will the real obama please stand up?

I don't think your looking at an Obama problem or that Trump can do anything to fix it. I think the housing crash turned a lot of people off of home ownership.

I think people are finally catching on to the fact that most markets are over valued and it doesn't make sense to buy in many places.

Added to this, the homeowners got fucked, while the bankers got off scott free the last time. On top of that we see the banks doing the same thing all over so it's only a matter of time before another crash happens leaving home owners holding the empty equity bag..

In small towns and rural areas it's likely better to buy because less rentals are available and prices are cheaper.

In bigger cities and metros, the prices are too much and there is often way too many rentals on the market.

I found this interesting

Whole Foods Wanted to Be More Than a Supermarket, and Therein Lies the Problem

I think it's a bit more than that. People are afraid. Not of Trump, although that might be part of it, but instead afraid of the market crashing again.

My mother-in-law lived through the depression, and it's obvious how it's effected her. Although she had money, she would much rather save it for a "rainy day". This is the mentality a lot of people have.

my only point being that I never believed the Obama administration, and the media proclamation 'things are getting better, obama fixed everything'

after 8 years of obama things are most definitely worse for all of us. maybe you live in magic land, where I live all the vendors say the exact same thing: no one is doing well. and the world is most definitely a more dangerous place.

you guys like to pretend that trump fucked everything up in 3 months, get real. this is ALL Obama's bullshit. and obama did and DOES EVERYTHING he can, as well as his wife, to make it even worse.

Do yourself a favor and don't invest in real estate.

Two good articles, thanks for sharing.

Brad

Things are better. there is all kinds of building is going on. Rents are going up(they cant go up if no one can pay it).
Now unfortunately if you are a factory worker, things are not better. But thats technology nothing to do with the president. And it will get worse not better. Not everyone is college material and you dont want everyone going to college because it makes college worthless.

Another reason less people are buying is these kids have a huge college loans because if you dont have a degree now Your options are very limited. Now ads for receptionist require a degree. Which makes getting a mortgage hard. Also they saw what happened to their parents and see buying a home as a losing deal.

To me Trader Joes is better and the prices arent a butt fucking.

The banks had to tighten up home lending criterion.
Fannie Mae stopped buying junk loans and the banks had no place to lay off their junk loan paper.



since 2004 homeownership is down 7%+- so what?
https://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/data/histtab14.xlsx

Part of the reason is that less loans are available to less credit worthy borrowers. What is so wrong with that?

And this stuns me.

We need to accept that what happened to us in 2008 & 2009 wasn't a "two year problem". It was a ten year problem. This was nothing something where you can pass a few bills and flip a switch and suddenly everything is magical. You are talking about taking the largest economy in the world and coming to a dead stop and then turning it around.

I live in a small town that was the largest growing city in the United States for four or five years. (We grew over 280%: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln,_California). Four fifths of our housing was new housing, and new housing means lots of new loans - crappy loans that went into default. Exactly half of the houses on my street were empty when Obama took office - people just walked away from their homes. Now every house on our street is occupied, and when my friends and neighbors sell their house it sells in forty-eight hours and usually has a bidding war involved.

When Obama took office, unemployment was over 10%. Now it's below 5%. Name another president that cut unemployment in half during two terms?

Every aspect of our lives took a hit. The amount of money we were making, the value of houses, our investments, etc. We can't just hit a switch and suddenly reset everything to 2006.

It will take another ten years to fully recover.

good point Richard most of the vendors I speak with are for the entertainment business lighting, cameras etc.

This probably distorts my perspective although I do see many small mom-and-pop businesses going under