All Forum Posts by: Tracy Harmon

Using historical data, census bureau for income and NAR for housing prices, from 1968 to 1999, housing prices averaged 2.769 times yearly income. In 2006, housing prices were 4.566 times yearly income. Based on sound lending practices, the median home price today should be around 135,000, but it is currently 206,200 according to the NAR. That should give everybody some idea of where housing prices will go.

Some of your stories are pretty funny. We're not having any problem closing loans for truly qualified people. Most of you boys are too young to understand that the banking industry is just now going back to the way it's supposed to work. Given that it's obvious to them that appraisers were in the realtor's and morgage broker's pockets, you really can't blame them for being careful.

The essential thing that's happening is that it's finally becoming apparent that without a manufacturing base, WE DON'T HAVE A FUNCTIONING ECONOMY. Most lenders know this and are only going to loan to people who have a job that is stable.

Given that we now have a global economy, and we have no manufacturing, our standard of living will go down until we start making the things we use and start exporting, or until we're below average in the world economy.

Common sense isn't taught in college, but it still applies in the real world.

We aren't having problems getting loans for people that are actually qualified. You guys are maybe too young to remember how that works. The essential problem is that since we don't have a functioning economy with a manufacturing base, HARDLY ANYBODY IS QUALIFIED.

Since we don't make the things we use, our standard of living is going to keep going down until we're below average in the global economy. When the dollar drops enough, and the price of energy gets high enough, our country will hopefully get back to manufacturing, and exporting. Until then, we're not going to see an upturn in real estate values............unless we decide to just continue selling our country to foreigners. Course, it might be pretty painful when they decide to foreclose.

Wow, how ironic. The gang of bandits currently occupying the White House knew that the only way to make it appear the the US had a functioning economy was to make borrowing as easy as possible. Now they're going to investigate mortgage fraud. Sheesh. Makes me ashamed that I used to vote Republican.

swgprop is right on target. The bandits currently occupying the White House saw that the best way to make it appear that we have a functioning economy was to make borrowing as easy as possilbe.

Since the 70's our "economy" has consisted of running a national garage sale. We're just now seeing the tip of that day of reckoning iceberg.
(wow mixed metaphors or something).

Until we get back to making the things we use, and even exporting some of them, we're looking at a lowering of our standard of living until it equals out with the rest of the global economy.

Housing prices are way of of line given the wages of the average working Joe. Without manufacturing, the average Joe's wages will continue to shrink. Housing prices will continue to fall until Joe can afford a home, simple deal.

Even though common sense isn't taught in college, it's still part of the real world and still applies.

It's probably a good time to buy up rentals, if you can get em CHEAP, cause the markets going down for a few years still, and all those foreclosed on people are going to have to live somewhere.

Partially because of the lack of punctuation and convention grammar, nobody seems to addressed YSP's basic question which is "who sets the value of these homes?". This is the question that is at the heart of the mess that lenders and realtors and mortgage brokers and appraisers have collectively created. In the summer of 06 I was shocked to learn that appraisers wouldn't appraise a home without knowing the selling price. I'd been out of that end of the biz for a few years. Back in the day, appraisers were (as it states in every real estate course in the country), a "neutral third party who decides the real value of a property". Somewhere along the line, they became tools of unscrupulous realtors who would only give business to appriasers that came back with a value that they wanted. Also back in the day, a lender who got obviously cooked numbers would have declined the loan. But, with mortgage brokers, whose only motivation is to close loans in the mix,
and lenders who thought that if they had enough paperwork everything would be honky dory, nobody questioned this BS. Housing prices are so far beyond what the average wage earner gets that it's going to be a LONG *** TIME before home values go up.

Our economy since the 70's has consisted of a large garage sale where we sell our country to foreigners. We've scrapped our production capabilities which are at the heart of economic growth. When the price of imported goods gets so high that we can't afford them, which will happen as the dollar goes down in value, and other economies grow, we will start producing things again and experience real growth. Then, and only then will the housing market recover.

The "experts" all have a vested interest in making things look rosy, so listening to them is probably not a great idea. Common sense still applies, even though it isn't a college course.

They're spending that money by buying us.

I'm a bit confused as to why you would be optomistic about incomes increasing by 15% while commodities rose by over 100%. Maybe math is different in Sacramento. I'm guessing you voted for the current occupant of the White House. Good luck with that.

4%

Your realtor is an idiot