Dog Days for U.S. Housing; Is NYC Next?
The Times is talking doom and gloom about the national housing market after stats were released showing that home prices fell 14.1 percent in March as compared to the same month last year. While primo New York City—Manhattan in particular—has remained mostly immune to the rest of the country’s housing woes, other once-resilient markets are…
The Times is talking doom and gloom about the national housing market after stats were released showing that home prices fell 14.1 percent in March as compared to the same month last year. While primo New York City—Manhattan in particular—has remained mostly immune to the rest of the country’s housing woes, other once-resilient markets are faltering. Seattle, for example, has only started posting a huge rise in unsold inventory. Some say the housing market hangover could last for another couple years. It’s like eating beyond your stomach’s capacity, said Ronald J. Peltier, the chief executive of Home Services of America, which owns real estate brokerage firms across the country. We have huge indigestion. According to an article in the Observer, though, New York City may yet have to reach for the Mylanta: Recent rises in inflation (the price of a six pack of craft beer is up $1!) and crime, coupled with lots of job losses, could very well mean the worst is yet to come.
In Housing, the Strong Turn Weak [NY Times]
Lead Indicators? The Price of Beer, Hurricane Season [NY Observer]
Photo by bburke782.
Interesting. 11:45 doesn’t want to answer any quesitons. Must be afraid to tell the truth. Wonder why?
11:45: Where are you from? You don’t mention exactly. You just skim over that piece of information.
11:45: I thought you were “pissed” by your 8:12 PM post. Now you found it “fun.” You are a liar and a revisionist historian. You sound like a Republican.
11:45. You are still clueless. I repeated your comments because they apply to you more than anyone else on this thread. Obviously, your thin skin can’t handle the comments.
Since you are an idiot who only understands being bitch-slapped to sanity, here goes…
Here is what you said about another poster ….
http://bstoner.wpengine.com/forum/archives/2008/05/kitchen_solariu.php#comments
Since you are an idiot, you were responding to this comment ….
http://bstoner.wpengine.com/forum/archives/2008/05/kitchen_solariu.php#comments
You made all the ASSumptions that had no basis in reality.
You are an idiot and you don’t even remember what you wrote or why you wrote it. You can’t follow your own thoughts. How stupid are you?
I was commenting on your inability to accept that there are some Democrats who expect others to work for a living.
As for your idiotic and racist comment about living in a black community so you must understand black people better, you simply prove my point. “I am a white liberal and I know things about blacks that you don’t” Get off your high horse. First, stop implying that everyone is referring to black people when they use “NYC code”. That is so racist. And living among black people isn’t special. Lots of people do it. Your bleeding heart silliness reeks.
Here is a clue for you: black people are just like everyone else. Well, not like you, since you are a limo liberal.
Another clue: There are lots of poor people in this city who aren’t black or white. Expand your horizons. That means you need to get out of your limo and start actually intereacting with people in the city instead of trying to insult them before you hide in your little bubble.
good morning to you 10:12- and quest- who provided me some fun but is nowhere near challenging enough.
FYI my background is pretty much the same as yours. And so are my politics- so for you to accuse me of being a limo liberal was pretty much based on the fact that I took you to task on on your statements. Since I live in a mostly Black neighborhood and have probably more contact on a personal/family level than most white people seem to, I find blanket statements using- and we all know what they are- the special “NYC code” for the Black community. There is a huge number of working poor in NYC who so everything you do on far less money. I make no excuses for the ones who don’t take responsibility, but no one seems to mention the ones that do because people like you are so busy using labels and generalities (such as calling me a limo liberal, hmmm?) that you lose sight of the fact that there are far more people in the Black and other ethnic communities who do exactly what you think they ought.
In so far as being a limo liberal- would that I could afford to be. I happen to be far closer to working class than limo class. But a liberal? You bet- and proud to be. Conservatives- look around you. 8 years of so-called conservative policies haven’t done much for us. Where’s their common sense?
Good morning 8:12. This is 6:58 – and the other poster Quest is not me. But thank you Quest for your stance.
Just an FYI – so perhaps you can learn – I am lifetime New Yorker (born here, parents born in Bronx, Brooklyn). I am a democrat. I get up and go to work every day, even when I don;t want to. I do not think I am entitled to anything from anyone. AND I think the same goes for everyone else. Unlike LLs, I do not make excuses that there is some reason others cannot do the same. NO, get off your ass,go to work, go to school – and and the very least, make sure your children do not make the same mistakes you did. Be responsible – school is bad? move. read to them, etc. kids are expensive? don’t have another one. common sense stuff. like Everyone else.
Here is what is different: Buyers used to demand a discount because of the risk that the city would collapse around them. Now they pay a premium to avoid the risk that it will gentrify beyond their finances.
They are willing to pay more today because they think prices are going to go up tomorrow. That’s the definition of a bubble.
4:33 — until the last decade, the rent/own ratio was always HIGHER in NYC than the rest of the country, because NYC had a deeper rental market with more options at more income levels than anywhere else. Elsewhere, owners paid a premium for luxury that they didn’t need to pay here.
What has changed, other than the bubble? Not co-ops — they’ve been around since the 1920s. Not a sudden disappearance of luxury rentals — they get easier to find each year with new construction and renovated apartments coming off rent regulation. The density, crime rate, island, subways, garbage on the streets, and the rest of the reasons why NYC is better than it used to be and better than Boston/Chicago/SF/DC/LA/Westchester all apply equally to the rental market.
4:14 here. 1:43 thinks that NYC sales prices need not have any relation to rents for 3 reasons, each silly. 1. “Rentals and sales are not comparable in NY unlike the rest of the country.” This is precisely backwards. It is easier to rent quality housing in the nice neighborhoods in NY than anywhere else in the US. In most of the rest of the country, rentals for upper income people are virtually all short-term. 2. “Coops encourage stability and reduce the likelihood of subprime driven bubbles.” This is correct, but irrelevant. To the extent that coops managed to exclude funny financing (and they can’t police all of it), they picked off the better owners, leaving the marginal ones to drive the condo and house markets. But in fact coop prices haven’t strayed far from comparable housing, including condos, private houses, so obviously potential buyers have viewed them as largely comparable. So as the bubble deflates, they are most likely to do the same. 3. “Rent stabilization distorts rental prices.” No doubt, but no one suggests comparing stabilized rents to purchase prices of unstabilized units. Compare like to like: stabilized units sell for numbers that only make sense if they include a high probability that the stabilized tenant can be forced out illegally, and unstabilized units, including brownstones, sell for prices that make sense only if the owner believes that prices need not make sense. (See Dave’s explanation for an example of that).
As for Dave at 4:55, obviously he learned his debating skills on talk radio: if you are wrong, just call your opponent names. If he actually had any reason to think that normal rules of competitive markets have been repealed in NYC he’d offer them.