Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Real Estate Recovery, or "Even A Dead Man's Arm Moves When You Raise It"

It has been some time since we've addressed housing, and this current manifestation of "recovery" which we believe is the 4th or 5th since the recession officially began in December '07 (and which we're all still living in..)

The Corporate controlled agenda-driven media is trumpeting this current housing recovery as something strong and sustainable..  The narrative goes something like this:

'Housing prices are on the rise as more families, in particular first time buyers, spurred on to acquire new mortgages via incredibly low interest rates and are feeling much better about the overall economy and job prospects...  There's optimism abound.. excitement in the air.. hope.. belief.. faith.. that 2013 will be The year..'

Gawd!  Where's a waste basket to retch into?
There are three key driving forces driving this real estate rally and it has Nothing to do with the American people:

1)  The Fed's monetization of mortgage backed securities ($85 billion/month) whose impact however is at best to stabilize the demand floor

2)  An implicit subsidy as banks keep millions of units on their books in some phase of the foreclosure process.  In other words, manipulating supply/demand so to prevent home values from depreciating further, and perhaps most importantly

3) The fact that the National Association of Realtors (NAR), those utter piece of shit Liars can legally launder offshore money courtesy of being exempt from anti-money laundering provisions.

This allows billions in ill-gotten offshore cash, sourced primarily from Russia and China, to be "invested" in US real-estate, with no cost or pricing discrimination and without any questions asked from any authorities.
~ "The housing market like the US economy is on the rise, I tell ya!"

The final result is then spun as a "boom" in real estate by the administration and the banks so very invested in reflating the housing bubble.

The math equation would look like this:

   Scum Fed
+ Scum Obama Admin
+ Scum NAR
+ Scum Banks
__________________
= Housing Recovery which equals an American populace kept habitually stupid to the realities of the economy and how bad things are.

The NAR, those parasites, have misrepresented the real state of the existing US housing market for years, and possess an open waiver for anti-money laundering regulation from none other than Uncle Sam.
~ "Uhh.. Housing.. uhh.. like the US economy uhh.. is on the rise"

So why did the NAR fight for this exemption?

Pretty obvious-- See, not all real estate agents are 'Realtors' --you have to join the NAR.. pay annual dues, etc..  Their job is to make sure there's a free flowing housing market for their fee-payers to make a living from.  3% Commission here... 3% Finders Fee there..  And if there's no true market, they must create and manipulate an artificial one or most of their 'Association' will have to seek out real 40hr employment.

So here's the NAR's official position on money laundering:

    "NAR supports continued efforts to combat money laundering and the financing of terrorism through the regulation of entities using a risk-based analysis. Any risk-based assessment would likely find very little risk of money laundering involving real estate agents or brokers. Regulations that would require real estate agents and brokers to adopt anti-money laundering programs may prove to be burdensome and unnecessary given the existing ML/TF regulations that already apply to United States financial institutions."
~  Boy:  'Hey.. Wanna buy a home?'
    Girl:  'Do I??   Where do I sign??'

 In normal English: 'We the NAR believe in the laws regarding money laundering... we just don't believe it should involve us especially when it comes to real estate transactions.  And if you push to make us comply, you're sabotaging and ultimately killing the US housing market.'

From the Telegraph UK: " As China’s new leaders intensify a campaign to root out corruption, thousands of Communist party officials have been panicked into a fire sale of their illicit properties while billions of pounds have been smuggled overseas...

An astonishing $1 trillion (£630 billion), equivalent to 40 per cent of Britain’s annual GDP, had been smuggled out of China illegally in 2012...

In the United States, the National Association of Realtors said that more than $7 billion of properties had been bought by Chinese in the US last year. Some high-end homes are now specifically built for rich Chinese with ponds for koi carp and a second kitchen for pungent cooking."
~  Boy: 'Its amazing how many super-rich Chinese there are'
    Girl: 'Yeah, especially since Communism means spreading wealth equal'

99.9999% of Americans haven't the slightest clue...

On this.. on Anything.

Oh they can regurgitate a million meaningless sports statistics or such tripe...  But when it comes to this nation-- to the Fact that we have not had any semblance of a real, sustainable recovery in over 4 years and its a mere shell game of shifting attentions from here to there to back again...

They're all more than happy to be disoriented; to not know..

Not even the slightest curiosity factor in most people to understand the ruse...
~  Girl:  'I heard you sold your house last week.. Congrats to you!'
    Boy:  'Yeah, only took a 15% loss.. Not bad I think..'

The housing market is not complex because economics is not complex.  We're going to explain it all very honest and adult-like:

In a housing market, you need buyers and sellers.

When people can't find good paying jobs, they don't have the means to buy.

When people are afraid of losing their jobs, they don't possess the willingness to buy.

When people are eating down their life savings waiting for real jobs to be created, it means even if those jobs are found, it takes awhile re-build the nestegg to a point comfortable to buy a home

When a person or couple wish to buy and they don't possess the minimum amount to put down on a house to get a mortgage, or their credit has deteriorated, it means they can not get the loan and thus, can not buy...
Now..  When sellers are resistant to lowering their asking price and buyers feel no pressure to purchase because they feel they're in control, then you do not get sales unless the property is distressed and/or the seller is desperate.

And under normal, non-manipulated circumstances, when a seller's mortgage is higher than what he/she can sell the property for, or the home's value, it is 'underwater' and thus the seller might as well walk way...  this creates a housing glut which only compounds the overall devaluation of other homes..

In order to have a real housing market, good paying jobs must be created, mortgage requirements must be lax and affordable housing must be available to attract buyers of all economic strata.

When none of this occurs, you have a Dead market..

When you manipulate a Dead market, you have what you have currently...