Hey! Its the most basic law of economics: Supply & Demand:
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First, lets look at Supply:
New 1-Family Houses For Sale: Months Supply
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Uh-oh: More supply coming on line:
New Houses (for sale) Under Construction
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The rounded top of units sold:
New 1-Family Houses Sold: 3-month MovingAverage
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Source:
Sales of New Homes Cooling Down
Asha Bangalore
Northern Trust, February 27, 2006
http://tinyurl.com/l2yqu
i love it when they say ‘it’s different this time’, the Fed wont screw up like they have so regularly in the past, homebuilders learned from past mistakes and wont overbuild, blah blah blah. that blue-line graph of new homes under construction is leaping off the page into, well, blue-sky
Say, would you mind if I exercised my Devil’s Advocacy about something?… After all, a good Devil’s Advocate ought to represent his client well, since he’d be apt to suffer eternal damnation if he didn’t.
So… if the Baby Boomers do to the housing and job dynamics what they’ve done to everything else on planet Earth since, oh, about 1950ish or so, then wouldn’t that be reflected pretty obviously in not only the decline in the worker participation rate (and thus the indication would be a job market with a more robust demand coefficient than otherwise analyzed), but also the steady uptrend in housing demand?
And, could those things surprise us and leave us flat-footed for longer than we’d expect?
Just about everybody I know that’s got, like me, an old set of military training boots that are older than most newly-minted MBAs, is chewing on the notion of retiring before age 60-62.
Yes, of course, many of those persons may subsequently realize a need to compliment their retirement income with a little night shift ‘greeter’ duty at some local big box retailer… but still, there seems to be a powerful tendency to vacate decent jobs earlier than their parents and grandparents did.
I’m just asking if you please… so, could you ponder on that a while and illuminate the situation for me?
I think the numbers indicate that the over 50 crowd actually have a higher labor participation rate over the last few years. It’s the younger crowd that has dropped out of the labor market. See Barry’s post at http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/2006/02/nfp_preview.html .
While I have no doubt that the older boomers are chewing on early retirement, I think the facts speak otherwise for the majority. I got a pizza delivered last night… it took the guy 10 minutes to get from my driveway to the door. I was sort of getting aggravated waiting for him until I saw that he was at least 70 years old… delivering pizza. I felt pretty bad for him.
Maybe supply is forming a cup and a handle?
Sorry, bad joke.
San Diego real estate hit its’ peek in the Summer of ’05. Since than sales have slowed and inventory is way up. Naturally, prices are slowly being reduced as homes sit longer on the market.
I guess I lucked out in selling my home in San Diego in July of 05 and bought a mansion on a lake in the Carolinas. Of course I miss the weather, but come June gloom, I won’t!