But this is all good news. It creates affordability, more discretionary income, and flexible overhead cost considerations.
Barley

Don't worry, the government will bail everyone out, plenty of TARP money left to go around.

Dobbs: Elmo forgot to tighten his belt and look what happened!

I've posed this question before, but have not seen good answers. This concerns Lewis Planned Communities which is privately held residential and mall developer. They have about a dozen malls on line to be opened between 2008 - 2013 in Southern California, many of them in Inland Empire. It sounds like a completely awful place to be right now, but I have not seen any negative financial news concerning them.

I have no direct financial interests here but am interested in some land use issues involving them. Their solvency could be a political issue here.

Where are all these people that once lived or worked in these buildings, who are what will make up the taxes once collected, and is being homeless and jobless the new look for the USA.

Take a walk through any woodlands bordering your city. Midday you'll find evidence of people living there. If you go at night you'll find the people. Combine this with migration out of America and you'll discover the reason for the falling rents.

Another eye opener is to drive through remote parking lots at night and see the people living in their cars. Where do you think the unemployed go when the benefits end?

If you have any friends in law enforcement ask them if they are seeing an increase in homeless living in the woods or their cars. Don't act surprised at the answer.

Always liked the Brazilian name for their slums, Flavellas. Kinda catchy.

Moms couch or the Pinto!

Anonymous @ 1:24 PST
We talked about this long before it happened, even brought it up yesterday. In my view, housing is fungible. Whether it is rental or homeowner or company owned housing stock is just a detail.

Sure, now I can see why SRS has been taking a beating lately. Makes a lot of sense now.

Nova, Journey is already back together, they released an album last year...it went gold.

The reverse of illegal immigration is legal. I have no problem letting these people go home freely, but if they want to come back later, they better really want to be a US citizen, learn english, and contribute to our melting-pot culture.

I'm sick of the La Raza, "you have to pander to us" culture. I welcome U.S. citizens to be proud of their heritage, but U.S. Citizens and Immigrants alike need to have a desire to form a common cuture for our society and economy to suceed. I see no such desire from Latino organizations.

I'd rather be stuck with debt than with illegal immigrants if that were a real choice. I'm very glad there is evidence of some illegal immigrants returning to their countries. Most are doing so voluntarily.

http://www.numbersusa.com

Sleight of hand touches the computer keyboard and creates money out of thin air, it's magic.

I've heard the limit per household in Sacramento is 8.

"lawyerliz (member) wrote on Wed, 04/08/2009 - 1:34pm.
I've heard for years that there are lotsa people living in the woods on the mainland. At least it doesn't get too cold."

There's an Oprah appearance for the first person to publish a memoir about this...

downward spiral
if you don't have a parachute, just jump out right before the crash
and shouldn't the folks livin' in the trees be paying taxes on the imputed rent?
timmay could fund a few more bailouts, fer shur

Snatch blade of grass from sleight of hand, Grasshopper.

Goodnight Johnboy!

energycon - What do those graphs mean?

Woudn't you call an ethanol producer going bankrupt, a Corn Roast?

Pass the butter, please.

If the "big one" happens, the mountains get taller and the buildings fall (or burn) down. The coast does not change once the tsunami subsides.

What's the most popular breed in Bakersfield?

a Meth Lab

Nova, I be in Appalachia, all the tree's big enought to live in were cut to build houses that are now being foreclosed on. Most people I know are looking for a good Ponzi that might work on Goverment employee's that doesn't come off Wallstreet or from Kenya.

sure, rent is down on a YoY basis. but if you compare the salary earning power to rent based on 2006 levels, rent in SF and other metro areas are still substantially higher

I'm Anonymous @ 1:24. I've read all of the comments since mine and it still doesn't ring true why apartment rents are decreasing while foreclosures continue to increase. I've heard mostly homelessness and an increase in residents per unit. We have stats on forclosures, and from that we should be able to estimate how many have been displaced from their homes. We have stats on rental vacancies, and from that we should be able to estimate how many fewer people live in rentals year over year. Do we have any comparable stats on changes in homelessness and residents per household to see if the numbers match?

No conspiracy. I just don't understand where all the people went. I can't believe they all doubled up with Aunt Fanny.

Continuing with O/T mention of Australian auto production:
Auto manufacturing is limited to South Australia, a province of 1.6mn

There used to be 2 outfits. Mitsubishi left after promises were made not to layoff workers, the other remaining one is GM Holden (known for muscle cars).
Holden employs 3,000 directly, and its suppliers employ a further 10,000
Best case scenario is a go-slow production, but worries are quite high that GM might homesource to the US
and that ties into this Canadian GM reference, http://business.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090408.wmcguin...
The province of Ontario, home of all Canada's auto production (besides small independent electric car makers) cut minimum required pension contributions in the 90s to "save jobs". After years of direct subsidies/support, the Big 3 are finally now facing bankruptcy. Guess what? Ontario's pension guarantee fund only has $100mn, and Chrysler alone would dump billions. It sounds like the pensioners are in for some rough treatment judging by prevailing public/political opinion

Rob Dawg,
You can print those coupons off from online now. There are hundreds of websites that scan, categorize, and provide an interface better than physically cutting them out.

Economite,

Do you really not get it?

Here is a little illustration of what is happening: Four people, all working white collar or service provider type employees have taken up residence 3 doors down. None of them are married, have kids, or are dating. Before renting the 4br monolith, they all had separate homes or apartments. So that means that 4 apartments are now vacant and one ugly mcmansion now has renters. The SFR isn't counted in the apartment vacancy stats as it's not professionally managed as an income property but those 4 now empty properties probably were.

The apartments probably rented for something like 800 to 1100 a month. The whole house rental rate is most likely around 1400 to 1700. So anywhere from 3200 to 4400 a month is no longer going out to fund a large complex's overhead while some accidential landlord is now having 1400 to 1700 of his 3400 monthly payment covered.

Does that make it any clearer?

/shakes head

"And this isn't "doubling up"
------

I have about the same square area as my house in Phoenix.
A lot less worries.

I can't imagine that I'd buy a house again.
I see no reason.

" it still doesn't ring true why apartment rents are decreasing while foreclosures continue to increase."

---------

Once again - average household size in the U.S. has been steadily decreasing for thirty years (the upccycle of the K-wave). It can very easily keep shrinking back to the 1970s, and that's not counting the extra capacity from the Crash and on-going construction which is probably still greater than what can be absorbed under the present circumstances (i.e. government & corporations gone mad).

Lots of "retirement houses", too.

I understand what y'all are saying with regards to more residents per household, and it's not that I don't believe it, but all you're providing by way of proof is anecdotes. I'm looking for stats, it they're there.

Basel Too,
We have solved the homelessness problem and REO maintenance cash bleed problem and spiking vacancy rate problem as it pertains to added negative price pressure in one fell swoop!

Everyone who does not own a house, can legally squat in a vacant home of their choosing for 3 years. Ta da!

Economite,
Stuff it already. I gave you the census link with historical statistics on housing vacancy.

You are guilty actively ignoring the evidence, behaving rudely, and being stupid.

"I'm looking for stats, it they're there"
--------

I charge $70/hr for Google searches.
Cash only.

EvilHenryPaulson?

Your census status tell what the rates are, but nothing about where the displaced went. But you're right, I'm stupid and rude. Fortunately I'm here to learn and be nice.

now this is funny http://www.goldmansachs666.com/

Las vegas has plenty of vacancies....new 2000sqft+ homes in LV....$20k recently sold

http://www.trulia.com/sold/2000p_sqft/price;a_sort/Las_Vegas,NV/#for_sal...

A calculated risk better than one not taken? Bernanke and paulson may be doing a good job http://iamned.com/blog/

lawerliz
That stuff is hand finished, most of it in India where there is an established system of subcontracting to subvert whatever ethical policies of the parent company. Small hands are best for sewing on all those little beads

Michael Pettis has an excellent post up:
http://mpettis.com/2009/04/is-governor-zhou-a-closet-bernanke-ite/

...
China, in other words, chose to hold US dollars not because the US government has somehow enforced reserve status on the US dollar and denied it to other currencies (Washington could never have prevented China from buying euros or yen or anything else), but simply because no other country is able to run deficits of the necessary magnitude.

I especially love the statement "From a structural point of view, this recession should never have happened." One of my standard complaints about most economists, especially those who focus on a single country or group of countries, is that they ignore balance-sheet and balance-of-payments effects. Of course it should have been obvious that a crisis in the deficit countries would affect the surplus countries – in fact it should have been obvious that the impact on the latter should have been worse.
...

EvilHenryPaulson

Assuming there is excess supply today, where did all of the people go who lived in residential units in 2007, when there wasn't excess supply? They have to be physically living somewhere that they weren't before, or we have to agree that there was excess supply in 2007, which is not supported by the stats.

So, accepting that excess supply exists (which is self-evident, because it is represented by vacancies), where is everyone? Some here have said they're homeless, others have said there are more residents on average per household. I'm only asking one simple question - can we account,

via published statistics
, where the people who are no longer living in the "excess supply" have gone?

Rents have to go down. Unemployment is going up.

There have to be options for the under/unemployed.

Please tell me it isn't a Puffy Shirt?

It is now.

Thanks for the tip...

new post

@ Economite / Evil Henry Paulson,

I think there's 2 rental market. I'm not sure what the statistics track, so everything may be skewed. (Also, I suspect CA, FL, NV and possibly NYC are heavily skewing the date.)

But anyway, there's the rental market where rental stock come from era before the craze. Apartments and condos built from the beginning with the intent to rent; and from a long time back. These rentals have typically low cost / low rent basis and I find that they're in demand. They're snapped up in hours literally, typically by soon to be ex-homeowners who're foreclosing. That explains some of your "where have they gone" dilemma.

Then there's the "new" rental market, from new rentals built using the cost basis during the boom years; as well as homeowners or "investors" (amateurs really, most of them) renting their homes. These are typically newer, usually labeled "luxury apartment" or look like SFH or condos. They also have very high rent compared to market, esp when you use rent per square foot measures. I usually see these sit stagnant and not go anywhere.

So "vacancies" may seem high; but it depends on what you're talking about. I would suggest if you measure rental growth like you measure things like "same house sales stats" on the old rental stocks; I really think there's a marked increase...

So I think those ex-homeowners people did go back to apartments, just smaller ones and perhaps more family member per unit. And demand for rental *DID* go up. And supply for overpriced rental also did go up.

"So, I think ratty jeans will become non-fashionable, 'cause only people with jobs will be able to dress well--make that decent jobs--and so fancier dress will become more available/relevant to show status.

lawyerliz "

And make yourself a target? Not here on the West Coast.

Economite,
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/housing/hvs/historic/index.html
Table 8. Quarterly Estimates of the Housing Inventory [xls - 86k]

---
From 2000 to 2008, Each year is a new row, columns are Q1 - Q4
11.60% 11.87% 11.68% 11.36%

11.85% 12.21% 11.84% 11.75%

12.05% 11.89% 12.00% 12.13%

12.34% 12.57% 12.83% 12.81%

12.96% 13.06% 12.67% 12.38%

12.64% 12.84% 12.64% 12.55%

12.83% 13.00% 13.15% 13.20%

13.80% 13.61% 13.96% 13.81%

14.35% 14.36% 14.29% 14.51%