New Home Demolition

[steross]

Incredible footage of the razing of brand new homes in SoCal due to the housing bubble. Cheaper to tear them down than to pay the fines for upkeep. Anyone that thinks we are near the bottom of this in these areas is not watching closely.

http://www.housingcrisis.com/home-builders/razing-hell-newhome-demolitions-california-desert/

[ctaggie]

From what I read earlier this week ... Phoenix down 51% from peak ... Vegas 48% ... Miami 45% ... BUT ... Phoenix still up 12% since Jan 2000 ... Vegas up 21% ... Miami up 54% ... all according to Case-Shiller Index for February. 20-city index overall ... down 31% from peak ... about where prices were in Q3 of 2003.

[Chris H.]

Not in those areas, but the problem is not as wide spread as most would have you believe. Half the foreclosures are centralized in 35 counties across 12 states.

[steross]

I almost moved to Temecula when I left Vegas. I just sold my house in South Dakota. Probably would have been severely upside-down if I was in Temecula instead of South Dakota.


http://www.Economagic.com/chartg/cenc25/c25m02.gif

There are places that it is devastating and others that are not very bad, but I don't think you can argue that it is not a widespread problem when you look at this nationwide average. It may not seem so widespread from a geographic base, but from a monetary base or a population base, it is a more widespread real estate problem than we have seen in our lifetimes.

I said a few years ago that we could drop back to 1990s prices when this bubble popped. Many laughed at me at the time but it looks well within reach now in many areas. The argument at the time was that you can't build em that cheap. But look at the price of commodities, lumber for example is half what it was in 2006. High unemployment reduces labor costs and deflation reduces material costs. They can build em that cheap. Not that we need a lot of building with all of the inventory.

They are building houses in Vegas for $80 a square foot now. That is 1990s prices.

[okstateguy987]

This is just a picture-perfect of sustainability.

[Chris H.]

There are places that it is devastating and others that are not very bad, but I don't think you can argue that it is not a widespread problem when you look at this nationwide average. It may not seem so widespread from a geographic base, but from a monetary base or a population base, it is a more widespread real estate problem than we have seen in our lifetimes.

The monetary base looks bad because of the geographic statistic I pointed out. The homes they were building in those areas were high priced driving the average up, and now consequently down. While yes, foreclosures are up in other areas and prices are down, if you take out 35 counties from the 3,140 in the U.S. the picture isn't nearly as bleak.

[OSUCherokee]

http://www.Economagic.com/chartg/cenc25/c25m02.gif


That graph makes me happy since I am 25 and will probably be buying a house in the next couple years.

[steross]

The monetary base looks bad because of the geographic statistic I pointed out. The homes they were building in those areas were high priced driving the average up, and now consequently down. While yes, foreclosures are up in other areas and prices are down, if you take out 35 counties from the 3,140 in the U.S. the picture isn't nearly as bleak.

But by taking out those 35 counties you are also taking out 20% of the households. These are high population areas. Breaking it into counties gives a false impression that it is a minor problem. This is a large part of our population that lives in these areas. If you foreclosed every house in South Dakota that would sound horrible, but it would be a drop in the bucket compared to SoCal as there are 13 times more people in LA county than in the entire state of South Dakota.

[Pokit N]

http://www.Economagic.com/chartg/cenc25/c25m02.gif



See the Highest point on that graph? That's when I bought my house. Buy low sell high? Bah-That's for chumps!

[Poke2000]

Looks to me like we're about at the same point as when I bought my house in 2004. But hey, the local market has been down lately due to houses selling cheap after being damaged by flood waters in the fall. Other than that, our local home values have been far less volatile (near static).