Great Depression

[redrumloa]

Houses for sale in Detroit for $1. Realtor.com shows 1,097 properties from $1 to $5,000!

http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhom ... t_MI?sby=1

Fort Myers, Florida is on the same path!

http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhom ... ches?sby=1

Looks like some cheapos creeping in the Huntsville area.

http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhom ... sby=1&ml=5

Google has 121,639 news article hits in the last month with the search term "unemployment".

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&safe= ... a=N&tab=wn

 

[ilwrath]

Well, Detroit, at least, is an anomaly. Back at the height of the housing boom, there were plenty of places you could pick up for a few pennies and payment of the back taxes. The catch? Those areas are like a small 3rd world country enclosed in the US. No sane person could actually live in those areas. There are very spotty utilities, no trash pickup, limited emergency coverage, and NO police coverage. (Yes, there ARE sections of the US they won't roll squad cars and ambulances through!) Hell, for the past 5 years or so, there have been packs of feral dogs roaming through a few old mostly abandoned residential areas... Not much has changed, in Detroit proper.

What is frightening is that it seems like the blight may be expanding. Border areas like west Dearborn (which was fairly safe) are now experiencing very high foreclosure rates. And, hitting just north of me, Lincoln Park, which was just a couple years ago a fairly safe, yet lower income Downriver community... Houses there are sometimes selling for 25% of what they were. (Not 25% less, 25% OF THE PREVIOUS PRICE.) A median home there was $80,000-$100,000. Now, you can find plenty in that $18,000-$25,000 range. I mean, look at that page. That's a selection of fairly nice middle class houses in an area I wouldn't be fearing for my life... Available for about the downpayment I made on my place. Honestly, it's kinda tempting to sell my place (I can still get about what I owe on it) and buy a place like that outright. It's bizarre times.

 

[redrumloa]

5% of all Texas kids homeless, 2% nationally.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090310/ap_ ... dren_texas

Larry Canady took his family to a homeless shelter three weeks ago, no longer able to make ends meet after he and his wife were laid off from their jobs.

The family of five was already living from paycheck-to paycheck. They went from renting a four-bedroom brick home in a south Dallas suburb to sharing one room in a dormitory-like shelter.

"No one knew the economy was going to crash so hard like it did," said Larry Canady, 38, now at the nonprofit Family Gateway facility in Dallas. "It caught us off guard."

That is the problem with most people, gleefully living with their f***ing heads in the sand and then are shocked when they get laid off and things turn nasty.

 

[Wayne]

That is the problem with most people, gleefully living with their f***ing heads in the sand and then are shocked when they get laid off and things turn nasty.

I think the bigger problem -- and yes, people living above their means is a problem -- is that in the last 8 to 10 years, America has gone from the "oil standard" to the "stock market standard". We've gone from a nation that innovates and builds, to a nation whose only means of support is to spend money to support businesses.

Meaning that for the vast average people investing their life savings in the stock market or even saving it in a bank, the whim of the average sheepish, frightened, skittish American who is now freaked out over a black president is driving America straight in the ground, followed by rich white business moguls who're still profiting from the sale of America as it were.

But that's just me.

Wayne

 

[Wayne]

Looks like some cheapos creeping in the Huntsville area.

http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhom ... sby=1&ml=5

Jim,

As you know from your own experiences of this area, those house prices are pretty much more than what those houses should go for 5 years ago. In most of those cases in the link above, those properties are more than likely condemned and you're -- in essence -- just buying the land upon which it sits.

What should guide you is what YOUR house in Madison would go for these days.

Wayne

 

[redrumloa]

As you know from your own experiences of this area, those house prices are pretty much more than what those houses should go for 5 years ago. In most of those cases in the link above, those properties are more than likely condemned and you're -- in essence -- just buying the land upon which it sits.

Sorry for the slow reply, working just about 25hours a day right now :|

They may be, but I certainly don't remember prices that low. Even if they are, that would still make vacant lots cheaper than I remember.

What should guide you is what YOUR house in Madison would go for these days.

Hard to tell. Looking at the MLS it would appear prices are holding up fairly well, but it may be stubborn sellers and no sales. Huntsville area SHOULD stay more stable than most other areas due to the base and high tech employers. At least I hope so. There could still be a situation where middle and upper residential areas see stability in home prices, but the bottom end completely falls out.

 

[ilwrath]

There could still be a situation where middle and upper residential areas see stability in home prices, but the bottom end completely falls out.

Well, a bottom end WILL fall completely out. There is no other way. There are more houses than families with the means and desire to own them. The vacancies will condense and new ghettos will form. You don't have to look further than Detroit to see what happens when you have a glut of housing.

How did Detroit originally get into the mess it did? Well, racial tensions, followed by a white exodus. When that occurred, there were not enough families with the means and desire to snap up those beautiful old houses. Prices plummeted, the tax base eroded, services were cut, crime skyrocketed. Nearly 50 years later, and the area still hasn't shown any signs of recovery.

Back then, it was because no one wanted to live next door to the black family. This time it'll just be because no one wants to live next door to the empty, condemned, crack-house. The only real questions are where this will happen, and what it'll do to the rest of the market. Where will the new middle and upper end markets be, and will they hold somewhat, or get dragged down 50-70% or more in the wash?