Thread: 12 Signs That Worst Housing Collapse History Getting Worse

12 Signs That The Worst Housing Collapse In U.S. History Is Getting Worse

Michael Snyder, The Economic Collapse
Feb. 2, 2011, 9:50 AM

We are officially in the middle of the worst housing collapse in U.S. history - and unfortunately it is going to get even worse.

Click here to see the signs > http://www.businessinsider.com/worst-ho ... ng-empty-1

Already, U.S. housing prices have fallen further during this economic downturn (26 percent), then they did during the Great Depression (25.9 percent).

Approximately 11 percent of all homes in the United States are currently standing empty. In fact, there are many new housing developments across the U.S. that resemble little more than ghost towns because foreclosures have wiped them out.

Mortgage delinquencies and foreclosures reached new highs in 2010, and it is being projected that banks and financial institutions will repossess at least a million more U.S. homes during 2011. Meanwhile, unemployment is absolutely rampant and wage levels are going down at a time when mortgage lending standards have been significantly tightened.

That means that there are very few qualified buyers running around out there and that is going to continue to be the case for quite some time to come. When you add all of those factors up, it leads to one inescapable conclusion. The "housing Armageddon" that we have been experiencing since 2007 is going to get even worse in 2011.

Right now there is a gigantic mountain of unsold homes in the United States. It is estimated that banks and financial institutions will repossess at least a million more homes this year and this will make the supply of unsold properties even worse. At the same time, millions of American families have been scared out of the market by this recent crisis and millions of others cannot qualify for a home loan any longer. That means that the demand for unsold homes is at extremely low levels.

So what happens when supply is really high and demand is really low?

That's right - prices go down.

Hopefully housing prices don't have too much farther to go down. Ben Bernanke and the boys over at the Federal Reserve are doing their best to flood the system with new dollars in order to prop up asset values, but you just can't create qualified home buyers out of thin air.

Many analysts are projecting that U.S. housing prices will decline another ten or twenty percent before they hit bottom. In fact, quite a few economists believe that the total price decline from the peak of the market in 2006 will end up being somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 percent.

But whether prices go down any further or not, the truth is that the housing crash that we have already witnessed is absolutely unprecedented.

http://www.businessinsider.com/worst-ho ... ry-2011-2#

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Hell. I support it getting worse. House prices have been massively over inflated for decades and need to still come down even more. Houses need to be in a semi affordable range and if someone can't pay off an average house on an average job in 10 years its still not enough with a 20% deposit down its still not enough. Also considering a reasonable monthly payment for an average income job.

To see the issue one just needs to see how many vacant properties we have yet so many house contractors still building, building, and building. If profits from houses were realistic these contractors wouldn't be throwing up houses by the hundreds.

I recall an article I read a few years ago stating that the average $120k house actually in labor and material costs cost less then $40k to build. Consider the land cost surely isn't the remainder of that.

Let house prices drop to being only 10-15% profit margin after cost to build. Be realistic on it.

To see the issue one just needs to see how many vacant properties we have yet so many house contractors still building, building, and building

Thats the part I can't figure out. They are building massive huge houses in Carlsbad now. I think they will be in the 600k range and located on an extremely busy corner. Of course they were sure to put sod all over the pretty entrance and all along the perimeter of the develepement. It makes no sense. I guess the housing bubble was not as bad here. It seems to vary widely from city to city.