Will they stop with the Good News already...

Good piece, described NYC's situation fairly well.

http://www.eurointelligence.com/article.581+M553774d2c37.0.html

From the article:
"Financial engineering" replaced "real engineering" in many countries. Entire cities (London and New York) and economies (Iceland) become dominated by the rapidly growing financial services industry. In the US, financial services’ share of total corporate profits increased from 10% in the early 1980s to 40% in 2007. The stockmarket value of financial services firms increased from 6% in the early 1980s to 23% in 2007.

The reliance on financial innovation proved disastrous. In A Short History of Financial Euphoria (1994), John Kenneth Galbraith noted that: "Financial operations do not lend themselves to innovation. What is recurrently so described and celebrated is, without exception, a small variation on an established design . . . The world of finance hails the invention of the wheel over and over again, often in a slightly more unstable version."

about - couldn't agree more. back in that magical period when we all made 'real products' and saved before we bought and could trade our paper bills for real gold and people not named 'bush' were in power we never had booms and busts. there were never speculative bubbles - housing or otherwise. All investment was rational, and everyone worked for the betterment of his fellow man. It is only this last 8 years when things went off the rails.

Just keep calling the real estate rebound guys. You will eventually be right. Even if it takes years.

btw, i do consider the year-over-year pending home sales figure as positive. construction, not so much. but i believe the home sales, which were obviously goosed by the low mortgage rates, largely occurred in high-foreclosure areas, the south and the west.

this is a bit surprising, though, given the MBA mortgage application info. i wonder if they will close.

I'm not so sure if the increased housing starts are good news. Personally I would like to see housing starts fall to ZERO. Let there be a shortage of housing.

i don't think it was actually starts, i think it was pending home sales. your comment is funny. take it further, though, we can start tearing down some of them. don't need them, would employ huge numbers in demolition, would prevent deterioration of neighborhoods due to vacant homes.

not so sure how well that would go down in NYC, though. maybe Jersey.

Banks demolishing houses? That's already happened! As usual, yoru behind the 8 ball aboutready. LOL

http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2009/04/new-homes-demolished-in-victorville-ca.html

Oh alpine, you big silly you. Of course I had seen that. I love CR. Just extending the concept locally. Or have they already started in Jersey and I hadn't heard?

Perfitz still hasn't responded to the thread about the tanking of Lake Las Vegas, his other "investment" he bragged about. Add in saying "buy now" at the absolute peak of the Manhattan market.... WOW is the guy 0 for a lifetime...

> Construction and housing starts up...
> Buffet says the worst is over.... [which he also said 6 months ago]
> Stock market up..... [and still 40% down, and still lower than the last time it went up in this crash]
> Banks release record earnings.... [they eeked out profits which didn't exist excetp for accounting tricks... and you call that "record"]?

And yet, prices KEEP declining.

Perfitz, not only did we tell you the market would tank - and we were right - we also told you that RE markets take years to recover.

Add all this up, and you still have about another 3-4 years of declines ahead of you.

Enjoy!

printer - agree with you overall, though don't forget about the speculative bubble that Clinton presided over - that "greatest period of economic prosperity..." (whatever they used to say all of the time back then) was a fascade jsut speculation in dot.com's/tech and instead of large bonuses at finacial services firms, executives were raking it in with stock options in dot.com's...I think the U.S. is in trouble economically over the long term unless we again produce goods and/or innovate - I believe we'll do it, though it may take time and there may be some serious pain in the economy in the meantime.

> Buffet says the worst is over....

WHOOPS.

"There’s no signs of any real bounce at all in anything to do with housing, retailing, all that sort of thing,” said Buffett

> Stock market up.....

Down 40% is the new "up" I guess.

Perfitz apparently thinks that if he posts new nonsense over and over again that no one will notice his old nonsense.

Like when he said Buy Manhattan RE in January 2007!
Or bragged about his Las Vegas housing purchase! (in a development that since went bankrupt).

Come on, perfitz, more pearls!