Bernanke Says What Everyone Already Knows
May 18, 2006 — It’s “pretty clear” that the housing market is cooling off but it looks poised for a soft landing given overall strength in the economy, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Thursday. “In combination with rising interest rates, affordability is becoming much more difficult and therefore as you would expect you are…
May 18, 2006 — It’s “pretty clear” that the housing market is cooling off but it looks poised for a soft landing given overall strength in the economy, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Thursday. “In combination with rising interest rates, affordability is becoming much more difficult and therefore as you would expect you are seeing some cooling in those markets,” Bernanke said in a question and answer session after speaking to a Chicago Fed conference on banking regulation. “We’re seeing slowing in sales, slowing in starts. There also seem to be signs that prices are not rising as quickly as they have been for the past few years,” he said. “It looks to be a very orderly and moderate kind of cooling at this point,” Bernanke said, adding that the U.S. labor market is strong and incomes are rising.
Bernanke Sees Cooling Housing Market [CNN Money]
I don’t care if you tell me they are not building any more brownstones, they haven’t built any for over 70 years the market is turning downward. It does not matter if it park slope or a horrible area like Prospect lefferts gardens. The market is subject to a correction. There is no fear left in the buyers they have had enough and everything in this world goes in trends. Peace on earth.
I gave up on buying for now and am still renting. My rent hasn’t gone up much at all.
I wonder if rentals will remain scarce and if rents will keep rising – after all, a lot of people bought condos for the short term and planned to sell them for the profit. There are so many condos for sale now and enough of those investors that if they realize they can’t sell for what they imagined (and if they didn’t plan to live there), they may try to rent them out.
The rent increase as proof of delayed buying plans argument is spurious at best (and likely fabricated by desperate brokers to spook people on the fence). If all these potential buyers deciding en masse to give up on buying are driving up rents, were they living somewhere for free until now? I gave up on buying in 2003 and am still paying the same rent (in Greenpoint). Certainly rents in high demand/trendy areas are on the rise, but is this anything new?
Rents aren’t “spiking” because people are deferring purchase decisions. Rents are increasing because of a relative scarcity of rentals since so much of the new construction has been for sale housing.
One day we’re all going to die, it’s one of the facts of life. Just like the laws of economics, and they say you can’t have a boom without a bust, and you can’t have expansion without contraction.
peace out people and take cover
not trolling, just amusing myself this morning. i’ve actually read quite a few reader comments here about “how brooklyn will be different,” as though 200-400% recent year run-ups are totally sustainable in brooklyn despite ominous commentary from bernanke, bloomberg and other financial and political insiders.
Eek, I hate when I post with typos. Sorry for “differant”…hit the wrong key.
9000, the commonly-heard argument that you are referring to is that NYC market is differant than overall US macro view because of scarcity (relative to other markets) and continued high inflows of capital (salaries, bonuses etc) not present in other markets.
I haven’t heard anyone specify any particular borough for this, except perhaps Manhattan.
Were you just looking to troll?
damn. i was looking for the obligatory comment about how “brooklyn will be different”. will check back in a few…