Reply #8: Home prices

[sumus]

CoreLogic said Tuesday 3/8/11 that about 11.1 million households, or 23.1 percent of all mortgaged homes, were underwater in the October-December quarter. That's up from 22.5 percent, or 10.8 million households, in the July-September quarter. That means that all those folks are just renting without the ability to move if they need to.

In the Northeast, the median home price is $236,500 in the Midwest it's $126,300 In the South, the price is $136,600,and in the West it's $193,200. The rule I learned is that you can afford to buy a house that's 3X your gross salary, so you do the math but I don't see wages that can support even these prices (and that's median price not the average) I do see pressure to push wages down.

So in short, home prices are just going to lay there flat or go down in 2111.

The real issue is that were all still being victimized by a slow motion bank robbery that allowed wall street and the banks to sell mis-marked securities, junk ranked as AAA good to investors and pension funds. A crime for which no one has been punished. The banks are being bailed out by being lent our tax money at 0 interest to lend back to us at 5%. But there is no bailout for the 401ks or Retirement funds of America that bought those supposedly guaranteed securities. On the other hand it did work out well for some, today just 400 Americans have the same wealth as half of all Americans combined. 400 = 157,000,000 million and the Tea Party Republicans will die to keep them from paying 3% more in their taxes.