[Audio-Omega]

Is Washington Mutual up for sale ?

 

[The Monkey]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Audio-Omega /img/forum/go_quote.gif Is Washington Mutual up for sale ?

"Sale" is a generous word. Looks like Citi, Wells Fargo, and JPMC are possible suitors.

 

[Seaside]

Bank merger talks heat up.
Rumors are flying on Wall Street that Washington Mutual has put itself up for sale and that Wachovia and Morgan Stanley are considering a merger.

**

That's headline at CNN money. Look for yourself if intersted.

Note that it still is rumor at this point of time. I think it is not strange that they are working on it, because WaMu could go under if they can not raise assets soon. In case of wachovia and morgan stanley, it looks like they are desperate too. I certainly can't say what's going to happen based on rumors, but we will see in next couple of days.

 

[Audio-Omega]

I'm about to buy a new CD player and I will probably buy a new amp sooner rather than later. That's better than having my monies sitting in banks !

 

[Uncle Erik]

Looks like it's time to pull the checking out of WaMu. Probably head over to Wescom or the USC Credit Union.

And I'll load up on the extra food, water, batteries, and cat food. The cat food is especially important.

This won't be over until housing prices stabilize. Real estate is still overvalued all over and this is just the first round. The next round will be people not in financial trouble dumping their places because their mortgages will be much, much higher than the place is worth. Taking the losses public isn't going to stop this.

 

[DrBenway]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Uncle Erik /img/forum/go_quote.gif This won't be over until housing prices stabilize. Real estate is still overvalued all over and this is just the first round. The next round will be people not in financial trouble dumping their places because their mortgages will be much, much higher than the place is worth. Taking the losses public isn't going to stop this.

That's dead on, unfortunately. I've heard interviews in the media with homeowners who have done exactly what you describe. This is going to continue to depress the housing market for years to come.

And there are even more sinister repercussions. In March The Atlantic Monthly ran a very worrying article about the deterioration of suburbs and exurbs as McMansions and other single-family homes are abandoned by the thousands. The article posits the idea that these former bastions of suburban prosperity are becoming the new slums. An excerpt:

At Windy Ridge, a recently built starter-home development seven miles northwest of Charlotte, North Carolina, 81 of the community’s 132 small, vinyl-sided houses were in foreclosure as of late last year. Vandals have kicked in doors and stripped the copper wire from vacant houses; drug users and homeless people have furtively moved in. In December, after a stray bullet blasted through her son’s bedroom and into her own, Laurie Talbot, who’d moved to Windy Ridge from New York in 2005, told The Charlotte Observer, “I thought I’d bought a home in Pleasantville. I never imagined in my wildest dreams that stuff like this would happen.”

 

[ecclesand]

I recall reading an article many months ago when the housing devaluation began and many "financial experts" were advising people to sell their homes then and rent for the next few years. At the time I thought they were crazy. Sounds like they were spot on.

 

[Audio-Omega]

Even though billions have been pumped into the market, consumers are losing confidence.

 

[ericj]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ecclesand /img/forum/go_quote.gif I recall reading an article many months ago when the housing devaluation began and many "financial experts" were advising people to sell their homes then and rent for the next few years. At the time I thought they were crazy. Sounds like they were spot on.

Except that rent is going up.

I guess if you can sell your house for at least what you owe on it, and your mortgage payment is higher than what you'd pay for rent, it might make more sense to rent.

But I'd still rather pay into equity on my own home than into my landlord's boat.

 

[vcoheda]

shares of morgan stanley and goldman sachs are getting hammered. can they survive this crisis?

 

[frozenice]

But wait. I haven't even told you the bad news yet.

When you look at the construction of houses and by that I mean the materials used (ie lumber) and how they were built, the quality of such materials has declined consistently over the past seven or eight decades. What does that mean ? It means that the houses built six decades ago have a longer life than the ones built three or four decades ago. Why should you care ? Because a lot of the houses will all be at the end of their useful life at the same time which should be in and around 2025. When will people start to figure this out ? Probably around 2015 or so. Lots of these neighbourhoods will become ghost towns as people realize they are done, done, done.

My advise would be to make sure your residence and neighbourhood has a useful life well beyond 2040. Good luck.

 

[Tyson]

The suburbs are becoming (and will continue to become) the new ghettos. Cheap houses cheaply built and will be abandoned in droves as people move to "bigger and better". Defaulted loans and empty, foreclosed homes sitting vacant will simply speed along this process.

 

[JadeEast]

Strange days indeed.
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/stor...&dist=hplatest

 

[ameyer17]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Uncle Erik /img/forum/go_quote.gif Looks like it's time to pull the checking out of WaMu.

Unless you have over $100,000 in WaMu, there's no need to do that.

 

[marvin]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DrBenway /img/forum/go_quote.gif And there are even more sinister repercussions. In March The Atlantic Monthly ran a very worrying article about the deterioration of suburbs and exurbs as McMansions and other single-family homes are abandoned by the thousands. The article posits the idea that these former bastions of suburban prosperity are becoming the new slums.

Asking Christopher Leinberger what he thinks about suburbs is akin to asking Hitler what he thought about the Jews. He may yet be correct, but his case is fairly thin and overly reliant on cherry picking data points. His examples of failing suburbs are clearly boom related overproduction areas and his illustration of DC's financial situation vs its suburbs ignores that many of his vaunted urbanist areas are also facing financial pressure due to the market downturn and sub-prime collapse.

And it's really a bit early to judge whether or not the urbanist areas are going to get hit as badly as suburbs are now. Building lag time is much longer so the any oversupply issues will hit later. Also, declining city budgets means reduction/removal of many of the city renovations and advances that make urbanist living attractive.

Quote:

Originally Posted by frozenice When you look at the construction of houses and by that I mean the materials used (ie lumber) and how they were built, the quality of such materials has declined consistently over the past seven or eight decades. What does that mean ? It means that the houses built six decades ago have a longer life than the ones built three or four decades ago. Why should you care ? Because a lot of the houses will all be at the end of their useful life at the same time which should be in and around 2025. When will people start to figure this out ? Probably around 2015 or so. Lots of these neighbourhoods will become ghost towns as people realize they are done, done, done.

It's a feature, not a bug!

Lower->middle class minority flight from the cities to older less expensive suburbs has a tendency of bringing the problems of the cities to the suburbs. When this happens, whites tend to flee again to newer, more expensive suburbs that the lower->middle class minorities can't yet afford to live in.

Why bother to construct a house that will last forever if this is the case?