Flip that House (low - real low)

[denem]

House prices slide back to their lowest level of the recession (April 2009) - as per LBN
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/27/business/economy/27econ.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

The Golden Aquarium goes to:
Joe Biden and the Delaware Boys for the atrocious 2005 Bankruptcy Act. How does it feel to have so many families out on the street Joe? You know, street, not Street. The fact that it was done to strengthen the actuarial value of collateral in CDO's speaks for itself:

The Silver Aquarium goes to:
Phil Gramm and Bill Clinton for freeing bubble derivates from any regulatory oversight.

The Bronze to:
Bubble bathers rich and poor, lender and debtor, who just knew 18% growth per year was as sustainable as a reactor.

The Lifetime Achievement Aquarium goes to:
Everyone's favorite brain dead piranha, Alan Greenspan,
who, yes, just this month, began advocating rolling back regulation to strengthen growth. (A word Alan: Don't go wandering the streets of Dublin anytime soon).

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. Thanks for posting this. Very important to acknowledge how we got to where we are now.

[EmmettKelly]

2. You seem to forget that Bush/Cheney/Rove

had 8 years to address these problems and did nothing but invade sovereign countries and torture innocent civilians.

[Poboy]

3. Should You Stop Paying Your Mortgage?

http://www.strategicloandefault.com/

====

Morgan Stanley Defaulted on a Loan and Walked away from Offices in Tokyo!! Gave the keys back! Biggest Default in Japan's History 3.3 Billion
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110415/bs_nm/us_morgan_stanley_real_estate

[nykym]

4. Off topic but

"Flip the House" would be a great Democratic slogan for the upcoming 2012 elections.

[JohnnyRingo]

5. I'm so glad you posted this.

I've been looking for an excuse to use this picture for a month:



Hahahaha

[gratuitous]

6. Not every financial sector has to be high-flying high-risk high-return

We used to know that and understand it. Certainly there's a place in the financial sector for venture capital and high-risk investment. Higher risks have to promise higher returns or nobody will invest, but it is also the nature of high risk investing that you could lose your money. We used to know that.

Now, everything has to be high return, even the things that have historically been low return like residential real estate. If you're not making 10% or more return each and every year, the other billionaires will laugh at your pathetic earnings. And who needs that? But of course, since we're talking the high-flying elites, they don't brook losing very well, either. Which means that the returns are decidedly privatized (it's MY money, I EARNED it!), but the risks and the losses are most definitely socialized. Now that so many of these schemes have come a cropper, it's time for a round of belt-tightening austerity. But not for our good friends in the financial sector! No, it's time for all you proles who took it in the shorts for the last decade to really find out what financial pain is all about.

Sure, you're working harder with greater efficiency and higher productivity for less money, just as you have for the last 30 years. But now the financial big boyz are in danger of not getting everything they're due, and that aggression simply must not stand.

[rustydog]

7. I have a realtor who keeps calling me asking when I am ready to

Jump in and buy a house over here (north of Seattle). The poor guy is having a rough time. he works a part time job to cover what he lost in sales drops in real-estate.

note; We own a house on the East side of the Cascade mts. that we rent out and we rent a house here where we now work.

He keeps telling me prices will start going up and mortgage rates will start creeping up. so we should consider getting a home soon.

I tell him we want to buy but are not in a rush because the prices will not start creepingup until the 1.8 million more homes about to be foreclosed are put on the market and sold and the half-empty housing developments in the area actually sell some homes.

There is going to be another crash. It may not be too pretty when it happens. that is why we are not rushing in to buy a second house.

[jtuck004]

8. I posted this elsewhere, but feel free to copy the chart and send it to

him.

It projects the exact opposite.

http://econproph.com/2011/04/18/house-prices-still-pretty-high-historically/

[DirkGently]

9. Excellent. MCollum & Grassley had a lot to do with the awful BAPCPA, too.

[mistertrickster]

10. Alan Greenspan was a member of an Ayn Rand study group. No joke. nt