I agree on housing
Here's another good piece on the housing bust. I agree with this analysis that the worst has not yet been exposed.
Well, if you thought things were bad now, just wait. Think bank failures, recession, soaring default rates, home prices plunging by at least one-third and layoffs rippling across the economy. The unwinding could take five to seven years before the housing market hits bottom, he says.
Agreed. We've only begun to get a sampling of the coming economic re-alignment. The next key quote for me was this:
"Everybody is hiding and not disclosing losses," he says. "They're all winking and nodding at each other because they've all got this stuff on their books."
With 40 per cent of some banks' assets invested in residential mortgages, they won't be able to conceal their losses forever. Faced with rising defaults, banks are already pulling back on lending. The lack of credit, in turn, will exert a major drag on the economy, which for years has been fueled by easy money. That's why Mr. Talbott says a recession in the next 12 to 18 months is a certainty.
For the last X years, banks have been stingy as hell, keeping foreclosed properties on their books...only reducing what they'll take by $5k/month or so until the property sold...and what incentive did they have in a booming market? Now however, in typical big company fashion, they're still not dumping these properties because they don't have the staff to deal with it, this would expose their financial instability, and would feed the gloom. I'm ready for the truth to come out and capitalize on it.
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