From Pine View Farm

Update from the Foreclosure-Based Economy 1

Heidi Moore distrusts the numbers.

She suspects that reports of recovery are overblown and that the “housing recovery” isn’t so much a “recovery” as the next stage of foreclosure frenzy.

The housing recovery, for instance, seems to be just another stage of the foreclosure crisis. Note that the areas where house prices have risen the most – Arizona, Las Vegas and California – are all areas that were hurt most deeply by the housing crash. So pry between the boards of the housing recovery and the termites start crawling out. Here, you’ll find some old villains of the last housing bubble, crawling on the same properties. There are the house-flippers and the financial institutions, the foreclosure players that regenerate whenever there is a boom.

In this case, they may be creating the boom themselves. House-flipping in California has reached levels not seen since 2005, according to the Wall Street Journal. This rise in price is, by all accounts, artificial. Housing, like all products, responds to the laws of supply and demand. When supply decreases – when there are fewer homes on the market – then prices will rise. This is what is happening now.

And I’m still waiting for sequestrian dressage to start affecting the numbers, because it will.

Share

1 comment

  1. Kelly Wheeler

    May 29, 2013 at 10:07 am

    Finally a voice tells the truth. No recovery, false expectations and hang on as the ride is about to drop. Great article!!