AE … 3. Housing affordalbility vs multiples of income. How much has the cost of housing risen since 1999? vs How much has income risen?
There would have been no housing bubble if not for the so-called “loose lending programs” … which are undermining our economy at this time.

Tc, you shouldn’t believe all that the MSM and Benny & the Feds tell you (-;

1. “general inflation” (currently running at well over 10 % if measured like it was measured before Bush, Clinton, Bush et al started tweaking the measures for political reasons) is already pulling the housing affordability carpet from under potential buyers’ feet

2. Why would a lower USD (versus commodities, gold, etc.) automatically spark price rises in a (real estate) market that is suffering from a both a severe and chronic oversupply and financial demand constraints, especially given 1. ?

I’m not real worried about all these “deals” going anywhere. If we were to have a rise in interest rates, [Which looks as likely as Yun admitting that housing has a long way to fall at this point.]housing prices would have to fall further to compensate- otherwise no one is buying.

I’m not only on the sidelines, I’m sitting here with a few good books, my Ipod, and a big bag of Cheetos. I’ll be sitting here awhile.

Who is to say to interest rates can’t go lower? Wall Street is already factoring in another 1/4 point drop in early December, and there’s lots of that below.

Some say that Bernanke will lower rates back to 1% if he has to, or even the 0%-level that Japan enjoyed for so many years.

Who knows? I’ve long since stopped trying to use “logic” when it comes to these people’s decisions; they certainly don’t!

BTW even if rates went as low as 1% again, or even 0%, it wouldn’t help the housing market – history shows it had no effect on housing in Japan, for example.

The scary part is not the median price, it’s the number of houses sold. Even at the lower median price, they only managed to sell less than 30 percent as many houses as in 2004.

But how far down can they go before a crippled dollar and general inflation take them sky high again? At this point I would be buying while deals and mortgages at low interest rates can be had (*can* mortgages still be had?)

BTW, my anti-spam word to post this comment is “plummet”–now that’s applicable!

Vist “Overcoming Real Estate Losses” at http://WhineCountryRealEstate.blogspot.com/

Personally, while this isn’t something I’m bragging about, if I bought with 0 down & my home dropped 10%+ in value, I’d dump it on the bank.

That’s why I won’t listen to any GDP growth stories for next year. You can’t make me believe all those future FC won’t have a real impact on our economy.