The Times: Housing bubble is finally at bursting point

[sephon]

Interesante el calendario adosado a la misma noticia anterior del BIS
http://www.forextv.com/FT/AFX/ShowStory.jsp?seq=222423

A ver que muestran los datos y como se los toma la Calle Pared.

 

[Eddy]

Datos de viviendas USA:

U.S. Economy: Existing Home Sales Approach Lowest in Four Years

"The supply of homes for sale increased 5 percent to 4.43 million, the most ever. At the current sales pace, that represented 8.9 months' worth, the highest since June 1992 and up from 8.4 months' worth at the end of the prior month"

Calculated Risk

Inventario medido en meses al nivel de ventas existente:

Nuevo récord, subida relámpago, y eso sin contar el encarecimiento de hipoteca estándard de 6,25% a 6,75%

Comienza la segunda fase de la crisis. La que culminará en PANICO.

 

[Eddy]

Oooops, ha habido un pequeño problema con el rebote planeado el día de hoy.

Skynet ha tenido un ligero cruce de cables.

Mientras tanto, disfruten viendo a casi todos los ladrilleros USA haciendo mínimos anuales :

Ladrilleros USA, camino de 0

 

[Tuttle]

El análisis no me parece correcto desde la base en que una crisis inflaccionaria del tipo descrito se produce cuando las clases bajas y medias tienen una elevada tasa de ahorro, este no es el caso, el valor de los activos que se han disparado han sido obras de arte, viviendas normales y de lujo, todo tipo de artículos de coleccionismo, pero no se ha traducido de forma amplificada a los bienes de primera necesidad, salvo el caso del maiz que es bastante sangrante. Estos son los productos que van a deflaccionar, no la moneda ya que casi nadie se ha dedicado a acumular moneda debido a que otros activos garantizaban mayores rentabilidades.

Estos artículos son promovidos por aquellos que tienen intereses en el oro como refugio de la moneda y no se dan cuenta que eso no va a volver a darse. Un desarrollo tecnológico puntual puede multiplicar las reservas de oro por un valor muy elevado dando al traste con su valor, por lo que ya no se podría considerar refugio. Actualmente esto es una posibilidad remota, pero la tecnología avanza a una velocidad que asusta, y en menos de lo que canta un gallo se podría dar el caso.

 

[Eddy]

Que grandísimos h.p que son.

El dato de Abril ha sido revisado de 981.000 a 930.000, con lo cual el pepito se queda con la copla de que las ventas sólo han caído un 1,6% en Mayo, y la revisión del mes pasado pasa desapercibida. Aunque en realidad las ventas de Mayo han caído un 7% sobre el dato inicial de abril.

 

[Tuttle]

Me parece que lo que estás comparando son las medianas, y no las medias.

 

[Eddy]

Mito nuncabajista nº 32: "La formación de hogares". Con toda la gente que se separa/divorcia más nuevas parejas más pagapensiones, hay una demanda "asegurada" de alrededor de 300-400.000 viviendas al año.

Experiencia USA: Fewer People Are Starting Their Own Households

"Households had been forming at a pace of about a million a year, but that has dropped more than half in the first quarter. At the end of the period the total number of households stood at 109.7 million, an increase of just 415,000 from a year earlier, according to the Census Bureau."

Y eso en USA, donde la gente se va de casa o se muda o se divorcia con una facilidad pasmosa.

La formación de hogares es una consecuencia del boom económico, no su causa. En los malos tiempos la gente puede volver con los papis, irse a vivir a un piso compartido, etc.

 

[saquetas de Goldman]

http://www.321gold.com/editorials/willie/willie062907.html

Absolute Bond Contagion

..."The word for mortgage in Spanish is 'hipoteca' whose verb form has additional meanings of to compromise and to jeopardize. Hmm, how true! Another interesting perspective is that a home mortgage is essentially a leveraged home credit derivative, which does not have margin calls in mark-to-market calculations, but which can indeed have rising margin requirements. The M2M would require full payment or additional down payment in equity if the home dropped in value. The rising margin has come in the form of adjustable rate resets. Homeowners have begun to benefit from an education that many novice futures contract participants receive, namely losing all their money rapidly. They believed the realtors and so-called experts, that home values never go down. So this is what Greenspan boasted about on financial innovation, effective risk offload, and some such nonsense? When will the Greenspan legacy and reputation be downgraded? Maybe never, since he offloaded the risk to Bernanke."




Qué pasará cuando el "Helicopter" de Bernanke se quede sin gasofa?

 

[saquetas de Goldman]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2007/07/02/ccview102.xml

Credit crunch will 'shred investment portfolios to ribbons'
By Ambrose Evans- Pritchard
Last Updated: 2:07am BST 04/07/2007


The near collapse of two Bear Stearns hedge funds has lifted the rock on our 21st century mutant capitalism, exposing the bugs beneath to a rare shock of naked light.

When creditors led by Merrill Lynch forced a fire-sale of assets, they inadvertently revealed that up to $2 trillion of debt linked to the crumbling US sub-prime and "Alt A" property market was falsely priced on books.

Even A-rated securities fetched just 85pc of face value. B-grades fell off a cliff. The banks halted the sale before "price discovery" set off a wider chain-reaction.

"It was a cover-up," says Charles Dumas, global strategist at Lombard Street Research. He believes the banks alone have $750bn in exposure. They may have to call in loans.

Not even the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) has a handle on the "opaque" instruments taking over world finance.

"Who now holds these risks, and can they manage them adequately? The honest answer is that we do not know," it said.

Markets have been wobbly since the surge in yields on 10-year US Treasuries, the world's benchmark price of money. Yields have jumped 55 basis points since early May on inflation scares, the steepest rise since 1994. It infects everything; hence that ugly "double top" on Wall Street and Morgan Stanley's "triple sell signal" on equities.

Wobbles are turning to antiestéticar. Just $3bn of the $20bn junk bonds planned for issue last week were actually sold. Lenders are refusing "covenant-lite" deals for leveraged buy-outs, especially those with "toggles" that allow debtors to pay bills with fresh bonds. Carlyle, Arcelor, MISC, and US Food Services are all shelving plans to raise money. This is how a credit crunch starts.

"This is the big one: all investment portfolios will be shredded to ribbons," said Albert Edwards, from Dresdner Kleinwort.

The BIS had warned days earlier that markets were febrile: "more risk-taking, more leverage, more funding, higher prices, more collateral, and in turn, more risk-taking. The danger with such endogenous market processes is that they can, indeed must, eventually go into reverse if the fundamentals have been over-priced. Such cycles have been seen many times in the past," it said.

The last few months look like the final blow-off peak of an enormous credit balloon. Global M&A deals reached $2,278bn in the first half, up 50pc on a year. Corporate debt jumped $1,450bn, up 32pc. Private equity buy-outs reached $568.7bn, up 23pc. Collateralised debt obligations (CDOs) rose $251bn in the first quarter, double last year's record rate.

Leveraged deals are running at 5.4 debt/cash flow ratio, an all-time high. As the BIS warns, this debt will prove a killer when the cycle turns. "The strategy depends on the availability of cheap funding," it said.

Why has such excess happened? Because global liquidity flooded the bond markets in 2005, 2006, and early 2007, compressing yields to wafer-thin levels. It created an irresistible incentive to use debt.

What is the source of this liquidity? Take your pick. Goldman Sachs says oil exporters armed with $1,250bn in annual revenues have been the silent force, sinking wealth into bonds; China is recycling $1.3 trillion of reserves into global credit, a by-product of its policy to cap the yuan; Japan's near-zero rates have spawned a "carry trade", injecting $500bn of Japanese money into Anglo-Saxon bonds, and such; the Swiss franc carry trade has juiced Europe, financing property booms in the ex-Communist bloc. And, all the while, cheap Asian manufactures have doused inflation, masking the monetary bubble.

The deeper reason is the ultra-loose policy of the world's central banks over a decade. They "fixed" the price of money too low in the 1990s, prevented a liquidation purge to clear the dotcom excesses, then kept rates too low again from 2003 to 2006. Belated tightening has yet to catch up.

Don't blame capitalism. This is a 100pc-proof government-created monster. Bureaucrats (yes, Alan Greenspan) have distorted market signals, leading to the warped behaviour we see all around us..."

 

[Tuttle]

La que se avecina en florida:
Un agente inmobiliario de florida predice el kaos por la cantidad de clientes que le visitan.

Florida foreclosure future shock
A short-sale expert says he can predict market slumps by client traffic. Next stop: The Sunshine State.
By Les Christie, CNNMoney.com staff writer
July 6 2007: 12:55 PM EDT

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- A tidal wave of foreclosures may be heading toward Florida, if you judge by the number of homeowners looking to get rid of their homes as fast as they can.

Duane LeGate, president of House Buyer Network, arranges quick sales for home owners in distress. He claims he can predict where markets will go bad by looking at the traffic on his Web site.

"We can tell you what's going to happen nine months from now," he said. His most endangered market right now is Orange County, Florida, home of Disney World.

"Orlando has blown up. There's been a 700 percent increase in traffic of people filling out our forms," he said. "I could put a bull's-eye on Orlando and write the headline for what will be going on in January and February."

What will be going on could include a large increase in foreclosures as well as lower prices, longer inventories and a slower sales pace.

Here's how the House Buyer Network works: A homeowner wants a quick sale and signs up. The network connects the homeowner with a real estate agent who gets an appraisal for, say, $200,000. The agent markets the home at $195,000. If it fails to sell within the time stipulated in the contract, the agent will buy the house at a prearranged, discounted price of perhaps $180,000.

LeGate estimates the discount from what sellers would get if they didn't need to sell quickly is 5 percent to 8 percent, once all the costs and fees are figured in.
Latest home prices

LeGate's forecast runs ahead of the latest home price statistics. According to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), Orlando prices for the first quarter rose 2.5 percent compared with a year ago, which would point to a weak - but more stable - market. Nevertheless, LeGate trusts his indicators.

According to him, much of Central Florida is foundering. Other counties with large traffic bumps include Osceola (up 100 percent in May 2007 compared with May 2006), Polk (136 percent) and Lake (143 percent).

LeGate's prediction doesn't surprise Jonas Lee, whose company, Redbrick Partners, buys properties in distressed markets all around the country. Redbrick focuses further south in Florida, but he sees similarities with Orlando.

"There are tax issues that are depressing the market," said Lee, Property taxes jump when houses change hands. "And insurance rates spiked after the hurricane season of a couple of years ago," he said.
Most affordable housing markets

Many of LeGate's clients contracted to buy new homes before they sold their old ones, and they can't afford two sets of mortgages.

Other customers may have gotten an offer, only to have the transaction fall through after they themselves contracted for a new home.

And yet other clients simply cannot keep up with mortgage payments. Many took on subprime hybrid adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs) that came with low initial interest rates but are now resetting at much higher levels.

Short-sale interest can indicate slumping markets that are not detectable by traditional price indices. NAR's median home price stats and same-home sale-prices from the Office of Housing Enterprise Oversight can lag or disguise actual market conditions.

Most deals close months after prices are agreed on. Evidence of changes in market conditions may not come out for months afterwards. Evidence of significant discounts in a majority of homes sold wouldn't appear for a while.

When LeGate sees big jumps in client contacts from a single county, he concludes that the area has hit a rough patch that may not come out in price stats for months. It's played out that way in the past when he saw other markets going into distress.

"We called Phoenix, two counties in California and West Palm Beach, Florida in June of 2005," he said, at a time when those areas were still perceived to be white-hot.

Now, according to figures from RealtyTrac, which markets foreclosure properties online, the Phoenix metro area has 10 of the top 11 zip codes for foreclosure filings in Arizona, and all 10 are among the 500 worst hit zip codes in the nation. The other areas are also suffering a deep slump.

Besides the Florida markets, other locales LeGate identified as likely trouble spots include Clark County, Nevada and Riverside County, California where the site's traffic more than doubled between June, 2006 and May, 2007, and Price George County, Maryland, where it tripled.
Fastest growing cities

Some markets are turning positive, according to LeGate. The number of client contacts from Maricopa County, Arizona - the Phoenix area - dropped this year by about 38 percent.

Also looking good are Prince William County, Virginia in the D.C. metro area, where client contacts fell 37 percent, and nearby Fairfax County, where they're down 40 percent. Top of page

 

[saquetas de Goldman]

Los nuevos propietarios: Los grandes bancos

http://biz.yahoo.com/fool/070712/118424868601.html?.v=1patrick.net

"...This is a crisis of banks' own making. By fueling the homebuying frenzy with creative mortgage financing, investment bankers may now become the catalyst of their own devaluation. As the number of defaulted subprime mortgages grows, the amount of homes in inventory will rise, which may prompt the bankers to unload them at fire-sale prices. The National Association of Realtors already expects average selling prices to decline by 1.3% this year -- the first time they've done so since the Great Depression.

The vortex of price declines sucking down values could spiral out of the investment bankers' control, leading to their own subprime devaluation."

 

[saquetas de Goldman]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=468881&in_page_id=1770
The mortgage fees that have soared by 600% in two years

"...Experts have warned that already-overstretched firsttime buyers now face the most unaffordable property prices since before the last market crash 16 years ago, coupled with punishing stamp duty bills and the prospect of more rate rises before the end of the year..."

 

[Marai]

Ojo a ING. Ojo, ojito, ojete.

Noticia de hoy en el Times.

http://www.burbuja.info/inmobiliaria/showpost.php?p=378171&postcount=98

Interesante.

Así es como ING invierte parte de sus depósitos/cuentas...

Sería bueno saber CUANTO -en porcentaje- tiene ING en CDOs (basados en prestamos badulaques o normales).

Ayayayy.

 

[Marai]

El artículo, además de garrulo, hace pupita por que se entiende.
Respuesta cosechada interesante, soltada por un alemán.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2007/07/16/ccview116.xml
...La lluvia de críticas que está recibiendo impresiona.
Si algun "valiente" quiere aportar la suya desde Spain...
¿"damning Club Med to deadly bubbles"? ¡¡Qué shishi es eso!!
Las verdades soltadas garrulamente escuecen más que si se dicen con elegancia, cuando la probabilidad de no pillar la ironía es mucho mayor que cuando se emite un mensaje más simplón.

Me encanta la respuesta del alemán. ¿Hasta que punto se creen esos tabloides que influyen en la opinión pública? ¿Hasta que punto son conscientes de que frecuentemente son el hazmerreir de los lectores?

No de dan cuenta de que una proporción creciente de la peña está tan hasta las narices de ellos como de los denostados -y denostables- politicuchos?

 

[el arquitecto]

cuando dicen lo de contagiar a la economia real... a que se refieren??
existe la economia irreal?? la imaginaria??

y digo yo, por que no hacen como el ministro español? total, para lo que sirvio que saliera bush diciendo que tranquilos todo under control ... jajaja...

es mas, si sale un ministro diciendo que esto no deberia estar pasando... pero tranquilos que no pasa nada... yo me acojono mas que si no sale ni interrumpe las vaciones...

lo que deberia indignarnos de todo esto, es que se pongan ahora a señalar culpables y cazar brujas y cortar cabezas (que siempre son de turco... entiendase sin xenofobia...) cuando ya es tarde y cuando los afectados son las grandes fortunas y no las grandes masas (estas pueden jorobarse)

me recuerda (cosas del calor, supongo) a cuando el 11-s, el dia en que murieron 5 mil personas en un atentado... sin embargo, ese mismo dia murieron de hambre (otro atentado, pero diferente, en un mundo donde sobra comida...) mas de 30 mil personas... por las que nadie dejo asomar una sola lagrimita...
esto es parecido... (sin muertos, de momento) no??