Reality wrote on Nov 27, 2007 11:51 PM:Just wait til the other shoe falls. Commercial real estate is jucied just as bad as the subprime residential and is now teetering on the cliff. No one is talking about it. Fraudulent appraisals ordered by mortgage brokers are the norm here also. There is no way income can carry these properties once the vacancies kick in. Best of luck to all the lenders out there in '08.

Realtor wrote on Nov 28, 2007 12:28 AM:Home prices are falling, now is the time to buy! Home prices are rising, now is the time to buy! Home prices are steady, now is the time to buy! Where's my commission check?

jvc wrote on Nov 28, 2007 3:16 AM:For the life of me I could not understand how Reagan's voodoo economics promulgated by the conservatives lasted this long!

radioceleb99 wrote on Nov 28, 2007 3:41 AM:Everyday more Economist’s like Robert J. Shiller are expressing concern that the threat of a recession is coming, but there are plenty of other clues that we are facing unprecedented risks. Consider publicly traded Real Estate Investment Trusts ( REIT). Over the last few years most REIT’s performed extremely well. But the fundamentals are deteriorating and the trading values that took years to build could potentially be wiped out in as many months by the those nasty stock market vultures and fast buck artists commonly known as short sellers. Take Equity One (ticker: EQY) as an example of the perfect storm. Equity One is traded on the New York Stock Exchange. While Equity One’s exposure is nationwide it is based in Florida and so is a huge chunk of its portfolio. The double whammy facing Equity One is that unlike a diversified REIT it primarily invests in “retail” real estate. Equity One disclosed in the latest supplement to it’s quarterly report that its overall vacancy rate is already over 6%, but the shocker is the fact that the rate almost doubles (to a little over 12% vacancy) when the tenants shop is less 10,000 sq ft. The real danger for Equity One is that this group of tenants represents over 70% of Equity One’s shopping center revenue. When you consider that less than 30% of Equity One’s current shopping center tenants are Anchor’s (defined as having over 10,000 sq ft.) you really get goose bumps because at least the bigger retailers have the capital reserves to weather the storm. …And you thought only Realtors and builders had it bad.

Paul G. wrote on Nov 28, 2007 6:33 AM:There are several misrepresentations of facts in this article.... one statement explains part of the problem... "It seems like people are just waiting for the next bit of negative news to come along"... People are just as anxious to hear good news... nobody reports it or prints it... and if there is a hint of it... "The National Association of Realtors reported last week that home prices have actually increased" it is downplayed. Give us unbiased news Please...

Owner wrote on Nov 28, 2007 7:17 AM:The realtors association needs to learn a lesson from all the bad press they have received and go on vacation. In an article about how bad the market is they come out and try and tell us that home prices are increasing. EVEN if that is true, it makes them sound like they are again trying to gloss over the problem. That entire association should take the big profits they made off of the unsuspecting public and take a long vacation in some nice vacation spot like Tijuania or Iran!

Concerned-1 wrote on Nov 28, 2007 8:49 AM:This is not good news, but then good news is a rare commodity these days. That said, the price of a new home went out of control. Why the lending institutions, or government oversight, couldn't see this coming is mystery...or a crime depending on which way you look at it.

Biding my time wrote on Nov 28, 2007 9:36 AM:Let it slump, can't do much about it anyway. Then, when the trend has slowed or bottomed out, make a down payment on a home or another home as an investment and ride the escalator back up. This is how many is made. Buy low, sell high. The trick is knowing when, where, and how.

We haven't. wrote on Nov 28, 2007 9:45 AM:Seenn the ripple effect yet. It's liable to be a full blown recession as in 1990. Hold on to your assest.

mb wrote on Nov 28, 2007 10:06 AM:Where are all of our residents living? Rental prices are steady, with fire areas as the exception. So it appears the supply of rentals is steady. No one is buying.... Is everyone living 2 or 3 families to a home? These vacancies were not here before. The population has not seemed to diminish in San Diego, traffic is still as bad as ever. I don't get it.

bubbles eveywhere wrote on Nov 28, 2007 10:23 AM:Just wait until the 300 trillion dollar global derivatives market blows up. That's the next bubble to pop.

ray wrote on Nov 28, 2007 10:27 AM:People, you have to understand that this is neccesary the economy has to recycle itself and get rid of the weakest it is ok to suffer through this period and move on.

Interesting times wrote on Nov 28, 2007 10:52 AM:With the credit markets getting tighter every day (back to normal), I guess we'll see how much of the housing "boom" was fueled by false demand -- i.e. ridiculous lending standards/speculation. It will be interesting to see who is left standing when the trillions of dollars of toxic CDO's come home to roost. There doesn't seem to be any practical way to solve the derivatives melt-down. What's the Fed. going to do -- purchase these worthless securities to save the banks? If so, the U.S. dollar is really going to get hammered.

Rental prices are steady? wrote on Nov 28, 2007 11:14 AM:Call around. We just got a $60 a month increase and those I Called all over, are going up now or soon! Seems in my experience, those that own are hanging on and the only trickle down is the price going up. Watch the rentals empty out now! This rental will be available Jan 1. Not even considering a purchase at this time.

change is good wrote on Nov 28, 2007 11:14 AM:The greatness of free market capitalism is that it eliminates inefficiencies. Building 3000 square foot homes 70 miles from employment centers is a waste of natural resources. The cost of heating and cooling these homes in addition to the waste of petroleum commuting to and from work is far too wasteful. I've traveled the world and most people either take mass transit, drive very small cars or motor scooters, ride bikes or walk. We are being forced (economically) to change our gluttonous ways in order to compete with more resource efficient countries, which is good. No more selfish cowboys and blond bimbos driving solo in their trucks and Hummers at the expense of the rest of the world.

Roberto1 wrote on Nov 28, 2007 1:17 PM:Full blown recession in 6 months IMHO...with that said, hang onto your property and buy what you can. As Mark Twain said "Land, they are not making anymore of it"

Max wrote on Nov 28, 2007 2:26 PM:I hear tell that the unsecured entitlement programs like social security will continue to fuel rampant inflation. Currently, there are many, many trillions of dollars the government owes through these programs, with no way to meet the shortfall save for electronically printing more money, most of the money only being electrical impulses stored on data bases and in computers. Buy silver and gold, now.

This is the tip. wrote on Nov 28, 2007 3:03 PM:Of the iceberg. This government has been spending like there is no tomorrow in the Middle East. You will be asked to sacrifice more than Marine lives. Just so you know.

change is good wrote on Nov 28, 2007 4:32 PM:Max is right. U.S. currency has no intrinsic value. It is only worth something as long as merchants are willing to accept it in exchange for their goods. In addition, your bank balance is nothing more than a few transistors on a microchip representing a binary number of your account balance. Moreover, there is only a fraction of the currency on hand to cover all of the bank deposits. If there should be a run on the banks, they will simply close as they did in 1929. Before 1971, the US was on the gold standard. Your currency was tied to gold. The feds couldn't print currency out of thin air like they do today. For every dollar printed there had to be an equivelent amount of gold backing it. The gold standard enforced financial discipline because if the feds spent money, they were depleting the gold reserves; once the gold was gone, so was the spending. The government was very reluctant to go to war, because they had to pay for it with real money, gold. Today, it's so easy for the government to violate its own spending caps, because all they have to do is fire up the printing presses and pay with unbacked paper with no real value other than the amount of heat it gives off when you throw it into the fire place. When investors realize, as they are beginning to now, that what they are holding is really an IOU with no tangible value, only a broken promise, the dollar will collapse. If you read about empires past, especially the Roman Empire, they all debased their currencies to pay for their imperialistic wars. Today is no different. If we continue to ignore history, the final result will likely be the same...collapse.

Karl wrote on Nov 28, 2007 5:03 PM:jvc, I looked up "promulgated" on dictionary dot com and still don't understand your use of the word. Is "to set forth or teach publicly" what you mean"?. Please enlighten me. Merry Christmas.

Karl wrote on Nov 28, 2007 5:11 PM:Amazing, as a conservative I find myself in agreement with "change is good". The alarmists (the press) act as if this is news. Our Country has and will go through recessions for decades to come. I for one cannot believe that we have been on an up cycle for this long.

wendlin wrote on Nov 28, 2007 5:50 PM:Realtors cause alot of this problem. They overprice and push people to buy stuff they really cannot afford. They own most of the rentals, and keep pushing up the rents forcing people to move out and take a chance on buying a property. They don't do much to earn that 6%. Any information provided to this paper by realtors is propaganda.

jcv wrote on Nov 28, 2007 5:53 PM:Karl - Sorry... I should stick to bashing MiraCosta College. I retrack my comments. I'll try not to ruin this blog like I have so many others at nctimes.com. Goodbye.

jvc wrote on Nov 28, 2007 6:35 PM:PROMULGATED, probably cheated on the use of this word but meant to get and carry on as an ideology. Yes, and MC to you too!