What’s 37 years between Housing price records
I have to admit, I wasn’t even an itch in my daddy’s pants in 1970 so you’ll have to excuse me if I don’t recall who was President then and what party he was. I say HE only because I assume it was a he. And the white part goes without saying too.
Prices for new houses nationwide fell last month by their largest margin since 1970, when the nation was in a recession, providing more gloomy news for the struggling building industry and the jittery economy.
Tags: Bush's Fubar Economy
Kind of makes me feel a bit better about Jud, who seems to be getting raped on a daily basis by the devoloper controlled Sussex County government. Let ’em zone whatever they want, Jud. Who are they going to sell to?
It has not bottomed out yet. Wait another year.
You ridiculously young thing: Richard Nixon was president in 1970.
I’m not suroprised that housing prices are falling, because they simply had to fall. The run-up of housing prices bore no resemblance to price inflation on anything else, and housing costs were becoming too large a proportion of income; it was a trend that couldn’t continue, because, eventually, no one could have afforded to buy a house. The only thing that surprised me is that it took this long.
Construction, especially residential construction, simply skipped the 2001 recession: we continued merrily on our way, and I was amazed then that with layoffs people were still buying houses. Since I am a ready-mixed concrete producer, I was glad that we missed the recession, but still surprised.
The next stories will be about people who are “upside-down,” or owe more on their homes than they are worth. This happened in the late 1980s as well, and some people simply walked away, and let the mortgage companies foreclose; those who toughed it out found that they had recovered their value by the early 1990s, and were “right side up” again. If you are looking at your home primarily as an investment, it was a rough ride, but if you were looking at it as your home first, you did OK.
The too-typical answer is inflation: if inflation can be triggered, then the people with too-big mortgages will find their mortgage costs coming down as a percentage of their income — if they have fixed rate mortgages. (Inflation made a lot of existing homeowners much wealthier in teh early 1980s.)
But inflation screws up everything else, and I’m guessing that the Fed is going to try to keep fighting inflation.
As for me, I’m in great shape: we bought a house that cost less than one year’s gross income, and owe less than one year’s net income. Of course, we bought in Jim Thorpe; had we bought the same house in Conshohocken, it would have cost $200,000 more.
I was amazed then that with layoffs people were still buying houses.
so Dana are you saying the economy isn’t going well?
and some people simply walked away, and let the mortgage companies foreclose; those who toughed it out found that they had recovered their value by the early 1990s, and were “right side up” again
I smell blame the victim here….
it’s funny dana not once do you mention the banks in all of this. Only the customer…
Don V- If you mention the real criminals it can be construed as a real crime.