This file has apparently been removed from the web site. Since it belonged to an investment company, they probably made them take it off.
 This pdf file from an investment firm has a lot of excellent charts showing what the credit bubble is all about and why it is far from over. It’s 75 pages but a very good read.
***link removed***
I’ve kind of stopped posting on here because of hostility from the real estate groupies.  But there is so much “un” truth being tossed around, I decided to at least start posting links again. I don’t know if any “real” people read this, but I hate to think the realtors “buy now before prices shoot up again” spiel is being bought by anyone. The country is in trouble and no one should buy a house thinking they can sell it for a profit. If you want to buy and can afford the payments and have money in the bank to cover the payments if you lose your job, then you should be OK. Otherwise buying now is a real gamble and could create major financial problems in the near future for those unprepared.
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Chrysler to shut down for 2 weeks in July
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/chrysler-shut-down-two-weeks/story.aspx?guid=%7BB6AC5A33%2D1C78%2D470A%2DBDF6%2DAD8B7D51E53B%7D&siteid=bnb
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Freddie Mac sees home prices falling further
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/ceo-says-freddie-mac-sees/story.aspx?guid=%7B4980245A-5B7E-4EA6-B68B-8119100162E4%7D
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U.S. regulators unveil plan to revamp mortgage rules
http://www.reuters.com/article/bankingFinancial/idUSN1225290820080313
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The Fed is delaying the day of reckoning
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5e9f14d6-f039-11dc-ba7c-0000779fd2ac,s01=1.html?nclick_check=1
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Most Economists in Survey Say Recession Is Here
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120534519452630845.html?mod=hpp_us_whats_news
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Dollar Slumps Below 96 Yen to 12-Year Low on Subprime Losses
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601083&sid=a9Z0lnYk3QBQ&refer=currency
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Bear fire sale sparks rout on eve of Fed rate cut
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN1650564120080317?pageNumber=4&virtualBrandChannel=0
Here is the link to the 60 minutes transcript and video. It four pages long, but worth reading. The last time I looked there were over 20 pages of comments also:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/01/25/60minutes/main3752515.shtml#
Kingman just hit the top of a list and not a good one, we’re a category 5. This is a list countrywide is using for lending criteria. The categories mean for loans:
For Countrywide Purchase Loans:
Soft Market Category 4-5 loans: Maximum financing will be reduced by 5%
Soft Market Category 1-3 loans: Maximum financing will be reduced by 5% if the appraisal or appraisal review indicates any of the following: Declining Market, Oversupply, Marketing time over 6 months.
For Countrywide Home Equity Loans:
Soft Market Category 5 loans: Maximum financing will be reduced by 10%
Soft Market Category 4 loans: Maximum financing will be reduced by 5%
Soft Market Category 1-3 loans: Maximum financing will be reduced by 5% if the appraisal or appraisal review indicates any of the following: Declining Market, Oversupply, Marketing time over 6 months.
Here is the complete chart:
https://www.cwbc.com/ContentManaged/files/SoftMarkets.pdf
Three pages long, but an interesting read:
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-shortsell20jan20,0,1815515.story?coll=la-home-center
How we cashed in before the housing crash
Friends thought he was nuts when a Times reporter sold his home and started to rent in 2005. But for him, the warning signs were just too hard to miss.
By Peter Y. Hong, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer January 20, 2008
Our friends said we were crazy. Relatives asked whether we were in financial trouble. But in April 2005, my wife and I bailed out of the American dream. We sold our two-bedroom Pasadena condominium and became renters again.
We got nearly three times what we had paid for the place nine years earlier. It seemed to us like a staggering profit — and a sign that the market had been pumped up beyond reason.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig8/whitney5.html
The Deflation Time Bomb
by Mike Whitney
Is there anyone who still does not understand that talk of ‘inflation’ by officialdom is just a red herring intended to distract us from the far more dangerous dragon of deflation?
~ Mike Shedlock, Mish’s Global Economic Trend Analysis
We are to about see how much George Bush really believes the “supply side†mumbo-jumbo he’s been spouting for the last seven years.
For those who think the banks were innocent bystanders and deserve to be bailed out:
http://money.cnn.com/2008/01/17/real_estate/wamu_lawsuit.moneymag/?postversion=2008011712
NEW YORK (Money) — A former real estate appraiser for Washington Mutual is suing the bank, claiming she was blacklisted last year for providing a housing market forecast that was too gloomy.
Jeniffer Wertz, who is seeking unspecified damages, says WaMu stopped accepting her appraisals in mid-2007 a month after she reported that her local housing market in California was “declining.”
For the Kingman realtors that think Kingman houses will gain value and/or stay at the current values, perhaps they should check out the SoCal market. Many areas of Socal are already less expensive than Mohave County and have further to fall.
http://www.dailybulletin.com/ci_7981286
I.E. home sales tumble
By Michael Rappaport, Staff Writer
Article Created: 01/15/2008 06:57:15 PM PST
December usually isn’t a bad month for home sales, but December 2007 was one for the books.
According to Tuesday’s monthly report from DataQuick Information Systems of La Jolla, only 13,240 new and resale homes and condominiums were sold in Southern California last month, the worst December on record by a wide margin.
Nearly 24 percent fewer homes sold last month than in December 1990, the previous worst.
The median price of a home in Southern California has dropped from $490,000 to $425,000 in the last year, with every one of the six counties in the region down by more than 10 percent.
San Bernardino County’s off 14.9percent to $315,000
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http://www.pe.com/business/local/stories/PE_News_Local_B_dataquick16.3537580.html
Region’s housing market stays in ‘midst of turbulence’
10:00 PM PST on Tuesday, January 15, 2008
By JACK KATZANEKThe Press-Enterprise
Home prices in Inland Southern California continued to fall in December, and sales numbers in Riverside and San Bernardino counties are down about 50 percent from where they were a year ago, DataQuick Information Systems reported.
The record highs were $432,000 in Riverside County and $380,000 in San Bernardino County, both set about a year ago. Five years ago, the median home in the Inland area sold for about $200,000.
And this statement from the article says it all:
Esmael Adibi, chief economist for Chapman University, said mortgage rates are looking favorable right now, but prices won’t start to rebound until the buyers come back to the table. Right now, Adibi said, most are not earning enough money to qualify.
And that is the problem, prices got out of control everywhere and it wasn’t a problem because no one was required to qualify for the loans. Now that banks are starting to act responsibly, prices will have to drop to a price that is affordable to buyers.
I’m going to try posting in the forum on this site once more. The link is on the left side of the page and anyone can register and reply to posts or start new posts. Since topix has become a play ground for an obnoxious aol poster, I would like somewhere to talk about Kingman/Golden Valley and what’s important to its residents. You do have to register and we will delete any improper posts and/or posters. Thanks. This should be the link…   http://www.mohave.net/blog/sf-forum
Commentary: Figure at least another 20% before families can afford to buy
By Dr. Irwin Kellner, MarketWatch
Last update: 11:23 p.m. EST Dec. 3, 2007
PORT WASHINGTON, N.Y. (MarketWatch) — Housing will revive when prices come down to the point where demand rises enough to reduce the huge supply of unsold homes now overhanging the market. That said, this point is a long way off.
Today, median home prices are 3.5 times the size of median annual family incomes. This may be down from the recent peak of 4.2 times incomes reached last year, but it’s way above the 2.8 times that home prices averaged during 1984-2000, when lots of homes were bought, sold and built.
And if you think 2.8 is low, check out the early 1970s. That was when home prices were only 2.3 times median family incomes, and housing was selling like gangbusters.
To get prices back to 2.8 times family incomes would require a drop of 20% from today’s levels – and this does not take into account interest rates and lending standards.
To equal the affordability of the early 1970s, prices would have to fall a whopping 38%.
Those who say such declines can’t happen are ignoring how fast home prices rose in the first half of this decade. In most parts of the country, housing prices doubled during this five-year period while incomes went up only a fraction as much.
Sellers could always hold the line and wait for family incomes to rise. But this clearly won’t happen overnight – and, besides, it’s a buyer’s market and no one wants to buy today knowing that prices might well be lower tomorrow.
After all, when it comes to housing prices, what matters most is not the cost of construction, nor what surrounding homes might be selling for.
Simply put, it’s affordability.
And until they are more affordable, houses won’t sell.
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