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Originally posted by Mike AI@May 25 2003, 08:47 AM
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2 more predictions:
The housing market and prices will crash
The dollar will continue to erode for another 1-2 years
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Housing will stay strong ( except in those areas that have created huge bubbles - west coast, and east coast large cities) or at least stable as long as interest rates stay low.
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1 observation:
Bush has absolutely NO control over the value of the dollar in any lasting way. The market does.
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He has more control then most think, he can start printing money left and right....
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Interestingly enough Michael, I'm not sure those huge bubbles you reference are going to pop... we've been sitting here in Phx waiting for nearly 2 years for houses to come back down to earth as far as pricing and it's not only not happening, the prices are going up.
We have basically a 3 tier situation here I think -- over 3 million, 1-3 million and under 1 million (I realize that this group has a lot of little subgroups but for practical purposes I'm lumping them all together) --
Over the last couple of years we've seen the 1-3 million market bounce up and down a bit, especially on the low end -- I think a million for a house is a psychological barrier to a lot of people, even those that will spend 950K on a house... the 3+ market is pretty much always the same, since the percentage of the population that is spending that kind of money stays pretty stable as a percentage, even though the individuals may fluctuate.
In the under a million market here, things seem to be just as hot as ever... new home builders keep forging along and selling their lots like hotcakes, especially in certain areas that are still perceived as good values for the tier above starter homes (of course starter homes here aren't cheap either).
Heck my neighborhood is an older one, which is currently going thru what I call the 'tear down' stage and instead of houses being priced according to the market for living in them, they are priced according to the value of tearing them down and rebuilding on the same footprint... especially since my neighborhood is not a zero lot line area, and you still can actually get some yard in the front and back, unlike most new construction.