Five Theories on Why the Housing Market is Still Falling
This is from AOL News Opinion Round-Up and not one of them mentions my favorite theory, which is – the big huge bulge of baby boomers is now retiring and downsizing, there is a glut of housing on the market because there is not the same market for houses that existed when this big bulge of population was mating and bearing children. I think the ‘problem’ is greatly a natural phenomena related to the demographics. Experts disagree. 🙂
Why Is the Housing Market Plummeting? 5 Theories
Max Fisher
The Atlantic Wire
(Aug. 24) — Sales of existing homes dropped 27.2 percent in July, accelerating the recent decline in the already frail housing market. This brings the number of existing houses sold to an annual rate of only 3.83 million units, the lowest figure since 1999. The number of single-family home sales hit its lowest level since 1995. Some economists even fear that this signals the end of housing as an investment. How bad is this and what does it mean?
The Role of Expiring Tax Credits: Dow Jones Newswires’ Meena Thiruvengadam and Sarah Lynch explain, “The steep decline in sales in July reflects both a souring in the U.S. economic recovery and the expiration of a government tax credit program that has been supporting the housing market for more than a year. The tax credits offered certain buyers up to $8,000 to sign a contract by April 30. Deals originally needed to close by June 30, but lawmakers pushed that deadline to Sept. 30. Still, the tax credit’s expiration drove pending home sales down 30 percent in May and caused a double-digit dive in mortgage application volumes even as interest rates hovered near their lowest levels in generations. July’s existing home sales data reflects the May plunge in pending sales, which typically become existing sales within a couple of months.”
Tax Credits Caused ‘Collapse’: The Atlantic’s Megan McArdle writes of the homebuyer tax credits, “This housing collapse is the aftermath of that mania. The depth of the collapse suggests that in fact, the housing tax credit was not generating new demand as much as moving demand forward a few months. That means that we’re going to have to work out the aftermath in months of low home sales. … This only reinforces my belief that housing is no longer a good way to generate wealth. The government can’t fix this market, which needs to find a new, lower level. It can only very temporarily distort it.”
Market Fears Double-Dip Housing Recession: The Los Angeles Times’ Alejandro Lazo reports, “The big drop, which was worse than what many analysts had expected, sent stock markets tumbling Tuesday morning as investors feared a double dip in housing. The blue-chip Dow Jones industrial average fell more than 1%, as did the S&P 500, a broader measure of stocks. … The July plunge was the third consecutive monthly decline following the April 30 expiration of the tax credit, which offered up to $8,000 for certain buyers.”
Ballooning Supply Worsens Problem: The Atlantic’s Daniel Indiviglio explains, “This is the second highest inventory in a year. The number of months it would take to sell the current supply of homes also swelled in July to 12.5, which was a huge jump compared to June’s rate of 8.9. It’s also nearly double November’s rate of 6.5. Given the low rate of sales this summer and consistently high foreclosure rate, inventory will likely continue to grow. This is a really, really bad report. The awfulness of July’s sales were a little exaggerated due to all of the demand having been pulled forward form the buyer credit. But it’s unclear how many months of demand were captured early by the credit, so it’s hard to know when its effect will wear off.”
Entire Housing Market Is Stalled: Reuters’ Felix Salmon warns this report “means that despite record-low mortgage rates, people aren’t able to buy houses: essentially all the benefit from those low rates is going to people who already own their homes and are taking the opportunity to refinance. The news also means that there’s a big gap between buyers and sellers: the market isn’t clearing. Sellers are convinced that their homes are worth lots of money, or will rise in price if they just hold out a bit longer; buyers are happily renting, waiting for prices to come down. And entrepreneurial types, whom one would expect to arbitrage the two by buying houses with super-cheap mortgages and renting them out at a profit, don’t seem to have found those opportunities yet. Houses are rarely a liquid asset; they were, briefly, during the housing boom, but now they’re more illiquid than ever.”
Road Trip
We are having fun. We are doing a long road trip, which will include seeing the Badlands, and Mt. Rushmore, and Hot Springs, South Dakota where there is a mammoth museum and archeological site.
We love road trips; we just hate the long stretches of interstate with nothing, nothing nothing. We just have to get through those to get to the places we love.
Welcome Home Dinner and Empress Rice Recipe
We had a dinner yesterday, to welcome AdventureMan home, and just to gather together friends and family in the area to have a good time.
AdventureMan stuns me with his ability to transfer all those time zones with no effect. He slept through every night, no problems. Amazing resilience. He also bought a great big watermelon, and made juice from it – delicious!
The Happy Baby is now big enough for a high chair. A high chair is a really good thing now, because he has started crawling, and he is really, really fast, especially when he is going after a cat!
Now that he is crawling and jumping and going to school, his little baby fat is turning into muscle:
(Sorry if this one is a little fuzzy, but he is jumping so fast I can’t get a clear photo)
Following traditional Middle Eastern / Southern customs, we had way too much food:
Including several long time favorites, one of which was Autumn Plum Torte:
One old favorite I am making again (I lost the recipe for a while) is Empress Rice. This recipe is so easy, so rich, so so good:
Empress Rice
1 large onion, chopped
1/4 cup butter
2 cups rice, raw
2 cans consomme
1 Tablespoon soy sauce
1 cup sliced mushrooms, drained
2 cups grated sharp cheddar cheese
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
Set oven for 325°F / 160°C
Saute onion in butter until golden brown. Brown raw rice with onion, then add all the rest of the ingredients. (How easy is that??) Grease a 3 quart/litre casserole, cover, and bake in oven for 1 hour and a half, or until liquid is absorbed. 8 – 10 servings.
(I did not make this with mushrooms, because our son doesn’t like mushrooms, but mushrooms make it richer. For church suppers, I sometimes add in some sausage, like smoked turkey sausage, or some chicken chunks.)
Some of the things I served I have shared with you before:
Autumn Plum Torte
Cauliflower Salad
Soused Apple Cake
Rotkohl
It was a great gathering, lots of stories exchanged, lots of laughing, and sweet little Happy Baby went to sleep just as lunch was served, freeing his parents to relax and enjoy a couple hours of socializing. 🙂 My old friend in Germany slipped into my kitchen and functioned as my second right hand; I actually enjoyed having her help because it’s like she knew what I needed before I knew I needed it. We could hardly believe so much time had passed when our last guests left; time just flew by, the sign of a truly memorable gathering.
Cats in Cages
For four months now, since we moved here, AdventureMan and I have been looking for a good cat hotel for the Qatari Cat. When we are away for short times, our son and his wife look in on QC, making sure he is well fed, well loved, etc. but if we are going anywhere for a longer time . . . we don’t want to burden a family with two working adults, a baby and three cats of their own.
Seeking a good cat boarding facility in Pensacola has been daunting. The very best one we found prior to today had a separate, quiet floor where the cats were boarded, but the cages were sterile. There was one cat, who looked just like QC, and the veterinary technician said he was a BAD CAT, and poked her finger in at him and told him he was a bad cat. They had great dog facilities, play times, etc. Cats were . . . chopped liver
And that has been our experience, desperately looking around Pensacola for a GOOD place to leave QC. We have visited so many places, veterinarians, grooming places – cats in steel cages. One place had larger steel cages, but cats in dark, damp, smelly rooms, cats warehoused in the same dank, dirty place with DOGS, cats in steel cages, looking miserable. Honestly, how can we travel? We can’t leave QC alone too long; he gets really depressed and stops eating and stops taking care of himself. And visiting all these boarding facilities was just depressing. We would walk out with a pit in our stomach.
Today, we passed one place – it looked cute. AdventureMan said “you run in and see if they board cats” (it looked like a dog place). I walked in, and there were three women grooming dogs, and it was quiet. The dogs all looked really happy. No, they don’t board cats yet, not yet, because they want to do it right, had I ever heard of cat condos?
Yes! Yes! Like the Kitty Ritz in Kuwait, a place that understands cats, understands their need for security, for privacy in their litter, for some variety and some stimulation under controlled circumstances. We loved the Kitty Ritz, and we loved the cat hotel we used to take our cat to in Germany, where they had kitty condos and a cage full of mice that kept the cats fascinated for hours. Our cat loved to go there! They even knew how to give her insulin shots twice a day.
So we went looking, one last time, and we found what we were looking for, at Village Groomers and We Tuck ‘Em Inn in Pace, less than half an hour from our house.
The place is CLEAN. Orderly. The cat dorms are roomy, one room for sleeping and observing, another room with litter and food. Each cat has his or her own drawer with his or her name on it with special foods and cat toys and blankets – anything from home to help the cat be content and secure.
We reserved an upper dorm for Qatari Cat. It gives us so much peace of mind knowing he will be well taken care of.
AdventureMan’s Bathroom
“Hey Dad, what happened, you draw the short straw?” our son asked AdventureMan when he saw the bathroom in the Pensacola house.
We really love having our own bathrooms. They may be small, but we don’t have to bump one another out of the way, we don’t have to try to groom while someone is showering and steaming, and while I can have the A/C blasting, AdventureMan can have the vents totally closed. It works for us.
But his bathroom had swinging doors, saloon style. And an old toilet that didn’t always flush completely. And an old bathtub with old tiles.
While he was away, we did a new bath – new walk-in shower with a rainfall showerhead, new toilet, and best of all, a pocketing door. He is going to be SO surprised. 🙂
It has been so hard keeping this secret. I can hardly wait to see his face.
Pensacola, Sunday 0900
It’s one of those rare Sunday mornings when I am on my own, no AdventureMan, no son and daughter-in-law and grandson, just me. As a special treat, I get to go to the 8:00 service at Christ Church, and then, since I don’t have any church-girlfriends yet, I don’t have anyone to go to breakfast with, so I stop by Micky D’s and get in line for take-out.
It’s a long line. Whoda thunk, early on a Sunday morning in Pensacola, there would be a breakfast line at McDonalds?
A flashing light catches my eye, and a Pensacola police cruiser pulls up across the street, and leaves his lights flashing as he cautiously heads to the entrance of the convenience store. His hand is on his gun. No, I am not kidding!
He looks in the windows. Customers are coming out, and he keeps watching through the window as he walks towards the door. As he enters, he draws his gun. Just moments later, he and another policeman come out, with a man between them in handcuffs, white guy, looking sheepish. They put him in the back of the second squad car.
I really wanted a photo of them stuffing him in the back seat, but by this point, I was in traffic and I shot the photo I could get, not the photo I wanted. Me and my bacon, egg and cheese McMuffin headed home for coffee and the Sunday Pensacola Journal, all about school starting this week in Pensacola.
And AdventureMan comes home tonight. The house is sparkling. He has a surprise in store. 🙂 Our son and I will meet him at the airport to welcome him home, home being about 5 minutes from the airport IF there is traffic, LOL.
The Camel Bookmobile by Masha Hamilton
It took me a while to get into this book, because it is, in my opinion, badly written. The characters are thin, the story is thin, and yet . . . it is a book I will never forget.
Masha Hamilton writes of a girl with a dream of going to a faraway place; she writes a grant proposal for a Camel Bookmobile, to take books from a remote library in Garissa, Kenya, out to nomadic groups in even more remote locations. As it turns out, the book features a device I like very much – a discussion of what is knowledge, what is learning, what happens when cultures clash and how in every interaction, there is something left that changes those interacting.
As Fiona (“Just call me Fi”) McSweeny follows her dream, there are her actions, how she sees her actions, how her actions are seen from an alternate culture, and how Fi feels she may be missing something in the interaction.
Anyone who has tried to finesse their way living in an alien environment knows that feeling, and the disasters you can bring on with only good intentions. Words, tone of voice, body language – all can be interpreted in ways you never dreamed, blinded by the wisdom of your own culture.
The star of the book is the Kenyan desert. While we do get to know the characters in the small arid desert village of Mididima, it is the way of life that Hamilton captures and which captivates us. The traditional ways are already passing, and the village elders are fighting a losing battle, trying to maintain their old ways. At the same time, there is a lot of wisdom to be learned and stored before the old ways pass, if there is anyone to document, to capture the details.
How can a book be both badly written, so badly written that you are constantly aware of it, and so breathtakingly vivid, so unforgettable?
There is a real Camel Bookmobile, started in 1996, and after visiting, Hamilton began a Camel Book Drive which garnered over 7000 books for the nomadic library. You can visit the website and learn where to donate books for other schools in the Garissa area by clicking here.
Happy Birthday, Happy Baby!
Today the Happy Baby is 6 months old. He is sitting, and pre-talking, and laughing and about to start school! He will be in a start-up program that actually begins educational formats at a very early age.
My son and his wife are having a birthday party today. 🙂 No, I haven’t heard of a 6-month-birthday party before, but what a great idea! Most grandmamas loves opportunities to give her grandbabies presents!
I found one book that is hilarious – and since we are all readers, and we want Happy Baby to be a reader, too, we start early. I have found that one of the secrets is buying books that adults will like, too. This one is about a zookeeper, whose zoo follows him home at night after closing. 🙂
If you teach a child the habit of reading, you get a bonus. You get a child who can keep him or her self occupied, and you get a child who can discuss books, ideas and characterization. It may be a challenge sometimes, but it’s a good challenge.
And this one, I am sure, is the kind of toy a grandmama can give a baby because she knows he will love banging on it, even while I suspect mama and papa will groan in horror:
Zeitoun by Dave Eggers
Do you remember being in university, and how when it came time to buy textbooks, the new ones were really, really expensive, and sometimes you couldn’t find it used and you just had to bite the bullet? Especially in political science and international relations, it didn’t take me long to figure out that many of the authors had one little idea, and they stretched it, kneaded it, elaborated upon it, made each different iteration a new chapter – but essentially, they took this one little idea, stretched it into a book and charged $30-$40 bucks for what might have made a good essay in Foreign Affairs or the New Yorker.
I often felt so cheated. I often find that when I look at the New York Times list of Best selling Non Fiction, most of the books look just like that.
When I bought Zeitoun, that day I just needed an escape, I didn’t know it was non-fiction. I had seen Zeitoun mentioned, even advertised in my very favorite magazine, The New Yorker. I fell in love with The New Yorker when I was a kid, even though I didn’t understand half of the comics, I thought they were hilarious. I still do. 🙂 When my New Yorker arrives, I read it cover to cover, and I often order books reviewed or recommended there.
I started Zeitoun shortly after watching the HBO series Treme´ about life just after Hurricane Katrina, so this book was timely and relevant. Zeitoun, a Syrian immigrant to the US whose wife is a Moslem convert, has a thriving painting and contracting business. When Katrina threatens, his wife and kids leave town, but he stays to watch over his multiple properties and businesses.
He survives the hurricane, and actually finds the change of pace enjoyable. He has a canoe he bought at a yard sale, and he rows around the neighborhood feeding dogs locked inside his neighbors houses, checking on his friends, rescuing stranded people or notifying rescue services where people need their help – he has a feeling he is exactly where he is meant to be, that he stayed on in New Orleans as part of God’s purpose for his life. He feels valuable and useful.
Then, one day, as he is checking on one of his rental properties, he is arrested, along with three friends, in the one house they know has water for showers and a working land line, which they all use to call their families. It is Zeitoun’s property. They are arrested by the National Guard.
One of Zeitoun’s friends, Nassar, has ten thousand dollars with him. Any of us who are expats can laugh – every expat has his cache of emergency escape money. Nassar, on hearing the hurricane was coming, withdrew his savings from the bank so it would be safe. The National Guard arrests them and takes all their money, wallets, identification and sends them off to jail, and in the chaos of post-Katrina New Orleans/ Louisiana bureaucracy, there is no paperwork and their families have no idea where they are.
Nassar and Zeitoun come into the worst of it, because they have Arab names, because of the large amount of cash Nassar has, and Homeland Security advisory that terrorist organizations could try to take advantage of the post-disaster confusion. It is seriously Kafka-esque; they are good men who are just in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong last names. Most of the meals served in the prison contain ham or bacon or pork. The system just stops working, and they never even get to telephone people who could clear their names and get them out.
I couldn’t stop reading. Eggers captures the sensual aftermath, the sewage, the foul water, the stink of rotting food and rotting bodies, and the bureaucratic nightmare of trying to prove you are innocent when you don’t even know the charges against you, and people are being picked up on mere suspicions.
While Zeitoun is eventually released from prison, and his construction and painting business flourishes, his family is not left untouched by the post-traumatic stresses the events surrounding Katrina. Every life resounds with the impact of Katrina and the damage inflicted on New Orleans. His friend Nassar never got his ten thousand dollars back.
I love books about people who come to America, create a business, and make a go of it. Zeitoun is one of the best – he isn’t afraid of hard work, and he loves his life and family. His story is well worth a read.
Zeitoun is available from Amazon.com for a mere $10.85 plus shipping, and while I own stock in Amazon, I don’t get any kind of payment for mentioning them in reviews. 🙂
The Edmonds Market
I made a quick round of the market very early, as I wanted flowers to welcome Mom back. First round – maple bars, flowers, farm grown zucinni and carrots, and some lovely farm-raised lamb chops for dinner.
Later, Mom told me about the wonderful Pear and Gorgonzola pizzas made at the market, and after some grocery shopping, I stopped by and ordered the Pear Gorgonzola and the Pizza Fresca, both vegetarian, and, woo hooo, very thin crusted, and baked right there on the street in a special oven they have created:
Mom was right. The pizzas were really, really good. We also had enough left over to freeze several slices to microwave on a night when she doesn’t feel like a heavy dinner.
While I was waiting for my pizzas, I visited my favorite soap maker. Last year, I asked for clove soap. AdventureMan and I fell in love with clove soap in Zanzibar, and we have used ever sliver and are yearning for more. This year, she had it! And more! Wonderful soaps, but these two are my favorites:
Sorry there is no photo of the gorgeous finished pizzas, but we gobbled them right up. 🙂
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