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Homebuilder Confidence Plunges To 6 Month Low, Puts Housing "Recovery" Meme In Jeopardy
For the fourth month in a row, NAHB's sentiment index missed expectations. With 'real' data on the housing recovery beginning to fade, we now see confidence in the sustainability of the 'recovery' starting to fade. Today's NAHB print is the lowest in six months and is the fastest 3-month drop since June 2011.
Which raises the question - was it all anothe headfake?
Goldman:
The NAHB housing market index unexpectedly declined to 42 in April (vs consensus 45), from 44 in March. By component, homebuilders' assessment of current sales fell 2pt to 45, and traffic of prospective buyers declined 4pt to 30. However, expectations about future sales improved by 3pt to 53. The housing market index declined across all four regions of the United States, but fell most in the Midwest. Although up a solid 18pt over the past year, the index has weakened by 5pt since January, a potential source of concern for the near-term starts outlook.
Charts: Bloomberg
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Green sharts, bitchez.
Awesome!
Here is Hope you can Change your address with the efficient Post Office before they foreclose on that McMansion with fries.
48 million Americans on food stamps and yet the country is in recovery. Now, all we have to do is pump home prices and rents through the roof. That way we'll have complete restoration of the American dream- To live in debt servitude to the criminal banking syndicate.
Just don't ever fucking raise wages equal to/faster than inflation! Who the fuck knows what would happen then!!
HUFFING AND PUFFING IS WHAT BITCHEZ DO!
The real question is "do wages matter?" I see lots of construction of mansions for the robber barrons and public housing for the ignorant peasants. Middle class blue-collar homes, not so much.
No shortage of new construction on Palm Beach Island, and Jupiter Island.
Elsewhere around here, not so much.
Think of it this way. It's going to be much easier to find those robber barrons in the future. Just look for the island gated communities with all the mansions. Now about those supply lines...
Think they are already breaking LoP.
The paper markets bear no resemblance to reality at this point.
Nobody is selling at the paper price.
We all know what comes next: War.
Yeah, I was telling my wife the other day about how many people are going to come to regret driving around in "fancy" vehicles: I drive an extremely ubiquitous, and OLD (23-years-old) econo-car (which is well maintained on the inside). Nothing says "target" like a fucking Hummer... (of course, the bulk of these people are probably in over their eyeballs in debt)
And our house is pretty much average where we're at (maybe below? average in general). Meanwhile someone up the street has a huge McMansion (the property taxes are insanely high).
It comes down to the requirements for when you go off hiking in bear territory- you don't have to outrun the bear, you just have to outrun the person you're with.
The meek shall inherit the earth. Deception is nature's best means of operation.
Hide in plain sight.
Have one client that you will never see on the Forbes list,but he should be.
Modest house, not ostentatous like my other billionaire clients.
Actually a nice guy ,where the others are arrogant pricks most of the time.
godfairy beanie, more coloured paper please
Not to worry, Ben can fix this. It's almost POMO time! Get ready for a $5B injection in the rear from Mr. Bernanke.
Are you guys ready for the 10:45am jet pack ride to green?
No POMO tomorrow though and a smaller one on Wednesday.
DavidC
Yep, got my emergency tube of Astroglide ready.
I just have to remember to relax and it will be alright. Remember, do NOT pucker.
pods
The defense is to block the injection point with PMs. "Rock" beats "Paper." Nothing more clownish than VIRTUAL clowns!
"they" sure would like to get the guns away before the final act of this tragedy is performed!
Too late. Although Feinjewsteinjew tried her very best for the tribe.
WTF do they even need to bother? Have you looked at all the military equipment that they have? They don't even need to get near you to take you out.
The gun issue is just another issue meant to distract us from what's really going on. Yeah, in theory it could be a problem, but I just don't see the practice happening. It's quite likely that this only serves to help identify where to send the drone strikes. Feel free, however, to use your "free speech" to let them know that you're sitting on a cache of weapons.
get those kneepads out bitch-your govt overlords will welcome your ball tickling action.
All those expensive toys are working so well against goatherders with AK 47's,
and a third grade education.
Your yellow streak is showing, and its so wide a tank could drive down it.
I saw sales pick up in december in my area but now the empty houses just sitting there...several rpice reductions but no takers....
That's not going to stop a single 1 in a million greedy chinaman, an oily oligarch, or a Russian bankster from trying to launder his money. Nor will it stop Marc Faber, Jim Rogers or even Kyle Bass from trying to protect their bets against Ice 9. BTFD
Queue The Doors - "I've been down so Goddamn long that it looks like up to me".
Yeah, but this can be expected. This is the Homebuilders. You have a lot of investor money coming in buying up existing home inventory to flip and rent, with many flipped units still sitting empty. all this on top of a stumbling economy and a nearly tapped out consumner debtwise. Its hard for them to compete.
Expected by whom? Those with a shread of intellectual curiosity, perhaps... but that excludes something like 95% of the sheeple... or more. And certainly this data runs counter to the programming.
This is just part of collapse.
so, one question,"what do the bulls hang their hats now?"...let's see...world economy,down....housing recovery, down....jobs, disappearing...where o where are the green shoots? Personally, I don't see them....
The Dancer,
Don't worry, they'll be there when Benny boy doubles up on his current POMOs to $170 bn a month.
DavidC
$170? Japan would laugh at us.
We need to double them - $400 billion per month or nothing!!!
USA USA USA USA!!!
Green Dow and S&P for the last 4 years don't you know....... that's all that matters
And if you listen to any MSM news segment (which I try to avoid like the plague that it is) you'll note that they're always including how the DOW is doing. It's a Pavlov's Dog thing, people are conditioned to salivate, to believe that all is well based on how the ringing of the DOW is going... seeing as how fucked things are it's simple enough to just rip the bell away from any moorings to reality and just start clanging the hell out of it.
I hate how this country treats the DJIA and S%P Like they are America's Report Card.
It's a manipulated number that fools people into thinking things are getting better, or drives them to irrational decisions when it goes down (i.e. bailouts).
It's ok - the 'recovery' meme was only necessary to initiate the gold market breakdown. Now that it's taken on a life of it's own, the stock market can be left to fend for itself.
Man they got a guy on bloomberg right now (hedge fund REIT) explaining how this is the best time to buy a home, cause when GenY comes in they will be able to out compete you. Lots of other rationalizations.
The hosts let him run his speil and then closed the interview with "Non-linear effects I guess" Kinda like after you get get a pitch from a realtor "Nice ... house ... I agree"
Damn sequester anyways. If those stingy republican wouldn't have cut int the growth of government spending this never would have happened. Never mind the fact that the Bernank prints more in one month than any alleged "cuts"represent.
Modern American economic theory:
Provide slum dwellers (and trailer park folks) with cash/credit.
Is there an echo in here?
looks like the ol' trick of withholding inventory didn't work out so well in priming the new construction pump...oh well...at some point, homebuilders will be sacrificed at the altar of the banks...the ceremony might be about to begin...is everybody in?
& free money to bx, fig, cg, kkr & apo to suck up inventory
yup, cuz that's the way they roll
all of msm is pumping, this is the best time to buy or build a house! sad to say most americans will not need a contractor or realestate agent to put up a tent! oh and eat shit ben!
In my county, "temporary structures" like tents can not be taxed as property. Local Property Taxes are generally used to pay for schools. There are more PhDs in education than there are PhDs in economics.
I Never minded paying for the youngsters to get a good education, but the trend is for school districts to hire these PhDs in education for 4 year contracts, then "let them go" after a year or two. Lawyers fight it out. Our PhD gets the full payout, the lawyers get fees on top (not 30% of settlement), The PhD moves to another district, gets aggregation in pension (if not just double) and the process repeats 2 years later.
We should have free market principles. Econ PhDs competing with Education PhDs for the jobs teaching 3rd graders arithmetic.
The only thing holding up housing was a coordinated move as follows:
1. keep foreclosed inventory off the market and allow banks to carry same inventory without marking down.
2. fund mass purchases of distressed housing through new investment vehicles structured by wall street cronies (supposedly to make money renting)
3. continue to provide 100% financing for anything remotely resembling a carbon based life form regardless of their capability to ever repay
It works until it collapses.
What we have here is a lack of confidence in our confidence! BE MORE CONFIDENT! Problems solved! Just sit back and wait for the return of the unicorns... </sarc>
god how could the phoney baloney nahb numbers be up or down or whatever....THE NUMBERS ARE ALL BULLSH$T PEOPLE....!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! they mean nothing. they are a worthless indicator.
So we have years and years of non stop printing, trillions now created, stimulous programs.....and the global result?
USA Europe in recession...gone nowhere at all, except now as well as being in recession debt is drowining them more now than when they began. Countries bankrupt insolvent everywhere.
All these years of fiat creation has done ZERO good at all, no advancement, no improvement, all is worse....has left Europe in recesion, who believes anybody really came out of recession...faked government statistics excepted.
The Fed and banks have been like a tic on a mangy dog, they think sucking more blood will heal the dog.
SO printing is not the answer, hasn't even looked like being the answer (except to the question of bailing out friends and owners of the political system).
So what will they do....trash gold to protect the USD and rates... because that will blow up their obese fiat stores...or so they think.
Fiat creation CANNOT work. They have the stock market dragon by the tail and cannot stop pumping herione into for fear it will turn on and consume them, as it would. Not even for a short time is the market allowed to act like a market. They are totally fracked and stuck.
Current levels of printing have economies in recession so they cannot just go on the same...they have to do something else......probably print at higher orders of magnitute aka Japan...but will need other countries to do similar. Is this why Japan is doing it..to match the US coming plans?
Like I've been saying, perpetual growth (in anything) on a finite planet is a BAD idea...
fuck housing...what about gold?
Like I said Friday, I've just put one toe in the water...just a tad short on stocks...but Friday's ramp to bring the DOW back from the dead right even at the close definitely got my attention...will see what happens today....my retirement does not depend on the trade...if I have to take a small loss eventually, so be it....I keep bets small when fishing for the bottom or the top...jmho
I'm beginning to find this quite funny - Ben's now STUCK with injecting billions of dollars a day to stop this market tanking. The data this last week has been BAD and it's taking all the POMO money just to hold it. Funny!
DavidC
Not so funny for those of us who have to eat. $250 yesterday for groceries and still nothing to eat here. I'm getting sick of this shit personally.
summer of recovery 5th edition.
not much of a recovery when the only time the unemployment rate "drops" is when people quit looking for jobs.
on the other hand, if they get another 20 million or so to give up the search, the unemployment rate could be proudly announced as 2%.
then it's DOW 50,000 hats all around, SNAP cards for everybody and QE until every last tree has been converted into cash.
hell, they may even have to re-name arbor day into Bernanke day-
"plant a tree and make sure future generations have FRN's to."
Don't see it here, but cnbs has "rising materials costs" as a major factor in builder sentiment.
Ooooh surprise. Inflation in the real world. This might partly explain the thumb on commodities. It also explains why we're fucked.
We're now going to start seeing the real cost of things physical. And the correct measure is one based on "affordability." As less and less people can afford things there will be a collapse in volumes, which in turn pushes unit cost prices up due to a reversal of economies of scale... and down the vortex it continues.
Velocity of money.
Volume.
Margins.
There are fundamental forces, and they cannot be made to act against their nature.
Helicopter Benn+Liquidity Trap=Deflationary Economy
Per NPR (just another MSM schill): during the great recession many building material manufacturers dropped out. Now that construction increases there is scarcity of materials, thus causing inflation.
I have no idea the truth, just passing along their spin. Personally, I blame Bernanke et all.
As a nation, we might want to stop building vacant houses on every piece of available land. Might need the land for farming.
Nope. you must think a drought or some nonsense might occur. You probably also think they could tear down homes in existing cities like detroit and reuse infrastructure like water, sewers, roads, electrical grids. You probably also dont want the lawyers writing lots of new contracts, easements, right of ways, covenents, HOA rules, etc.
The best thing for the US economic recovery is to put 3 vacant McMansions in every 80 acre plat of land.
/sarc
Food, Shelter and Water.
The "empty houses" aren't "shelter." Fundamentals violated. Consequences...
BTW - I'm finding out that farming is pretty damn tough. Being overrun with predators and equipment failures at the moment. (at least with the equipment failures I'm able to salvage food for my own consumption)
are the predators insect or mammal?
or reptilian?
NAR will sweep this "unproductive negative data" under the rug before the sheeple start "baa-aa-aa-hing" over this.
For you conspiracy junkies NAR is ranked #6 in Washington amount the most powerful lobbying entities in the US. That's a deep rabbit hole; I'd love to see what tyler gets on the end of his fishing pole if he drops a lure in there.
Its funny how these dips correlate with the foreclosure waves, another wave just started after they settled for the robo signing fiasco, lol and wha ta settlement, the people "handling the money" got 50,000$ out of it and the homewoners who lost their house got 100~300$.
Everything is up with the Stchtock market. We have had an "echo bubble" where sheeple think prices will go back to the old highs! Only to fail again.
Hell, if the Post Office could sell Food Stamps, they could end their financial woes....
Don't worry. The spring buying season will bring out the buyers to get in on great deals like this one found here.
http://www.redfin.com/CA/West-Hollywood/562-Westbourne-Dr-90048/home/6816965
Abby Normal.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yH97lImrr0Q
But, but, but the stock market is at record highs. Everything is just humming along in the economy!
Well, reality sucks. Lumber futures aren't looking so good right now, and I'm in the construction industry....we are off to a very slow April. Uh-huh.