Housing Doom Housing Bubble Blog

Many thanks to L, who as always brings us some of our best links.

This video on debt in America is pretty sobering.  It’s also on the long side- but it’s worth a look.

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Usually M and I look at the previous months numbers on the first day of the month- but I’ve been anxious to see these figures since the first week in August.  ARMLS will release their official numbers generally on the 15th of the month. We couldn’t bring ourselves to wait, and so here’s what M says:

As of this morning we had 3,176 sales for September.  Obviously, there will be no official closings on the weekend but there may be a few more that trickle in because a few agents entered the 29-30th as COE.  This will leave Phoenix with a 18 month supply of homes (57,441 active).  In addition,  September has seen one of the largest monthly drops in value on a cost/sf basis. 
 
It believe the rush to close deals in August sucked a lot of sales from September.

If we assume that sales come in at 3250 to allow for latecomers, that would be a drop of 25% month-to-month and a whopping 46% year-over-year.

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Yesterday the San Jose Mercury News highlighted a growing problem- renters who have to find new housing when their landlords lose the property to foreclosure:

With foreclosures at near-record levels in Silicon Valley and elsewhere, Wright is one of many tenants who this year will find themselves suddenly scrambling to find new rentals because their landlords lost their properties to foreclosure. In nearly all cases, renters of residential houses, condos or duplexes must vacate a property after it’s been foreclosed upon and a new owner - be it a bank or an individual - takes possession.

Nearly 9,500 California properties were sold in foreclosure auctions in August, according to ForeclosureRadar.com. Of those, 44 percent were not owner-occupied, the company said.

How long renters have to vacate the property varies.  According to the Mercury News:

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According to Yahoo Finance this afternoon: [Thanks L!]

WASHINGTON (AP) — NetBank Inc., an online bank with $2.5 billion in assets, was shut down by the government on Friday because of an excessive level of mortgage defaults.

It was the largest savings and loan failure since the tail end of the industry’s crisis more than 14 years ago. Federal regulators appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. as a receiver for Alpharetta, Ga.-based NetBank.

So what’s the difference between this one and the rest of the list at Implode-o-meter?

While dozens of mortgage companies have closed due to soaring defaults of home loans made to borrowers with weak, or subprime, credit, those problems previously had occurred among non-bank lenders such as New Century Financial Corp. NetBank, in contrast, is federally regulated.

As for customers:

"Customers of NetBank should have confidence and security knowing that they will have access to their insured funds in a timely and orderly manner," FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair said in a prepared statement.

The FDIC insures bank deposits of up to $100,000.

I had thought we were through with Jim Cramer videos- but when he’s this bearish, I just can’t resist:

We’re also up for whatever you might have to share with us as well, links, videos, thoughts, whatever.

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Foreign central banks were net buyers of US obligations in the week ending September 26. A modest selloff of treasuries (following on last week’s huge purchasing) was more than offset by a continuing fairly healthy buy of agencies.

Once again thanks go to Twist for the updated chart and graph.

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Maybe some 97 new homes in Casa Grande and Maricopa will finally find owners when they go on the auction block October 14th.  The reserve is not being disclosed, but prices are starting at $41/sq. ft.: [Thank you L for the heads up!]

These homes have a storied past.  According to a March article in Casa Grande’s TriValley Central:

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Here are a few of this mornings new home sales headlines: [Thanks L!]

New-home sales plunge 8.3% to seven-year low [Marketwatch]

New-Homes Sales Tumble in August to Lowest Level in 7 Years [AP]

August new homes sales fall more than expected [Reuters]

To which Doom replies, "Wait until you see Septembers figures!"  But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.  According to AP:

WASHINGTON (AP) — New-homes sales tumbled in August to the lowest level in seven years, a stark sign that the credit crunch is aggravating an already painful housing slump.

Sales of new homes dropped by 8.3 percent in August from July, the Commerce Department reported Thursday, driving down sales to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 795,000 units. That was the lowest level since June 2000, when sales clocked in at a pace of 793,000.

[It was kind of tempting to slap a trend line on that, but I think it’s pretty obvious]

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I’ve indexed this one under "Housing Bubble" and "Realtors", as we don’t have a "Fantasy" catagory:

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Many thanks to our Santa Cruz reader that told us about Countrywide’s new policy.  No more paper statements.  If you want to check your account and you don’t have internet access, well… [Hyperlinks on ad are not functional.]

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