Housing market spot check

[Nords]

So it's Tokyo, and it yen/sq. meter and it's residential. How it is measured we don't know, and we don't know if it represents the entire city. Still, it's clearly broad enough yet targeted enough to support your point quite well.

Yep, the remaining question is whether this is comparable to Manhattan or to the South Bronx... or west Jersey.

Every real estate pullback is different. Hawaii kicked off in 1990 with the Kuwait invasion, the Japanese real estate collapse (accompanied by its massive bank fraud), and the military's post DESERT STORM drawdown. Those three factors made it a lot cheaper to rent, except in isolated parts of the high-end luxury market, just about every year until 2000.

Today the military is growing, military base housing is coming on & off the market as everything is overhauled, and the foreclosure rate isn't too bad compared to the rest of the U.S. The credit crunch has kinda hollowed out condos & townhouses for first-time homebuyers, but single-family homes haven't slowed down too much on the higher end.

I think prices around here will revert to the mean (measured as a multiple of median income) or go sideways for a few years. And as usual, that's going to depend on the economy...

 

[twaddle]

Every real estate pullback is different.

A lot of them have played out pretty similarly throughout history, but you're right about HI. It was an oddball.

 

[honobob]

Yeah but the bloodloss aint over.

Looking at the last 40 years of real estate in California, we have seen very few times in which real estate values have dropped. In fact, according to the California Association of Realtors, since 1970 the real estate market in California has only dropped seven times, six times under 3.7% and only once at 4.5%. In 1970, the median cost of a single-family home in California was $26,000. Today, 37 years later, homes have seen a 2,165% increase, now selling for $588,970.

If your new area homes saw a 12.5% decrease (..it could happen?..) then the yearly compounded appreciation would go from 16% to about 11%! Hey that's real close to my historical figure of ..waitaminnit..it exactly matches my 11%!! That's all I'm saying.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

As always, depends on the home and the area. I distinctly remember buying fake vampires teeth somewhere during my house hunting in the sacramento area in 1996 at the end of a long slow 7 year slide where almost everything lost 30-35% of its value from the peak in 1989. There was so much blood in the streets I felt like I should adapt.

Its something to have the sellers meet you in the front yard and mouth "please make us an offer...anything..." to you as you walk by.

I just watched a good 30% disappear off of the homes in my old neighborhood in about a years time. Peak prices were pretty stupid though.

Bet the folks who paid 400+ for one of those brand new Centex 2400 square foot homes on a zero lot arent feeling too good about the same floorplan one street over getting dumped for $250 with subsidized funding, extra upgrades, and free furniture. The ones who didnt drop the keys in the mailbox and leave, that is.

 

[Martha]

He's dead, Jim.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

But dammit martha, we're posters not doctors!

Good one...