A Bottom in Housing? You've Got to Be Kidding

It only makes sence, if you think other wise it is do to the RE you own!

Barry Who? The most recent home pricing data reveals that the ratio between home prices and per capita income has settled back down to level seen in the mid-1990's. Why doesn't Henry Blodget just admit that he put all his money in commodities and wants a weaker dollar to spill over from the "housing crisis" so that he can make a buck? It's like the Amazon fiasco all over again, except on a much smaller scale.

I blame the media in part for the housing crisis. What I mean by that is they keep telling people the prices will continue to fall. Nobody knows that. If you tell people the prices will continue to fall, they will not buy and the crisis just gets worse. This is the time to buy and many will have missed out.

Good analysis. Those dummies who think housing has bottomed will get burned. I'm waiting 18 months to buy any real estate related investment.

I believe we are at the bottom and those who are sitting on the sideline still waiting to buy - better do it soon.

In the long run housing prices have got to revert to some reasonable relationship to incomes. They are nowhere near that yet.

Agree that Tech Ticker is garbage.

I think housing rose to fast and way too high for people to afford... it will probably never get back as high as it was... but all need a place to live.. too many spec. builders and snaky real estate agents who want to take away somebody's down payment and leave them with payments they have no way to afford...

BANKS not lending are the problem. The pendulum has swung from too lenient guidelines to very stringent guidelines.

Barry is apparently not aware of the principle of supply and demand. Housing prices will recover when excess inventory is depleted. The historical price rise is irrelevent. Barry must be a stock chart technician.

Too Many "expert" windbags!

I am a buyer. It is hard to go wrong buying distressed property in close proximity of a major university. Right now, I am targeting the University of Georgia, Athens area. Zip code 30677 to be specific. Students will always need housing. Good luck, its a buyers market.

Tech Ticker is just more crap from guessers

Right now I've got cheap rent coupled with a decent salary. But even in a "healthy" market such as here in Houston, housing is appreciating at only about 1-2% annually, while interests on a mortgage are more than twice that. At the rate I am saving, in a year I will have a 20% (or more) down payment on anything I want here. It behooves me to keep renting and saving for now.

How can you blame the media for the downturn without blaming them for the artificial runup? Lots of agents on these message boards still clueless of reality.

NOTICE the trading range of DHI.. IF you are trader vs investor it is a great stock to play the swings. Hit 13 the other day. The city I leave in does not have a housing crisis and prices remain healthy and sales also.. it is not global in the USA

there is a real easy formula to understand when home prices will bottom out - average home price 215 K (which is better than 235K) - average salary 31 K. (prices are still too high) and will continue to fall.

don't blame the media, they are doing their job: reporting and interviewing those with theories. greenspan called the housing bubble and the internet bubble and nobody listened to him at the time.

I am curious why we don't hear the experts discussing housing market cycles and how they are different for individual areas. If you research housing and real estate from the 20/30's you see very similar patterns, i.e. increases in value up to 100% followed by reduction in value typically 20-30%. This cycle is typically over a 6-8 year period of time depending on the local area. It amazes me that we have so many "experts" discussing what is happening & either not understanding that this is no different than the housing cylcles of the past (or just not explaining it). The reasons for the slowdown are different this time around (as they are each housing cycle), but the result is the same.

Disclosure? Can Barry tell us what his investments are? This analysis seems biased towards his own personal profits.