Housing market swoons

[pscot]

My latest tax statement arrived this week. The assessed value of my house is down 10%. Market Value? I'm glad I don't have to find out.

Construction of new homes in May dropped 17.2 percent from April, the Commerce Department said Wednesday, significantly lower than forecast. Permits for future construction dropped 10 percent, suggesting a cruel summer....

Everyone expected the housing market to suffer at least a temporary hangover after the government’s $8,000 tax credit expired, but not necessarily this much. Preliminary data from around the country indicates that the housing market began swooning last month immediately after the credit was no longer available. In some places, sales dropped more than 20 percent from May 2009, when the worst of the financial crisis had subsided.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/17/business/economy/17slump.html?src=me&ref=general

[90-percent]

1. Bubbles

Anybody know when the next formally trusted American Institution is going to fraudulently betray us? They are starting to get more predictable and more frequent. I'm no economist, but I read economistically minded posts from smart people on DU!

-90% Jimmy

[pscot]

2. You don't need a degree in economics

to read the writing on the wall.

[xchrom]

3. recommend

[adnelson60087]

4. How can people afford homes in the hundreds of thousands

when they don't have salaries that can afford them? Until we start to see high-quality jobs with substantial pay, we will be in this slump for years to come. Outsourcing and high healthcare costs are dooming our nation's workers and yet, Washington does little about either crisis. But then, Crises abound these days...

[golfguru]

5. House values are dropping because

it is difficult to afford a home if you are unemployed or under-employed.