UK — 25% Borrow Money To Buy Food

It doesn’t sound good when 20% of your people have to borrow money to BUY FOOD.

While GBP jumped and the world celebrated the UK’s recent avoidance (for now) of a triple-dip recession (defined on GDP as opposed to reality), the situation in the island nation appears to be going from bad to worse. As Carney takes over the reigns of this once mighty nation he faces a country deeply divided.

The BBC reports:

As the BBC reports, while London real estate prices smash old records, a stunning one-in-five households borrowed money or used savings to cover the costs of food in April. This is the equivalent of five million households unable to fund their food via income alone. Over 80% of these people are concerned about rising food prices (just as print-meister Carney is about to go ‘Abe’ on them) and almost 60% find it difficult to cope on their current incomes. The director of the consumer group ‘Which?’, noted that “many households are stretched to their financial breaking point,” as “families face a cost of living crisis.” While equity and real estate prices hit all-time highs, the opposition sums up the country’s feeling, “this incompetent government needs to wake up to the human cost of their failed economic policies.”

Among the group who used savings or credit to pay for food:

• Eight out of 10 (82%) worried about food prices
• More than half (55%) said they were likely to cut back on food spending in the next few months
• Nearly six out of 10 (57%) said they found it difficult to cope on their current income
• A third (32%) borrowed money from friends and family in April

Housing Bubble 2.0

It was just seven short years ago that the prices at the epicenter of the housing bubble, Los Angeles, CA rose by 50% every six months as the nation experienced its first parabolic move higher in home prices courtesy of Alan Greenspan’s disastrous policies: a time when everyone knew intuitively the housing market was in an epic bubble, yet which nobody wanted to pop because there was just too much fun to be had chasing the bouncing ball, not to mention money. Well, courtesy of the real-time real estate pricing trackers at Altos Research, we now know that the very worst of the housing bubble is not only back, but it is at levels not seen since the days when a house in the Inland Empire was only a faint glimmer of the prototype for BitCoin.

source

SHILLER: ‘We’re Living In A Totally Artificial Real Estate Economy’

“One thing that makes it very hard to forecast home prices right now is that we’re living in a totally artificial real estate economy,” said Shiller, co-creator of the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller Index, a widely followed measure of housing prices.

Shiller pointed to the Federal Reserve, which last week reaffirmed its policies on bond purchases and record-low interest rates. In September, the Fed launched a third round of quantitative easing (QE), in which it has bought $40 billion of mortgage-backed securities per month, primarily in mortgage-backed bonds.

Meanwhile, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two largest U.S. home funding sources, remain in government conservator-ship as Congress looks for ways to raise new tax revenues, Shiller noted.

“All of these things are weighing on the futures of housing,” Shiller said on CNBC’s “Futures Now,” adding the recovery might even be a bubble. “One thing you learn from history is that bubbles can occur at any time.”

 

OK, Define Post-Crisis, I Dare You: Homes Prices Drop 2% to Post-Crisis Lows

Home Prices Drop 2% – To Post-Crisis Lows

From a relentlessly spinning Associated Press, yeah I know, normal people would just say lying, but they are all we got left for a press, for now:

Homes Prices Drop 2% to Post-Crisis Lows: Case-Shiller

May 29, 2012

Home prices fell in the first quarter to new post-crisis lows, but prices were up in March from February for the first time in seven months.

The increase is the latest evidence of a slow recovery taking shape in the troubled housing market.

You see?  Just “the latest evidence of a slow recovery taking shape.” I wonder what a normal recobvery would look like to the AP?

It’s almost as if their jobs depend on talking up the economy enough to get Obama re-elected. You get the sense the media is all in on this election?

The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller home price index showed that prices increased in 12 of the 20 cities it tracks.

Still, the major indexes ended the first quarter at new post-crisis lows, the report said. For the first quarter, prices were down 2 percent, compared to a 3.9 percent decline in the last three months of 2011.

Prices increased in Tampa and Miami — two of the hardest hit markets. Las Vegas — the nation’s worst market — so no change in prices. Prices dropped sharply in Detroit, Chicago and Atlanta.

The increases partly reflect the beginning of the spring selling season. The month-to-month prices aren’t adjusted for seasonal factors.

So have we finally found a number that is not seasonally adjusted? We can’t have that! Everything has to be cloaked in wiggle room and error, just in case ….

The overall index of 20 cities was essentially unchanged in March, after falling 0.8 percent in February.

All of which is just more “evidence of a slow recovery taking shape.”

Economist Shilling: Housing Prices To Drop 20 Percent More

Housing prices will drop by a further 20 percent as the downturn gripping the United States deepens, leading economist Gary Shilling says.

Writing in the Christian Science Monitor, Shilling said more and more people are looking to rent as homeownership becomes increasingly rare.  “Housing activity remains depressed, with the only life coming from the multifamily component, which is being driven by the zeal for rental apartments as homeownership falls,” he wrote.

Read more at newsmax.com

Buy a House!

A little more than a year ago, a very successful professional investor declared, “If you don’t own a home, buy one. If you own one home, buy another one, and if you own two homes, buy a third and lend your relatives the money to buy a home.”

Since that declaration, house prices have continued drifting lower in most parts of the country. The Case-Shiller index of national home prices is down about 4% year over year. Even so, we’re betting this professional investor was merely early…not wrong. US housing isn’t just cheap; it is the cheapest it has been in more than 40 years. And when one considers the possibility that inflation may rear its head soon, housing looks even cheaper still.

If you think we’re crazy, you’re not alone. The housing market is a complete bust right now. The following chart shows the median home price in terms of per capita disposable income. Based on this calculation, home prices are lower than they have been in 40 years!

Recovery Spring: UGLY: House Price Index Misses Expectations With A Big Downward Revision To Last Month

We’re being played, for somebody’s re-elect campaign. Any idea who.
Theyre up, It’s up, it’s up. Oh oh the revision is coming. Look out below.

Housing week has been a disappointment.

The latest:

The FHFA house price index showed that home prices grew 0.0% in the month vs. expectations of a 0.3% expected gain.

And then then last month was revised from a gain of 0.7% to just 0.1%.

You can find the full report here

It’s down, sigh.

Home prices fell in December in most US cities

OK, the recovery is speeding right along, in the ditch.

Home prices fell in December for a fourth straight month in most major U.S. cities, as modest sales gains in the depressed housing market have yet to lift prices.

The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller home-price index shows prices dropped in December from November in 18 of the 20 cities tracked. The steepest declines were in Atlanta, Chicago and Detroit. Miami and Phoenix were the only cities to show an increase.

Still, prices fell in 19 of the 20 cities in December compared to the same month in 2010. Only Detroit posted a year-over-year increase. Prices in Atlanta, Las Vegas, Seattle and Tampa dropped to their lowest points since the housing crisis began.

U.S. Housing Market Still On Life Support; Prices At 2003 Levels

Home prices still going down after a brief upturn last month. Shelter in place

With each passing year, the former Oracle of the Fed, Alan Greenspan, is reminded that there really was a housing bubble and lowering interest rates to record lows just made matters worse.  Nearly four years after the housing market peak in 2007, record low mortgage rates are no match for falling incomes and 9% unemployment.

The Case-Shiller Home Price Index, released on Tuesday, showed that nation wide home prices did not register a significant change in the third quarter of 2011, with the U.S. National Home Price Index up by only 0.1% from its second quarter level. Home prices are down 3.9% across the board and are now back to their first quarter of 2003 levels. The market consensus was for a 3% decline year over year.

From August to September, housing prices have fallen the most in Atlanta, with a 5.9% decline, followed by Tampa Bay and San Francisco, both with a 1.5% drop in housing prices.

Boston, New York, Washington and Los Angeles remain the most expensive cities in the lower 48 states.

“The plunging collapse of prices seen in 2007-2009 seems to be behind us,” says David M. Blitzer, Chairman of the Index Committee at S&P Indices. “Any chance for a sustained recovery will probably need a stronger economy.”

Home Prices Heading For Triple-dip ???

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — The besieged housing market has even further to fall before home prices really hit rock bottom.

According to Fiserv (FISV), a financial analytics company, home values are expected to fall another 3.6% by next June, pushing them to a new low of 35% below the peak reached in early 2006 and marking a triple dip in prices.

Several factors will be working against the housing market in the upcoming months, including an increase in foreclosure activity and sustained high unemployment, explained David Stiff, Fiserv’s chief economist.

Should home values meet Fiserv’s expectations, it would make it the third (and lowest) trough for home prices since the housing bubble burst.

The first post-bubble bottom was hit in 2009, when prices fell to 31% below peak. The First-Time Homebuyer Credit helped perk prices up by mid-2010, but by the time the credit expired, prices fell again.

In the second dip, which was reached last winter, prices were down 33% before staging a mild rally that was artificially spurred as banks slowed the processing of foreclosures following the robo-signing scandal, which found that loan servicers were rapidly signing foreclosures without properly vetting them.

Now that the scandal is mostly resolved, lenders are speeding more cases through the foreclosure pipeline and back onto the market, weighing on home prices even further.