Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

homestead - Re: [Homestead] Real estate market analysis, 7/24/08

homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Homestead mailing list

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Clansgian AT wmconnect.com
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] Real estate market analysis, 7/24/08
  • Date: Sun, 27 Jul 2008 11:28:20 EDT

>The balanced
view is that things may become better or they may become worse. Some
find only one possibility.

Interesting. And ironic.

Yes, things may (or *will*) become better or worse, but "things" does not
hinge on nor depend on housing. My contribution to this discussion (and I am
saying so in case I do a bad job and it isn't obvious) is to hold out the
notion
that we might be in the process of discarding our present notion of housing
and that in itself might lead to things being very much better all around.

Ironic, I say, because while our minds are in the 'housing is wealth' mode,
"seeing one possibility" means thinking that this one mode, housing, will get
worse and worse. Rather I think it is the houseniks that are seeing it only
one way, that is, the ONLY reason houses aren't selling is because people
can't
at present buy them, but when that changes people will once again be lined up
to buy every house. Seeing it more than one way is to realize that even when
we get over the present economic troubles, people might no longer view houses
(in the present configuration of 'houses') as being wealth or even as being
desireable.

:>You, James, appear to be in the latter
camp. We must therefore conclude that you are unbalanced. You would
possibly agree. Yes? No?

Yes, agreed. So long as you realize this is in the paradigm of 'housing
makes the world go around' Outside that paradigm I am quite balanced. That
is,
do I think that there will not be revival of housing as a major component of
the economy. Yes, I think that.

>I am unable to think
of any major country whose economy has sunk to no bottom, just eternal
sinking.

To wit: The above seems to reflect the notion that the ONLY reason housing
(condos, suburbia, exurbia, etc) as we know it is in a steady decline is
because people just can't afford it, but once they can afford it, it will
turn
around. That is, it reflects the idea that economy and the value of such
housing
listed above are inexorably linked.

>In some areas migration will only be outward for a long time. This has
happened in many rural areas before. In those areas, many homes may
well not sell for a very long time. Some may one day simply be recycled.


Again let me suggest that this is a limiting paradigm. Outward migration
isn't the only reason for a decline in the value of housing, a shit in
lifestyles
may soon account for far more than migration. Yes, some will be recycled.
Some will fall down or be razed for materials (what few in a modern house are
razable). Some will become goat barns. Many will house five families. When
I was very small, four of my aunts (my mother had 23 sibs and half sibs) had
an apartment in an old house that at one time had been one large house but by
the 1950's had been divided up into five apartments and each one of those was
occupied by three or four adults. That's fifteen to twenty people living in
one dwelling that under today's way of things is most often twenty different
single households.

The trend is reversing. A niece who lives in the Tidewater area of Virginia
described to me an annual ritual. One has to sign a lease for an apartment
or
townhouse for a year and no single person (of her means) can or wants to
afford it on their own. So they from groups of four or five people and rent
a
place, signing the lease for a year. At the end of the lease, having gotten
on
each other's nerves, they then have a social conclave where they disband and
reform groups for the next year.

My sister is a mail carrier in the same area. For mail to be delivered to
any address, the names of all individua recipients must be on the mailbox.
She
reprorts that over the past decade the lists on the mailboxes have become
longer and longer with many of them exceding twenty names in modest urban
houses.



>You, James, should feel fortunate that you live in such a depressed area.

I think surely by now that we can establish tha the old real estate saw that
it's location, location, location does not obtain in the present shift.
Record foreclosures, bank failures, Congress bailing out vast lending and
surety
institutions, etc. goes beyond this being a local phenomenon.

But, you see, there's the thing. Real estate is in the toilet here, although
the local Realtors turn blue in the face denying it. But this is NOT a
depressed area. In fact, now that people are getting their attention off of
real
estate, many positive things are happening. Now, to be sure, those who used
their house like an ATM and those who thought they could buy a house for
$200K
and it would be worht a million if a few years are utterly screwed. But the
local economy is showing some very promosing solidification. Again I am
seeing
the ever stronger disconnect between economy and real estate (as we have
known
it).



James Kunstler expressed thus:



"A lot of people (Realtors, builders, bankers) are waiting for the“bottom”
of the housing crash, with the idea that we’ll re-enter an up-cycle. I see it
differently. There won’t be a resumption of “growth”as we’ve known it,
certainly not in suburban residential and commercial real estate. The
suburban
project is over. We’re done with that. (Iknow people find this unbelievable.)
The
existing stuff will represent a huge liability for us for decades to come as
it
loses value and utility and falls apart.However, I also believe our big
cities will contract. They are simply not scaled to the energy realities of
the
future. The successful places, in my opinion, will be the smaller cities and
towns that 1.)have walkable neighborhoods, 2.) have proximity to water for
power,transport and drinking, and 3.) have a meaningful relationship with
aproductive
agricultural hinterland. Some places you can forget about completely: Phoenix
.?.?. Las Vegas .?.?. they’re toast."



So, again in case I have not communicated well here, my point isn't
(necessarily) that it's all gloom and doom and the "economy" will continue a
downward
bottomless spairal. Rather that the economy isn't any longer synonymous with
real estate and we might be (likely are) in a social shift where housing (as
we
know it) could be dropped entirely by the wayside and wealth and prestige is
measured by something entirely other. In that view of things, there indeed
is
no bottom to the real estate market.

</HTML>




Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page