Real Estate: The New Obscenity?
The lead article in the real estate section of The New York Times this weekend attempts to make the case that real estate has gone from Topic No. 1 to Topic Non Grata in the last six months. Nobody wants to talk about it,” The Times quotes one hedge fund manager as saying. We’re not…
The lead article in the real estate section of The New York Times this weekend attempts to make the case that real estate has gone from Topic No. 1 to Topic Non Grata in the last six months. Nobody wants to talk about it,” The Times quotes one hedge fund manager as saying. We’re not so sure that’s the case. People may be acting more discreetly when they bring it up, but, in our experience, it’s still just as much on everyone’s minds as before, although now, instead of being obsesses with how much the value of their house has gone up, it’s all about how far the value has fallen. Have you noticed a decrease in the amount people are talking about real estate or just a different tone?
Don’t Even Say the Words [NY Times]
Photo by solupine
“What’s happened instead is what I most feared: that our politicians would mount a massive campaign to sustain the unsustainable.”
Wow–really scary quote. Not being an economist I can’t say for sure that Kunstler is correct but he definitely strikes a chord with me. So many fundamental aspects about the way we live in the USA need reformation. Thanks for posting Zuleika.
from http://www.kunstler.com, James Howard Kunstler’s weekly column:
“The truth is that we’re comprehensively bankrupt, and no amount of shuffling certificates around will avail to alter that. The bad debt has to be “worked out” — i.e. written off, subjected to liquidation of remaining assets and collateral, reorganized under the bankruptcy statutes, and put behind us. We have to work very hard to reconfigure the physical arrangement of life in the USA, moving away from the losses of our suburbs, reactivating our towns, downscaling our biggest cities, re-scaling our farms and food production, switching out our Happy Motoring system for public transit and walkable neighborhoods, rebuilding local networks of commerce, and figuring out a way to make a few things of value again.
What’s happened instead is what I most feared: that our politicians would mount a massive campaign to sustain the unsustainable. That’s what all the TARP and TARF and PPIT and bailouts are about. It will all amount to an exercise in futility and could easily end up wrecking the USA in every sense of the term.”
2 family coop = new improved tax structure ppty type to offset some of the tax hikes shoved thru by NYC. JK
“One of the associate executives and her boyfriend bought a two-family co-op”
ENY do you mean two family house?
We still talk about real estate in the office. One of the associate executives and her boyfriend bought a two-family co-op on Irving Place a week ago she got a really good price, she said, due to the devaluations. Another person here is in the middle of a lengthy short sale negotiation for house in Jersey. We still talk, but the talk is about opportunity driven by the weakened market.
job security or the lack of it is taking much of the spot light. Plus think real estate is in limbo – price and transaction volume wise.
if real estate prices move up or down 10%, people will begin to yap about it (good or bad)
Hey What?
Why 7 months? What’s supposed to happen then?
mopar- might Citibanks declaring a profit have to do with the fact that they aren’t processing loans lately?
I’m the only one of my friends talking about real estate because I’m the only one house hunting. Dometimes those who already own say they can’t believe how far prices have fallen and they’re glad because maybe more people can buy a place now. There are a few who don’t say anything. I think they bought in a location they don’t want to live thinking they would flip in two years, and now they’re upset they have to stay there.
How can Citibank declare a profit while simultaneously being insolvent?