Wednesday, February 21, 2007

NAR Kool-Aid for sale


House prices haven’t gone up because of low rates, or flippers or Casey Serin. They’ve gone up because of population increases and a persistent demand for homes. - Nigel

Where do the REICC come up with this crap?

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Opium dens?

Anonymous said...

I thought this guy was coming back to reality when he started chastising SerCasey a bit. But Nooooooooo! First its the interrogating accountant that runs into a phone booth and turns into Carlos Hathcock, and now this.

Just pull up a US population chart and see if it parallels housing price increases. That shoots his theory right out of the sky.

Housing is starting to be treated like a commodity. It has been driven up on speculation pure and simple. It is driven by supply and demand, of course, but this is artificial demand. Without Greenspan & the Fed squashing interest rates to 1% the likelihood of a bubble would have been close to nil. Coupled with loose (or is that lose) lending standards it infused the market with abnormal amounts of speculators and people not usually qualified to get loans.

Population increase? Get real! Population increase would account for some of the rise sure, but nothing close what has happened. The dismantling of the subprime market is the first shoe to drop. Any crack in the economy, continued rise in interest rates or unforseen tragedy and this is going to get really ugly, really fast.

Anonymous said...

Well, at least he didn't claim that it was wage increases that spurred the lattest housing bubble. How could anyone seriously believe this when you hear you hear your freinds, family, and hairdresser all talking about how many investment properties they own or are in the process of buying. Does he really think that Casey is an anomoly?

Hello! Reality calling!

Anonymous said...

He's absolutely right. In the past five years, the US population, like housing prices, has risen by 300% and there are currently over a billion people living in the United States -- almost 100 million of them in California. Additionally, my salary, like the salaries of every other American, has gone up threefold, and virtually everyone I know is making in excess of $200K per year.

Not!

Anonymous said...

I think that there's a future for this looser in the Bush administration. Total disregard for any and all things factual or based in reality.

-walt526

Anonymous said...

Sorry Nigel, I vote you off the island. Your article, as always, is not up to the standards of those with 100+ IQs. But then again, I'll bet you even turn off the under 100 IQs because even they can see you are a windbag.

Anonymous said...

walt526 said...
Total disregard for any and all things factual or based in reality.



Indeed. As per Stephen Colbert, this is referred to as "truthiness".

Anonymous said...

Rob,

2nd warning on not linking to your source. Next time you get a ticket. Seriously, if you're going to stalk this guy's blog for everything he writes, you might as well link to it.

Or you could come up with something original on your own...

Anonymous said...

007,

You can see the population chart at the bottom of this post.

Graph the numbers provided and you'll see median prices and population levels move exactly in tandem.

Rob Dawg said...

IP,
ibid and op cit are redundant in this case. "Nigel" is the citation.

It is fair use and it is original as none of what you've read afterwards would have ever made it to the comments section of SLCRE.

Anonymous said...

I hereby write an e-ticket to the poster known as INTERNET POLICE aka NIGEL SWABY for trolling, harassment and battery.

Anonymous said...

@Anon

What kind of crack pipe are you smoking??? Lets just take your figures for the sake of argument. I don't like the median price for housing, but lets just use it since it is on the spreadsheet.

1996
Median Price $108,798
US Population 262 million

2006
Median Price $215,343
US Population 300 Million

Rounding the numbers for expediency, that is a 14.5% increase in population and a 99% increase in the median cost of housing. DUH!!!!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

@Anon

Oh, and if you want to get into the specifics of the real bubblemarkets Calif, NY & FL those numbers are going to seem tame in comparison.

Trying to foist off this bubble market on population growth is disingenuous at best. And at worst...well you know what the at worst is, because I think that is what you are doing.

Anonymous said...

@ Anon

Are those nominal or real numbers? If nominal, then the gap gets even wider as ~3% annual inflation eats away at the increase in real dollars quite a bit over a ten year period.

-walt526