear. I'm nostalgic for a country that actually produced things of tangible value while conserving its irreplaceable natural and financial resources in a prudent manner. I'm nostalgic for a country where citizens took responsibility for their well-being, and the well-being of their neighbors, and where there was no perverse sense of entitlement and "It's all about me." I'm nostalgic for a country where that which nature created was revered and protected instead of destroyed at every turn just so we can "have a little more."
If wanting to see those things is "living in the wrong place and time" and "hoping things will revert back to the way they were," you're darned right I wish I could be living in the "right" place and time, or that things would revert back to the way they were. The sooner the better--the path we are on now has no future.
Exactly, what is wrong with nostalgia for days when we were not becoming so socialist (so quickly), for the time when Wal-Mart was proud to sell "Made in the USA" and when we paid for cable TV because it didn't have all those commercials? (Now we pay for cable and they stuff it chock full of commercials). It was not that long ago.
But the constituents from Kentucky and South Carolina should be very proud of Senator Bunning and Senator DeMint during recent hearings. Senator Bunning rips into Treasury Sec Paulson, and further exposes the evil that Paulson is. Senator DeMint proposes an end to Fannie and Freddie lobbying. Gotta admire his effort!
Check out these two videos where they adamantly stand up for the American taxpayer:
"Of course, housing prices aren't everything....people coming here from Germany would have to pay for health care, pay for a car instead of using the outstanding German transit and rail systems, and so on."
They also see the poor quality construction of our cardboard houses, high crime, a disintegrating society and less freedom and privacy than they enjoy in Germany.
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