Appraisers' Free Forum

How about a forum for breaking news? In the current economy most of that stuff is going to be about the housing bubble or credit crunch, but I would not name the forum after those things unless you want to come back in a few months, quarters, or years (depending on how it all plays out) and rename it "hot market" or something of the such.... Maybe just call it "Current Economic News" or something like that?

Good idea! I did it, and I moved your posts from General Appraisal Matters into it.

I was wondering who was going to be the first one to say, "housing bubble."

I really wish I could read some of the posts from the other place...I'll bet the resident bubble heads are claiming they knew it was going to unfold this way all along.

I remember some of the nonsense from back then, "Katrina's gonna be the tipping point," or from 2003 - "home values are going to fall 50-80%."

The 'spin doctors' have gotta be working overtime. The CO foreclosure reporter must be having a field day the one who reported the numbers only when they were up...not when they were down.

What are you guys talking about?

edd gillespie wrote:What are you guys talking about?

Oooooooh...just ignore me.

I saw "housing bubble" and had a knee-jerk reaction...a flashback if you will.

Yeah, so where is that 3rd Qtr recession all the bubble heads were predicting? I still don't think we're out of the woods... but, it certainly isn't the end of the world, as described in the housing bubble thread.

We are adjusting for something. So far the only thing that has strong evidence is that people who got exotic loans they couldn't and can't afford are being foreclosd on. Seems there is some evidence that a few housing markets are declining for one or more of the following reasons: general overheating, overbuilding and/or unemployment.

A good subject would be, "What does it take to create infectious hysteria in the media?"

Media hysteria is indeed part of the problem. I continuously debunked the bubble heads on the other forum, but also recognized that we have a genuine problem. Here's some info:

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/In ... spx?page=1

So bad, perhaps, that someone will blurt out the message Wall Street doesn't want you to hear: "The worst isn't over."

And that, Wall Street fears, would be enough to spook the debt markets again and remove any hope that the big investment banks that created this mess will be able to dance their way out of it.

And on the home builder's side of things:

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/In ... spx?page=1

This time, mortgage rates have already started out really cheap by comparison, at around 6.4%, or about where they bottomed in 1990. So even if the Fed cuts by another percentage point, mortgage rates are still only likely to hit 5.5%, a level unlikely to coax out more latent demand.

And, this is my real concern. It seems that, in the housing markets, things may not get back to "the good old days" for a number of years. Or, as one of my friends used to say, "We'll never vo-dee-oh-do like we vo-dee-oh-doed before."