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Presenting: The Housing Bubble 2.0
It was just seven short years ago that the prices at the epicenter of the housing bubble, Los Angeles, CA rose by 50% every six months as the nation experienced its first parabolic move higher in home prices courtesy of Alan Greenspan's disastrous policies: a time when everyone knew intuitively the housing market was in an epic bubble, yet which nobody wanted to pop because there was just too much fun to be had chasing the bouncing ball, not to mention money. Well, courtesy of the real-time real estate pricing trackers at Altos Research, we now know that the very worst of the housing bubble is not only back, but it is at levels not seen since the days when a house in the Inland Empire was only a faint glimmer of the prototype for BitCoin.
Exhibit A:
The red line is the 7 day rolling average of median LA house prices per Altos (more data here). It is up 50% since the beginning of the year. One can only stand back and stare.
Still not convinced? After all those West Coast folks are known for being a little trigger happy when it comes to "flipping that house." Which is why, from the heartland of the East Coast, we present...
The Gretsch building, an old guitar factory turned condo building in Williamsburg, just had a crazy week: Crain’s reports that three units sold in all-cash transactions, each one setting new highs on a per-square-foot basis. The units in questions were two adjacent two-bedrooms on the ninth floor, selling for $1.4 million and $1.5 million, and a larger two-bedroom on the 10th floor selling at $2.5 million — all at an average of $1,150 per square foot. “It needs to be cash, it needs to be over ask, and (the listing) will never see the light of day,” the broker had told all the buyers. According to Crain’s, Williamsburg condos are currently averaging $794 per square foot, with high-end condos like Northside Piers bringing in closer to $1,050 per foot. The broker who handled the Gretsch sales at 60 Broadway can’t seem to believe it herself: “It’s unbelievable what’s going on out there,” she told Crain’s. Our question is, can the high sales we’ve been seeing lately be a bubble based on low mortgage rates if the buyers are paying record-setting prices with all cash? 3 Condos Sold in Williamsburg at Record Prices [Crain's]
Great job Bernanke & Co. You have succeeded at rolling up the housing, credit, bond, tech and equity bubbles all into one.
Watching the glorious unwind of all this unprecedented academic-created stupidity will be worth the hyperinflated price of admission alone.
h/t @Gloeschi
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and now you get to the real reason the govt is keeping the banks from releasing millions of foreclosed home into the market.
It is happening in Austin too.
Greenspan is the scapegoat? Dude, thats pointless without discussing Community Reinvestment Act and how it went on steroids in the 90s and beyond.
I went back to the Inland Empire where I grew up. In the 70s it was a lot of midwesterner migration west, now its caucasians out and spanish speakers in, at least in my neighborhood. Nothing against them, makes me wonder about the current immigration debate, that the GOP and anything to the right of liberals can ever govern or even show their face there again.
A tangible reason why Bernanke can't raise rates or quit QE due to crashing the system again.
I can't imagine an argument that low interest rates and easy credit (Greenspan gets the credit for much of both) were not the primary cause of the nationwide bubble. Other factors played a role too, but had interest rates stayed higher and had banks not loosened lending standards to enrich themselves while be given free reign to package and sell the bad mortgages to investors, the bubble would have been tiny in comparison.
Glass steegle n e one?
It is called 'real' property for a reason. Leave your cash in the bank at zero interest to be eroded by the corrosive effects of debt monetization and potentially converted against your will into bank equity, or roll it into a hard asset that actually produces a return in excess of 0.1% or can be lived in? I think savers are seeing the light and recognizing real property as the least bad investment option today.
Government can still take your housing (property) through property taxes, or fees as they call them now in California to avoid the proposition 13 limits. Hard to hide a house, or carry it with you.
Though I do like the implied protection from inflation. However, when people are selling anything and everything to buy food their homes and the value of yours will be included. Gold too.
Farm land not so much.
I should mention that even if you have farm land, you can still run into problems. Recently California/EPA cut off central valley farmers from their usual source of water.
The world is going to run into more such issues. S will really HTF if (just for some examples) say Turkey cuts off the water supply to Syria and Iraq or if the Chinese divert more and more of the Salween or Mekong for their own use while less flows downstream. The Colorado already barely reaches Mexico.
Africa will be hardest hit in these water wars (rightly so that continent can NOT intrinsically support the population that it currently has), particularly in the Sahel region and I can see the Niger and many of the small rivers flowing in Lake Chad being siphoned off to a trickle to accommodate booming populations and nutrient depleted soils at the same time.
We don't own anything. We rent it from the county and the bank if it is not paid off. The county owns it.
Paying off real estate is worse idea in this country. Once you paid it off than its your neck and their rope. does not matter who pulls and which way.
I'm there, on that one. RE is the only inflation hedge Boomers and their kids have ever known. Good a place as any to get velocity going. Credit can be created in unlimited quantity here.
And with Amnesty coming, there are soon to be 30 some million new FHA/FNMA subsidized no down no doc section 8 home buyers on line. And I don't think they are going to locate in snow and ice. They'll want to stay closer to southern borders where the weather is good and family is.
This time who or what will savethe TBTF outfits?
The world let Lehmann go with barely a whimper, but if this thing does crash there are going to be some "sovereign" entities not too pleased with the shenanigans the host of the world's reserve country is up to.
Can you blame them?
In the end, when our timelines run out, we can't take any of this stuff with us anyway. To buy an apartment for over a million is ridiculous, I don't care where it is. At least the broker is rolling in the dough, for doing what? Filling her purse and taking the cash to a JP Morgan Branch?
I have a strong suspicion that the people bidding up these places are fleeing many countries where the capital controls are the prelude to confiscation under the color of law. Property taxes can be very high but it is harder to take real estate than money in financial institutions. The hunt has been on ever since the french revolution for the rich and privileged. Money is fleeing and flying and eventually must land somewhere.
I think much of the money going into US real estate is domestic, fleeing what is perceived to be shaky banking system, rigged equity markets, can't win bond markets, sub-performing mutual funds, etc
Correct- lots of folks fleeing into RE...many full cash buyers. However, folks buying distressed and short sales to turn into rentals are done now. The numbers don't work anymore for investors who want 4, 6, 8% cash flow... and now it's dumb money chasing, scared they'll miss out on the next easy thing, leveraging for appreciation. This ain't gonna be pretty.
I'm on that one too. Seeing a lot of charter bus loads of Asians tooling around the West these days, looking at listed properties. Investors are coming back as well, at least according to my RE broker. She says commercial money is available again.
At these Cap rates, there are some nice returns in some markets now. And I personally would rather have positive flow income property than Equities here.
They can't vote and the locals know they can't vote and they're going to get fucked with property tax increases to pay for the pension tsunami and all the other bullshit.
totally sustainable imo.
This is exactly what we r seeing here in Portland, OR - multiple bids and all over asking.
Anyone else buying foreclosures or bank-owned SF homes in CA? Bought a Palm Springs fixer-upper in early March at trustees sale for a bit less than half of Bubble 1.0 2007 peak value. Think we'll do well on it.
Also, here in DC where I reside, market is strong, with multiple offers and short time on market for some properties.
housing market no different than stock market - fundamentals be damned...just bubble n crash cycles now. Buy n hold is a suckers game...regardless asset class. When well up, take your gain and wait for the next crash so long as Fed keeps on pumping.
Haha. Their solution to the housing bubble was to reinflate the housing bubble.
Go Princeton.
They apparently think that a system stretched beyond it's maximum possible capacity is the way things should be normally.
Well, the fact that it's all cash means it's not time for a pop yet. It's when people started borrowing more than they could possibly pay back in the hopes that prices would continue to go parabolic...and then didn't...that things went pop. That and gas hiting $5.
Nonsense. Tulips were all cash. It's different this time.
Tulips weren't all cash. The big prices often involved barter and credit. Credit was the only way you could get the high prices and the reason prices collapsed so suddenly.
The only thing the Fed can do is try to blow one bubble after another because the money being printed is handed over to the too big to fail banks in the form of QE. This is then used to speculate in real estate, currency, stock, commodities and bond markets. None of this reaches the main street and hence recovery in the actual economy is not possible through QE. Moreover speculation in commodities like Oil and agriculture products lead to higher prices thus making the lives of the very middle class paying taxes and the poor more miserable.
http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article35345.html
www.letstalkmoney2012.in
Fluff in the wind boys; wages are not keeping up, there is no solid middle-class underpinning, no new generation coming up to buy houses. A big juicy wave but it will break and much sooner than the last one did. I'm on the beach with a cold one. See you this time next year.
Roll your money into a beach hut, Hong. Don't miss the boat.
Nice one. Corona with lime for me, por favor.
Perhaps Cyprus scared the shit out of some people so they're out grabbing hard assets to get out of banks. Thanks Bernanke. Another central planning unintended consequence and another bubble.
More abounding insanity:
Nekkei -- from Nov - April 8,500 --> 13,900
US equities straight up in the face of crumbling fundamentals
Housing ramping to infinity
Risk on baby
P.S. just not in precious metals. This is called hyperinflation (Gag-non-Fed-style, i.e. hyperinflation + manipulation)
seems all risk indicators are defanged at this point -
Sovereign interest rates collapsing all over - for example, 10yr yields
Japan 0.6%, Germany 1.2%, Spain / Italy both near 4%
Oil remaining in range around $105 brent and $95 crude
food inflation maintaining high end of range
PM's, copper, hard stuff all breaking down...
Stawk markets up, up, up (except for Shanghai...but tough to get dollars (infinite US fiat) in and out of China...easier with HK which soars like a US market).
RE, heck maybe even CRE will catch a bid.
But this is likely the last bubble to end all bubbles. And since everybody knows what bubbles are now, since they have lived through them...many will know to be sitting near the door when the parties slowing down...the rush will be mad and it will end in a blink, not a slow exhalation like '08-'09. This spiral will happen in days, not months.
Isn't housing part of CPI calculation? How is it not rampant?
Believe what you are looking for is "OER" - owners equivalent rent that is factored into CPI...and given CPI is so low, guessing it's not showing much.
All that 'money' has to be laundered SOMEWHERE! It seems to me that crime is part of the solution here? Moral hazard doesn't even have any meaning at this point. TBTF is not even thinly veiled - can't be prosecuted - can't be jailed - can't even be questioned out of fear of systemic collapse. It's an interesting time to be alive, don't ya think?
Abounding insanity ... I went out on Sunday with my wife looking at open houses in Orange County, California. At each open house we went to there were at least 10 others looking at these houses (we only stayed 10 minutes at each). This was at every open house. Last year at this time you couldn't even find an open house to go to. A friend was sharing on Saturday that he recently sold his mother's home (in Montebello, Ca) for her. He had it up for sale on a Saturday and offered an open house. Three hundred and fifty (yes 350) people came by and he received 10 offers. He sold it in one day.
I don't get it ... the mortgage payment on the average house (650,000 in LA) is $2,168 and taxes at another $230 for a monthly payment of $2,498, not including maintenance, utilities and insurance for another $500 per month.
$3,000 per month when the average salary is trending down and unemployment in Cali is 9+% ... and all the people at the open houses were not Chinese.
Flash Dash to a Crash ... tulips are sprouting everywhere
New fools bailing out the old fools.
Housing is probably the worst bubble to keep inflating, too, since it's so illiquid.
It's not only in the US...it's a worldwide phenomena right now...I was on the island of Samui recently and met a real estate agent(originally from Belgium) working on Samui...he told me that the Russian mob waqs buying like crazy in Thailand...he told me that aa 23 yr.old man(?) came into his office with $23,000,000 to buy a mansion near the beach....big wads of cash from China, Russia, etc....are panicing for investment purchases...what a world!
Perhaps Cyprus scared the shit out of some people so they're out grabbing hard assets to get out of banks.
Why sure. That's what that Cyprus thing was engineered to do. Get the money circulating.
Got my attention.
Is this really enough data to support the claims of a bubble? Data on one city's median price and one story about a single building? Would the WSJ write an article using these facts to support their argument? Median prices are easily skewed in cities with just a few sales towards a higher range. The lending environment of today is nothing like the lending environment that caused the previous bubble. Demand for housing is seriously suppressed due to the small number of buyers even able to purchase homes today due to credit issues. Homes are also at some of the most affordable prices in nearly 30 years- that doesn't sound like a bubble to me.
At best, this is the very beginning of a bubble.
Real estate is local. And so are the bubbles.
So a rapid increase in median price alone is enough to substantiate a bubble? No other data is pertinent?
Don't know why they'd stop now.
This time they won't have negative equity
the real estate bubble was an exception to the rule but it may be the reason a lot of people may have forgotten real estate in the right places is the best hedge against inflation as a store of value. since a lot of this "investment" is big money i would guess the word is out that qe to infinity will work it's magic real soon.
Hardly. Most new real estate built now will fall apart in 30 years or less.
You are spot on. Anyone that argues against this should post their networth along with their argument against this fact.
This real-estate inflation makes the market look like a real weak sister ... or we are about to embark on the last stage of a parabolic rise in ES that will rapidly take us to 1700+ before cascading to earth. I have been a Bear since 2000, but after looking at what the Nikkei has done in the last five months and CA real-estate in the last three months, I am beginning to believe that 1700+ is a real possibility to confirm the final bull market blowout that started circ 1994. What the FED is doing is making a huge difference just as the Abe pump did in Japan ... it will crash, but I am afraid only after a parabolic explosion northward.
every easy money period has had a "good" bubble (Nasdaq, housing, biotech, etc.) but also peripheral "bad" bubbles...oil, PM's, food, etc.
Where will leakage occur this time...no way they have it buttoned up so tight that something won't pop somewhere unexpectedly?
In total agreement, but I thik equities will hold tight with little leakage as the headliner. I think PM's may crack (p.s. I am long term gold stacker, so let AuAg fall apart.)
The all cash buying is the astonishing part. I feel bad for people leveraging up to buy when the other players are doing so in cash. The all cash buyer probably doesn't mind the 10-15% price swings.
The bubble can't burst soon, the Greater Fools haven't arrived yet.
NYC high-end RE is getting buried in cash, and of all things, 4/1 ARMs (some note 40%), which are only a stinkin' point below the fixed. Yeah, right, they ain't in it for the flip.
This would make a great Vengence Bubble Burst. No way tattered Main Street is running around plopping down cash in a frenzy.
Oh I forgot. These elite will get fully bailed, with the write downs charged to the US Treasury.
No Bankruptcies, no robo-signing, no fuck-you-in-the-ass and here's your $300.
We have to protect them, because they are the job creators.
This is a Cleanup Wave to nail those who got away scott-free last time.
Its name is Justice.
Let's hurry this along. It is only going to get funnier to watch as it unfolds.
bail-ins terrify cash holders. they either buy PMs or land. even if the land price comes down, it can't be as bad as the cypriot haircut (headcut?). the only problem with land is the property tax and that can financed by the lease revenue it'll bring.
i am not saying that those buyers know jack shit about the cyprus bail-ins but there is some logic in buying land on its own.
nevertheless, i think land prices are not depressed enough. i am expecting something 1915-1945 depressed. so i wouldn't buy now but wait.
Ain't peaked yet Bitchez, turn the easy money, but only blame yourself if you can't get out. Honestly there's enough trust fund idiots to make a few fortunes, but musical chairs, last one out turn the lights off, all that. I'm not playing.
I'll let someone else get the windfall, rather be stable i know I'm a bitch and all.
Just not my game, i prefer people.
http://m.youtube.com/index?client=mv-verizon-us&desktop_uri=%2F%3Fclient...
http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=78hT0H8nt_E End. Don't drone me bro.
Sorry, renig.
http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=7KJjVMqNIgA&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D7K...
The govt. could ruin an anvil.
Those prices are nothing. Here in Perth Western Australia our median house price is $510,000. If you want a piece of shit in a good suburb your looking at 1.2 mil. The high end suburbs are crazy, just pull a ridiculous figure out of your head and some dickhead here will pay it. Everything is being sold the second it goes on the market,, espesially if it can be sub divided. WTF? When is this crash going to occur? While we all sit on the fence whinging about keynesian policies other are making squillions. I think im gonna jump ship and join with them,
adios amigos.
Bye bye Lardass... (Cheech and Chongs "Up In Smoke"
And THIS DUMP IN IN BROOKLYN!!!
Im not an east coast person BUT THIS ISNT IN MANHATTES EVEN!! Not saying Brooklyn is a dump but prices have zipped over the river!!
Same shit in Chicago....My boy in Roscoe Village finally sold his tear down for 600k......so these guys START down 600k before they even remove one piece of material from the lot.
yet, someone will buy the new house (which isnt in the good school district btw) for 1.8-2MM.
bet!
I posted this on another forum the other day and I'll stand by this assesssment, based upon what I am seeing with my own eyes- not what the local or national editions of 'Pravda' put out.
"Yeah, I’ve felt the same way, but I do think this time it will be different. When the bottom drops out this time, I think it will be FAST AND FURIOUS. Like, faster and worse than most will be able to believe. The memory of the burst in 2008 and the financial pain is still fresh in the memories of the ‘investors’ and when the first few get just a whiff of smoke in this crowded theater, then the stampede for the exits will be absolutely barbaric. Most of these participants are vain enough to ‘huff their own ether’ and they actually believe that they are smarter and faster than the next guy. Their secret plan is to discount very aggressively and sell at the very first sign of trouble. The problem is, they all have the same secret plan… It will be like a meth-fueled sprint into a brick wall."
Land in Beaumont, Texas sold for 2 million dollars per acre after the Lucas No. 1 oil well was gushing at a rate of 75 thousand barrels per day, ca. 1910.
In Pennsylvania near Titusville land sold for 4 million dollars per acre, but after the oil was gone, it sold for 25 cents.
Oil can make or break you. If you have land with mineral rights, you're in good shape.
An apartment in a restored building somewhere in America would be my last choice of where to buy, but if you have the bucks, go for it. You gotta be at the right place at the right time and Williamsburg wouldn't be the place for me, at any price.
Without oil, they're outta luck.
"The sun shines......people forget......"
"Drinks flow......people forget....."
"Girl smiles....PEOPLE FORGET...FORGET THEIR HIDING"....
it's a put on...a put on!!!
(Come on join the party dressed to kill!!)
Maybe that Vancouver BC "Asian Invasion" is coming south .... chicken feather dollars .... are coming home to roost ?
WE GOTTA GET OUT OF THIS PLACE
In this dirty old part of the cityWhere the sun refused to shine
People tell me there ain't no use in tryin'
Now my girl you're so young and pretty
And one thing I know is true
You'll be dead before your time is due, I know
Watch my daddy in bed a-dyin'
Watched his hair been turnin' grey
He's been workin' and slavin' his life away
Oh yes I know it
(Yeah!) He's been workin' so hard
(Yeah!) I've been workin' too, baby
(Yeah!) Every night and day
(Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!)
We gotta get out of this place
If it's the last thing we ever do
We gotta get out of this place
'cause girl, there's a better life for me and you
Now my girl you're so young and pretty
And one thing I know is true, yeah
You'll be dead before your time is due, I know it
Watch my daddy in bed a-dyin'
Watched his hair been turnin' grey, yeah
He's been workin' and slavin' his life away
I know he's been workin' so hard
(Yeah!) I've been workin' too, baby
(Yeah!) Every day baby
(Yeah!) Whoa!
(Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!)
We gotta get out of this place
If it's the last thing we ever do
We gotta get out of this place
Girl, there's a better life for me and you
Somewhere baby, somehow I know it
We gotta get out of this place
If it's the last thing we ever do
We gotta get out of this place
Girl, there's a better life for me and you
Believe me baby
I know it baby
You know it too
no problem...The Bernank surely still possesses the authority to bail out the deadbeat depositors and bonus the banksters.
Dow 30,000 bitchez!
Farting in the bathtub makes bubbles. They too stink when they pop.
I've been hearing (on the radio) a guy promoting his "plan" for flipping houses. Fools never learn, and when it all comes crashing down this time it will be epic. Hope you're prepared.
so, this is good news to push the snp to new highs... we have recovered, now buy AAPL
Property taxes are rising rapidly in states with no income taxes like Florida and Texas. They have to get revenue somehome.
We're an insane criminal society.
I weep for America, and I weep for the world when it begins to understand the failure and abuses of our system.
When the system fails, it means we become third world (if we aren't there already) and the world descends into chaos in the power vacuum.
I live in a coastal area three miles from the beach, with full support services, great weather, and where 3000 sf homes in gated golf communities less than ten years old sell for around $350k. There are plenty to choose from in the resale market too.
And no, I'm not telling any of you Californians where it is.
Maybe this is all part of the plan. Boost every asset class, create a bubble and reduce interest rates to nothing. Force rich people to buy real estate since they can't hoard cash in banks (and create bank worries), then crash the whole thing again. Talk about wealth re-distribution/destruction. Classic move...this is Obama's undertaking.
Anagram: Fa Liar Coin and more http://www.wordsmith.org/anagram/anagram.cgi?anagram=california&t=1000&a=n
Global banks buying again.
We are entering into the "simple jack" zone. America has now gone FULL RETARD. Party on bitchez!
Agenda 21 wants everyone living in the cities and abandoning the suburbs and rural areas.
And here we have the big cities posting big gains in value across the board.
I just wonder, with the FEDS directing pretty much all loan traffic, are the cities getting expeditied loan processing and higher valuations in order to boost the desire to live in the city centers?
I know several people who have been refinancing outside of these vity centers, and it has been nothing but one goof after another, on the refinancer's end, creating delays and hold ups for those owners.
I mean, if I were trying to work to a specific outcome, that's how I would pursue it....and since the government is controlling all the loan business, why couldn't they do that?
Just keeps getting better...chart shows 11M of 41M mortgages are seriously delinquint but NOT in foreclosure...only in a Depression would this happen.
Starting July 1, large numbers of non-paying borrowers will have the opportunity to modify existing mortgages through a more streamlined process.
This sounds like a good way to reduce foreclosures and prop up home prices, but as we will shortly see, the proposed program is oddly risky and likely to encourage additional defaults.
According to the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will offer “a new, simplified loan modification initiative” to borrowers who are at least 90 days late with their mortgage payments. Modifications can include a lower rate, a loan term stretched to 40 years and principal forbearance in some cases.
“The loan,” says FHFA, “must be owned or guaranteed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. Homeowners must be 90 days to 24 months delinquent, and have a first-lien mortgage that is at least 12 months old with a loan-to-value ratio equal to or greater than 80 percent. Loans that have been modified at least two times previously are not eligible.”
The program is open to borrowers who have already modified their loans once, perhaps a few years ago when rates were higher. This, at least, is a good idea.
So what’s the big difference between the new program and the modifications offered previously?
No-Doc Modifications
FHFA says the “key difference is that borrowers will not be required to document their hardship or financial situation, but will be able to accept a Streamlined Modification Offer by simply making the trial period payments and agreeing to the terms of the modification.”
The new government initiative is in some ways commendable: We surely want fewer people foreclosed and if there’s a way to modify mortgages that makes financial sense for both lenders and borrowers then we should take a look.
Unfortunately, the FHFA program misses the mark. What FHFA is proposing would not attract any sober investor were it not for the guarantees that will be provided by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, guarantees that should not be given in this case.
Just as FHFA Acting Director Edward J. DeMarco has rightly resisted principal forgiveness because it doesn’t make financial sense for American taxpayers who are ultimately the investors backing Fannie and Freddie loans, so he should resist a program that encourages more defaults, resulting in deeper losses on those same loans.
In a statement provided with the announcement of the new program, DeMarco still encourages “borrowers to provide documentation to support modification options that would likely result in additional borrower savings.”
But the bottom line is that documentation is no longer required.
It is understandable and even laudable to give troubled homeowners the chance to prove themselves worthy of a loan modification by making three trial payments. But eliminating the requirement for these homeowners to show they have a financial hardship before entering the trial modification period creates a moral hazard.
Those who can afford to make their current mortgage payment will be rewarded if they strategically default, in which case they can qualify for a program in which their new monthly payment is lower. The end result: Fannie and Freddie—and ultimately taxpayers—get a lower rate of return on a loan without any evidence that lowering that rate of return was necessary.
The reason given for eliminating the hardship documentation requirement: it “eliminates the administrative barriers with document collection and evaluation.”
Sounds more like a rationalization for cutting corners rather than a solid defense of doing what is right for the American taxpayer.
Daren Blomquist is a VP at RealtyTrac..
More gong show. Yipppeeeee!!!!!
it's surreal where I live in upstate ny as well, people are in full debt- on mode burning through so much credit you can smell the plastic melting in the air.
sub prime is king here, houses, cars, lawn tractors, boats all manor of big ticket items are flying out the doors and yet most every county has a 9+% unemployment rate and many of those who do have jobs are of the 37hr per wk part time variety no bennies no stability and very little chance they will make good on the debt long term. there used to be a lot of cash trading hands up here as well but not anymore, now it's almost exclusively loans and plastic.
no hard currency, just lots of promises to pay floating in the ether...
any body who thinks this is all going to end in laughter and cake for all has been smoking way to much hopeium.
If people are still paying top dollar for dilapidated homes that will go into even more disrepair because the income to support their upkeep is not there, if people are still fleeing for the "safety" of the stock and bond markets even as they make highs, that should tell you that precious metals are nowhere near bubble valuations.
The limited number of people I talk to are not buying precious metals. They just aren't. Years of talking about them to my closest family has yielded no results. And this in the midst of a financial collapse!
So maybe you people are seeing different things, but everywhere I look I see the same old thing. People are so obsessed with their jobs and doing things that they've done all their lives, they refuse to learn or gain a new perspective.
I started learning about economics and the FED in 2005 when I learned of the first housing bubble. Here we are 8 Years later and I still don't feel comfortable buying. I've wanted to be a Foster Dad so getting a McMansion type 5 bedroom is part of the plan. I want to help as many kids as I can. Raise my own tribe of independent thinkers, see if I can make a difference in some lives. 2010 was close to my price range in SoCal's Inland Empire. Now Ben and his overlords have pushed my goal back for another couple of Years while Bubble 2.0 plays out. Thanks for fucking up my dream of helping kids Ben. I spent my teenage years homeless and buying a property means more to me than Blackstone you piece of shit.
Amazing how much business is NOT being done due to Fed policies
I am about ready to list my place (bought cash at the bottom of the crash) and stage the key rooms with bouqets of fresh tulips.