[olecapt]

Originally Posted by bumpercar

The fact that prices haven't reverted to their mean *yet* is evidence of nothing. You're continuing folly is comparing a few years of price movement to a lifetime of price trends. Indeed it's always possible that prices here have permanently adjusted higher but there's no way to know that until after the fact. It's just as likely for prices in LA, SF, or Europe to permanently adjust lower as it is for LV to have permanently adjusted higher In other words, not very likely. In the absence of any evidence to the contrary I will trust history over myopia, theories, and vested self-interest.

Land in the desert is scarce? I almost blew milk out my nose when I read that. You're drunk on BLM-flavored Kool Aid.

And you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. Expensive BLM land is absolutely interchangeable with no land at all. Some of you lack the intellectual capablility to understand the obvious.

The price trends in the area are those of CA. That is how it is. Get over it.

The present trend in pricing is to flat...a plateau. And the liklihood is that it will go up in the not distant future. Maybe not in the spring of 2008...but it is not going down a lot either.

While a set of jerks continues to try and get their theory to work reality intrudes. Prices are not going down at any fast rate and may even level by spring if present trends continue.

The impact, and there will be impact, of the Bank self off is not yet knowable. But it has not, as of now, tilted the market lower. Will the REPOs drag the overall price down? Maybe. Or will the non-REPOs continue to hold their ground and stabilize the price as the cheap REPOs are burned off? We will see.

It will be an interesting year. Mostly we will find out that all of the theorists are wrong...and it comes out some other way.

[bumpercar]

Originally Posted by olecapt

And you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. Expensive BLM land is absolutely interchangeable with no land at all. Some of you lack the intellectual capablility to understand the obvious.

Yes, we're all aware of how much the BLM tries to get for the land. That much is obvious. What may be less obvious is that ultimately the market sets the price for the land, not the government. According to the failed bidless BLM auctions the market says we're well-supplied. If a future cycle squeezes land supply both parties will resume transacting business to keep the market well-supplied.

Originally Posted by olecapt

The price trends in the area are those of CA. That is how it is. Get over it.

If that were true the average house in Las Vegas would sell for $300-$400 sqft. It doesn't. Please provide data that correlates the long-term price trends of LA and Las Vegas.

Originally Posted by olecapt

The present trend in pricing is to flat...a plateau.

The intermediate trend has been down. Month-month is noise. Historically real estate prices move s-l-o-w-l-y, esp. when they move down. People are intransigent. They hate to sell for a loss. That's partly why new home prices correct faster then existing homes. Regardless, even a plateauing market is a down market because inflation is running north of 4%. As I've said in previous posts it's unquestionable that home prices will go down in real terms. How much they go down in nominal terms is partially a function of how much inflation the Fed injects into the market.

Originally Posted by olecapt

And the liklihood is that it will go up in the not distant future. Maybe not in the spring of 2008...but it is not going down a lot either.

What's your basis for this opinion? Fundamental reasons? Are you a shot-term chartist?

Originally Posted by olecapt

Prices are not going down at any fast rate and may even level by spring if present trends continue.

The impact, and there will be impact, of the Bank self off is not yet knowable. But it has not, as of now, tilted the market lower. Will the REPOs drag the overall price down? Maybe. Or will the non-REPOs continue to hold their ground and stabilize the price as the cheap REPOs are burned off? We will see.

I think we differ as to what a REPO represents. I think you perceive it as an exceptional force that has its own gravity and is distinct from the market. I perceive it as a market-driven price-correction process. In the very short term, yes, REPOs can have an undue influences on prices. In the intermediate term they are sometimes the best markers for the true market price, esp. when non-REPO volume dries up.

Originally Posted by olecapt

While a set of jerks continues to try and get their theory to work reality intrudes.

Let's let forum participants decide who's working with reality here.

[dude66]

"The one thing I can tell about you Realtors is that you're all liars," said Joseph Anfuso, president of Florsheim Homes, a builder in California's Central Valley. Anfuso told agents during a Wednesday real estate conference at the University of San Diego that they need to stop inflating or hiding sales numbers and swallow a hard dose of reality on their cash flow if they expect to remain in business as sales continue to plummet.

[dude66]

I think the real estate optimists are trapped in their own little local Vegas bubble. Can't really blame them. We all tend to focus on the trees around us, not the larger forest. What they fail to see is the larger financial picture emerging across the globe as the credit crisis worsens -- one expert says: "A financial tsunami is upon us".

Among other interesting ideas raised by [Harry] Schultz in his intense, somewhat terrifying introduction: recession, possibly depression; bank failures; exchange controls; housing prices down by 50%; credit card company failures; money market fund dangers; tripling of U.S. jobless numbers; federal bail-outs for Fannie Mae.

His advice, translated out of his shorthand style: "If you have not already done so, take immediate measures to safeguard your assets against the global derivative crisis ... Most urgent is close out time deposits, buy non-U.S. government bonds."

In other words, Schultz is saying the U.S. banking system is threatened. How's that for a Christmas greeting?
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/stor...66821FC09AB%7D

[Eric Young]

Anyone can find "sources" to quote in support of any position they may have...you can quote people that claim the moon walk of July, 1969 was staged, if that's what will float your boat.

Personally, I'll pass on Dude's sources.

Joseph Anfuso is no Bob Toll - he's been with Florsheim Homes all of a year. And how big a player is Florshiem? Hmmm...they sold a total of 114 homes in 2006 - before the market tanked.

MarketWatch has also described Harry Schulz as "famously self-promoting, not to say megalomaniacal...for quite a long time, for example, Shultz insisted on being called "Sir Harry" because, he said, he'd been knighted by an obscure authority that no one had heard of." Not quite calling him insane, but not exactly a glowing reference, either.

I'm not saying either of these guys are wrong - only that they do not possess the credentials to justify being swayed by their pronouncements.

[olecapt]

Originally Posted by dude66

"The one thing I can tell about you Realtors is that you're all liars," said Joseph Anfuso, president of Florsheim Homes, a builder in California's Central Valley. Anfuso told agents during a Wednesday real estate conference at the University of San Diego that they need to stop inflating or hiding sales numbers and swallow a hard dose of reality on their cash flow if they expect to remain in business as sales continue to plummet.

Like Joe do you? How about...

Joe Anfuso, president and chief executive officer of Stockton-based Florsheim Homes, said that although lower interest rates will be a positive force when the residential market settles down, they aren't affecting the new home-sales market at all now.

Actually, pricing isn't either, he said.

It's "buyers' psychology," which continues to be negative about home buying so long as prices continue to drop, he said.

"It's really more the fear of: If I'm buying today, are prices going down tomorrow?" Anfuso said. "There's no sense of urgency."


Hey Bumpercar...take a look at...

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/b...13outlook.html

The comments have the same discussion in the San Diego context.

[gulfer]

Hmmmm....what about this??

If a were a realtor and was getting 3% of a 300,000 = 9K and couldn't sell a home why wouldn't I want that same home to go for 200,000 and get 3% of that for 6K. It's about volume.
You have to look at the people that own these homes. It was mentioned earlier, someone who in a sense had built up 150K in equity now see it at 50K. 100K loss on paper has to be hard to swallow, so they keep the price high and keep it on the market in hopes that it will sell.
Historically nothing returns (some exceptions) to normal or below. Cars, gas, milk, cigarettes, even your kids allowance. Try giving them a couple of bucks like you used to get (that got you thru the week).
While I only wish that prices would go back to the 2000 level I am a realist and understand that it not only won't, but just about can't.

[BagongBuhay]

As an outsider (and only having an interest in this thread as FIL lives there!), I find this thread very interesting and intelligent.

I will keep following, if just to enjoy, and see where LV is really headed in the RE arena.

[dude66]

Originally Posted by Eric Young

Anyone can find "sources" to quote in support of any position they may have...you can quote people that claim the moon walk of July, 1969 was staged, if that's what will float your boat.

Personally, I'll pass on Dude's sources.

I'm not saying either of these guys are wrong - only that they do not possess the credentials to justify being swayed by their pronouncements.

Yada yada. How about Alan Greenspan? Does he measure up?

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. economy is showing early signs of stagflation as growth threatens to stall while food and energy prices soar, former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said on Sunday.

In an interview on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos," Greenspan said low inflation was a major contributor to economic growth and prices must be held in check.

"We are beginning to get not stagflation, but the early symptoms of it," Greenspan said.

"The real story is, with the extraordinary credit problems we're confronting, why the probabilities (of recession) are not 60 percent or 70 percent," he said.

Greenspan said real estate prices will stabilize only when the overhang of unsold new-construction homes begins to ease, and estimated that financial losses could be in the range of $200 billion to $400 billion as securities tied to failing subprime mortgages lose value.

http://www.reuters.com/article/bankingFinancial/idUSN1636789220071217?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandCha nnel=0 (broken link)

[Eric Young]

Yes, Greenspan measures up.

He's also not saying anything that even resembles the comments made by the sources you cited in your previous post.