By cw1900

November 14, 2007 12:18 PM | Link to this

Wow. Gone for a couple of days and more new topics have been added in one day than they added all of last month. Too much to read, so I won’t. “Get” I see you’re getting everybody worked up. You’re on the right track , you and I totally agree on the debt situation, you’ve got brains, your time line and price guesstimates are just flawed as to the economics of it all. Why? Two words.

Dollar. Commodities.

Dollar…..falling farther. You obviously know that. Don’t forget its large impact on everything, including housing.

Commodities…..more shortage thereof

and one other elephant standing in the middle of the room nobody wants to acknowledge. I’ll get to that in a mimute.

“Get”, one thing you said that everyone should listen to is, “Remember, in the end…everyone cannot ‘own’ a house or run a 4 minute mile or be 6’6” or _. A bell curve is that for a reason. Same concept of bell curves for companies. Bankruptcies are a part of the business cycle…..This ‘logic’ is how investors get into trouble - always believing, usually ‘hoping’, asset prices always increase. Just not the case.” That’s right on.

You people, like him or not, Max is right on the money about the dollar and the continued shortage of commodities. Not even debatable and why you will never see your hoped for 1999, 2002 prices, or whatever year you are praying to see again.

Speaking of Max, welcome back. Seems you have a new friend. Would love to be a fly on the wall at that restaurant….

Easy is also back, and no, I am not Easy, Rich R, or Max, or any combination of that mix. Easy has now taken the crown as the ones with the longest posts. Thanks, Easy!

There’s just not much to talk about this week that we haven’t already gone over ten thousand times each, but I do have two things.

If you want comedy, I say once again to read the comments from readers of PB Post articles. It seems that the least educated and the most extreme segments of our county respond to the news stories themselves, but do not participate on this blog, and that is a good thing. We would be overwhelmed with stupidity and ignorant soundbites that belong on a bumper sticker on the back of a car that’s pulling a Uhaul driving to the promise land.

The only good comment came from a guy named Warren who said, “Buy value, sell hysteria, and you’ll do just fine.” I love that. Warren gets it and he’s no cheerleader.

Read it all at Housing faces erratic recovery . Some comments are by people who are making a decent argument for both sides, but they are fighting an uphill battle from the idiots. Read and laugh and cry. In the spirit of the bumper sticker logic from these people, All I can say is watch out. These people are allowed to breed and they sometimes vote if it doesn’t interfere with Nascar.

One element of all of this real estate debate that I don’t think is getting the respect it deserves is the “Baby boomers”. Their impact on our area and the US as a whole, by their sheer numbers on every part of their lives, is going to be more changing than we can even imagine. It is inevitable and unstoppable. The reason many people downplay its importance right now is the same reason they downplay many things. Time. We have become a society of that if it doesn’t happen in the next five minutes, if they can’t see it fast, it doesn’t matter, it’s not important, or it won’t happen. The “I want it now” attitude comes into play here.

I read not too long ago that the peak of the boomers turning 55 is still 5 years away in 2012 and then after that, another 7 years of boomer impact until they reach 55. 1957 is the single largest birth year for the generation. That means in 2016, when the biggest part of the boomers (those born in 1957) turn 59 1/2, the peak of the most amount of money that is going to be forced to be started to be withdrawn is going to go into the economy, and logic tells us enormous amounts of those dollars will be poured into real estate.

Florida, and other states, will see a nice benefit from that. I simply do not believe this is a debatable theory. FL Ren and others who know what I’m talking about, by all means, jump in and add to this. Rich R more than likely believes that also, that’s why he’s where he’s at. I may make fun of the bandwagon crowd tripping over each other as they head for the hills, but I have no doubt NC will also benefit from the boomer RE dollar. The boomer’s impact is going to be widespread and many states are going to benefit. It will be slow and steady, has already started, and is going to continue for many years to come.

What I am getting at is, in these times of supposed doom and gloom, all of you people that want to be “haves”, you have less than 10 years before you see runups in real estate that will probably once again, forever change the area to that next level, whatever level that might be.

10 years is not long. It comes quick. I will continue to accumulate what boomers need right now and what they will need in the future. That means things like buying shares in quality drug companies and holding real estate in areas that boomers will migrate to, among other things. Those are just ideas. There are plenty of others.

South Florida is one place they will come, no matter what the doomers think or what I think, and the lake is proving to be another place. You doomers can do what you want. I’ll be doing the opposite. That’s what makes a market.

As Warren said, accumulate when you see value, and sell to the bandwagon crowd of the future. It’s the same thing as “Buy on maximum pessimism, sell on optimum euphoria. There will always be a bandwagon crowd to sell to. That’s what I count on. It’s one of the only sure things., and I’ve got time to wait.

cw

By jfinn

November 14, 2007 5:58 PM | Link to this

I don’t how CW1900 has so much free time to write his long boring commentary….how long can his break from bagging grocieries at Publix be? Please everybody limit your comments to just a few short paragraphs at the most!!…..otherwise this gets bor-innnng

By Right on jfinn

November 14, 2007 6:55 PM | Link to this

jfinn, you’re absolutely right. Some of these posts are longer than the original Post’s blog.

By Curious

November 14, 2007 7:25 PM | Link to this

Something I just stumbled upon. Some people here may want to participate in this petition:

http://financialpetition.org/petition.shtml

Know nothing more at this time, thus:

Caveat emptor!

By Jenny

November 14, 2007 8:47 PM | Link to this

CW1900, You’re chatty but very accurate on the Baby Boomers. I make my living working for an organization studying demographic trends for advertising/marketing. Many things are going to change in the next 10 years specifically because of this generation.

By Observer

November 18, 2007 8:10 PM | Link to this

Housing may stabilize in some parts of the country next year which were relatively unaffected by the housing boom, even start to come back a little, but PBC has a long way to go before the housing market turns around.

This area will be one of the last areas to turn around because of the huge runup in home prices from 2001 through 2005. It may be three or four years of waiting for prices to fall far enough so that folks in occupations such as policemen, teachers and nurses can afford a home of their own. Besides that, underwriting standards will now be much stricter so that a respectable down payment will be required.

So, PBC is in for a long residential real estate slowdown, but the more distant future looks good for the county’s housing market, as it will still be one of the more desirable areas for people worldwide to buy properties and/or relocate to.

By Observer

November 18, 2007 8:12 PM | Link to this

Housing may stabilize in some parts of the country next year which were relatively unaffected by the housing boom, even start to come back a little, but PBC has a long way to go before the housing market turns around.

This area will be one of the last areas to turn around because of the huge runup in home prices from 2001 through 2005. It may be three or four years of waiting for prices to fall far enough so that folks in occupations such as policemen, teachers and nurses can afford a home of their own. Besides that, underwriting standards will now be much stricter so that a respectable down payment will be required.

So, PBC is in for a long residential real estate slowdown, but the more distant future looks good for the county’s housing market, as it will still be one of the more desirable areas for people worldwide to buy properties and/or relocate to.