House Prices Drop US/UK Housing Crash? Subprime Bubble

What happened to personal responsibility in investing?  It’s been bad enough that so many bailouts are being proposed for people who rolled the housing "dice" and lost. Now Robert Shiller, author of Irrational Exuberence is proposing assistance for homebuyers going forward as well.  Among his suggestions to "get out of this mess" he advocated: [Thanks L!]

He’d like to see is subsidies for financial advice, so people aren’t making mistakes going to a mortgage broker to find out how much house they can afford.

I have a more affordable suggestion.  Rather than subsidizing financial advice [Does that sound like it has potential for abuse, or what?] here’s my suggestion. How about mandating the following be printed on every page of loan applications:
If you don’t understand this and aren’t certain you can afford this home, DON’T SIGN THIS PAGE.
If folks can’t afford hiring their own financial expert, they have no business buying a […]

Original post by twist

Reuters: London house prices could explode London can expect a future explosion in house prices unless there is an increase in construction during the economic downturn, one of the city’s key figures said on Tuesday.
Peter Rogers, chief executive at the London Development Agency (LDA), said prices will rocket because of pent-up demand.
“Demand exceeds supply and unless there is a steady stream of housing when the recovery does come there will be an explosion in house prices because of pent-up demand with no supply,” he told London Assembly committee members.

Original post by little professor

BBC: German billionaire kills himself After the French Count who passed last week, here is another crunch-related suicides.
It is strange how losing other people’s money fills them with remorse, yet having their own billions in the first place does not. You do not make that sort of cash with a day job. Both old guys…..

Original post by inflation is eating my savings

Guardian: Iceland may take UK to European court over freezing of bank assets The Icelandic government is examining “all possibilities” of dragging the British government before the European court of human rights after Gordon Brown used anti-terror laws to freeze Icelandic banks’ assets.

Original post by enuii

Reuters: Bank set to cut interest rates to record low “We are sceptical that QE in the strict sense, i.e. flooding the banking system with reserves, will give the real economy a significant push, especially as this did not appear to have a material effect in Japan,” said Investec’s Shaw.

Original post by paul

Citywire: Morning Line: How long will the house price correction last? While the latest numbers might grab a few headlines in truth they will come as little surprise, as most forced vendors over the past six months will attest to. In fact, in many parts of the country the real falls have surely been steeper, and it is arguably only some crafty ‘smoothing’ by the statisticians that has stopped the slide looking even worse.
All in all it is a spectacular reversal from the heady days of 2006 and 2007, enough to prompt a rather desperate-sounding Nationwide to remind us today that even though prices have now returned to their spring 2005 level, the average house value is still up £17,500 on five years ago.

Original post by gaztops

MoneyWeek: Don’t be tempted by cheap retail stocks Unless you sell food – and even that’s becoming more difficult - it’s a horror story out there. After the toughest Christmas trading season for years, another chain seems to be going bust every week.

Original post by damien

Check out Grubb & Ellis rankings for commercial real estate markets between 2009 and 2013.Portland rankings are:Office Market Strength - SecondIndustrial Markets - NinthRetail Markets - TenthMulti-Housing Market Strength - NinthPortland ranked in the top ten in every category. I don’t know a lot about the commercial real estate market but we can count the number of new commercial towers on one hand.

Original post by portlandhousing@yahoo.com (Clint8200)

Big hat to to Tim for finding this YouTube.[1]

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[1]: "Ron Paul on U.S. Government Ponzi schemes", by Tim Iacono, The Mess that Greenspan Made, January 5, 2009.

Original post by John M.

Institute of Economic Affairs ‘Blog: A perfect storm: the UK’s next banking crisis It’s a very short article so I won’t summarise, and yes, they are hamming it up a bit.

Original post by mark wadsworth