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Strategies & Market Trends : The Residential Real Estate Crash Index -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Vosilla who wrote (36240)	7/25/2005 11:00:42 PM
From: Mike Johnston	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 306849

No national housing bubble but pockets of local bubbles which is true. I do not agree with your assessment. Technically, there is no national housing bubble, but only because there are large areas of the country where housing bubble cannot exist, since there is unlimited acreage of land on which builders can slap millions of houses. I think, except possibly downtowns of a largest city, a bubble cannot form in states like Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Iowa, Missouri, interior Texas etc. In order for a bubble to exist, there must be even a temporary real or perceived shortage. That is also a reason why any bubble in the condominium market cannot last more than 2-3 years. That is how long it takes to plan, design and build theoretically unlimited amount of condominium buildings ( as long as there is enough cement, steel and construction workers). If there is not enough land, they can go from 20 to 40 or even 60 stories. They call it "vertical living environment" Similar scenario unfolded in an IPO bubble of 99/2000. Eventually inv bankers have created supply to satisfy any demand that could ever be conceived, which is why that bubble could not last longer than the amount of time it would take to bring several hundred IPO's online. The bottom line IMO , there is a national housing bubble, because it exists everywhere it can exist and involves majority of the population and also drives the economic activity of this country ( as opposed to the economy driving housing which should be the case in a normal market)

To: John Vosilla who wrote (36240)	7/25/2005 11:16:00 PM
From: Mike Johnston	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 306849

Inflation appears to be contained and is not widespread which is also true. I think inflation does not appear to be widespread, because there are a lot of people that have no clue to what is going on around them. Let me explain. Every time i get a pizza from a local shop, i am amazed at the fact that the guy is still charging $11 a pie, while housing prices have tripled all around his shop. Not only that, but energy prices have doubled, taxes went up 20%, utility costs went up and input costs went up. I can guarantee you, the guy has took a major hit to his profit margin. Is he a fool ? Is he a masochist ? I have been tempted many times to ask him about it, but can you really have a conversation with a pizza parlor proprietor about central banking, bubbles and money supply ? Maybe he's so busy running the shop, he believes current propaganda that those price increases are temporary and he'll be ok taking a temporary hit to his margin.