The housing recovery is BOGUS. Only the rich are getting richer, as usual.

Yep folks, if you believe what the MSM is telling you, employment is making a comeback and the real estate market is doing better than it was before the big crash. Happy days really are here again!

Housing recovery gains strength

The housing market recovery picked up steam in the final three months of last year, with prices rising at an annual rate of 7.3%, according to S&P Case-Shiller, while a government report showed sales of new homes also shot up higher.

The number of new homes sold in January jumped more than 15% from December and nearly 30% from a year earlier, according to the Census Bureau report. There is only a 4.1-month supply of new homes available for sale on the market, the tightest supply by that measure since the bubble days of 2005.

CNN Money

Of course, like everything else in this economy, the housing comeback is nothing but an illusion to distract us from the fact that the rich are getting richer while sucking the wealth from what's left of the middle class. The new housing numbers are nothing but smoke and mirrors to fool us into thinking everything is getting better. A closer look at those numbers shows that everything is NOT getting better, in fact, its getting a whole lot worse.

US Housing: Is the Recovery Real?

And as we said earlier, inventories are down 25.3 percent from 2012. There are two reasons for this. First, the banks are holding most of their distressed properties off the market to keep prices high. Second, the banks are controlling the number of underwater homeowners who are allowed to sell via short sales, that is, to sell their home for less than the current price of the mortgage. In other words, the banks control the whole shooting match. If the banks want prices to go up, they simply reduce the supply and prices edge higher. So far, the plan appears to be working.

And another thing; while it may sound like houses are selling like hotcakes, the truth is far different. New home sales are less than one-third of what they were at their peak (1.4 million), while existing home sales are merely back to what they were in January 2002 before housing ballooned into a humongous bubble. In other words, the Fed’s record low rates, Obama’s mortgage modification programs, and FHA’s meager 3.5% down payment policy, have barely pushed sales back up to their historic trend. Does that sound like a strong recovery to you?

Counterpunch

In fact, this is all just a scam, orchestrated by the big banks to suck the last remaining wealth away from the middle class and reduce us all to serfdom.

It’s always the best time to buy

The contrived elevation of home sales and home prices has been engineered by the very same culprits who crashed our financial system in the first place. This has been planned, coordinated and implemented by a conspiracy of the ruling oligarchy – the Federal Reserve, Wall Street, U.S. Treasury, NAR, and the corporate media conglomerates. Ben’s job was to screw senior citizens and drive interest rates low enough that everyone in the country could refinance, attract investors & flippers into the market, and propel home prices higher. Wall Street has been the linchpin to the whole sordid plan. They were tasked with drastically limiting the foreclosure pipeline, therefore creating a fake shortage of inventory. Next, JP Morgan, Blackrock, Citi, Bank of America, and dozens of other private equity firms have partnered with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, using free money provided by Ben Bernanke, to create investment funds to buy up millions of distressed properties and convert them into rental properties, further reducing the inventory of homes for sale and driving prices higher. Only the connected crony capitalists on Wall Street are getting a piece of this action. The Wall Street big hanging dicks have screwed the American middle class coming and going. The NAR and media are tasked with what they do best – spew propaganda, misinform, lie, cheerlead and attempt to create a buying frenzy among the willfully ignorant masses. The chart below reveals the truth about the strong sustainable housing recovery. It doesn’t exist. Mortgage applications by real people who want to live in a home are no higher than they were in 2010 when home sales were 33% lower than today. Mortgage applications are lower than they were in 1997 when 4 million existing homes were sold versus the 5 million pace today. The housing recovery is just another Wall Street scam designed to bilk the American middle class of what remains of their net worth.

The Burning Platform

Don't be fooled by their mixed up numbers folks. The economy is only getting better for the super rich and the banksters. For the rest of us, its down hill all the way.

I have been saying this all along: "if you control the supply, then it follows that you control the demand"
(btw, I'm and REO agent...and what I've been saying even before I became an REO agent has gone aginst the grain so much that even now I'm considered a wierdo.)

I mean the so called "recovery" in both the real estate and stock asset classes are just inflation. To me this looks really bad as the only thing that it points to is the forthcoming hyperinflation. I mean at this point I've got 80% of my wealth in silver and 20% in bitcoins so I think Im covered but we will see how people turn into animals once it starts.

Well, really, how is housing supposed to be recovering when people continue to make the transition from 'full-time' to 'part-time' labor? How is it supposed to be recovering when confidence in the future of the economy is crumbling??? To buy a house, you need to look twenty years down the road, and you need to have confidence that you will be at least as well off then as you are now. When looking at infrastructure, politics, and globalization, its hard to see why anyone would be eager to sign a new long-term mortgage, even if the interest rates are next to nothing.

the housing market is hot right now - the reason is foreign investors hoping to launder cash through short terms flips on top of traditional american investors who for some reason aren't satisfied with .01% returns on their money.

MSM relies on a good economy or no one buys products advertised on their websites...or goes into soul crushing debt they can profit off exploiting in the name of "news"

well TV is about brain washing...
if there are only so many life boats to go round...
best to tip the band leader to play a happy dance number while you head for the escape goats...

I was reading an article the other day about Obama wanting to bring back subprime mortgages. We're almost going to have to if we want the average person to be able to buy a home. They said that 90% of people with a credit score of 680-700 were denied home loans. The average person doesn't even have close to a 680 credit score, so would need to either have a massive deposit (which they can't afford to save up, if they want to to do things like eat), or a subprime mortgage.

These mortgages can be safely brought back, if the banks are willing to be responsible with them (which we all know they aren't), so it appears that for the foreseeable future, the average person (like me), won't be buying a home.

The only time a person should be buying a house is when its on foreclosure and is a fixer upper. after that you sell the house and make a profit. thats the only way to benefit from the housing market. buying a house to live in is overrated and a scam. renting is a lot better and smarter.

I've argued on other forums that the middle class was indeed, shrinking. Only to be poo pooed, and told there will always be a middle class. Not sure where those folks are from, but in my little corner of the world, the middle class is shrinking.

No, the wealthy aren't sucking the wealth from the middle class, they've earned every penny of the 300-400 times their income has grown since 1980. No one else has deserved a raise. If this video is correct, it just keeps getting worse.

If this didn't work, could someonne with a better working knowledge of ATS, give me a hand and fix the video link. Thanks.

I agree, it's a big illusion. I do take issue with one thing...

New home sales are less than one-third of what they were at their peak (1.4 million), while existing home sales are merely back to what they were in January 2002 before housing ballooned into a humongous bubble. In other words, the Fed’s record low rates, Obama’s mortgage modification programs, and FHA’s meager 3.5% down payment policy, have barely pushed sales back up to their historic trend.

That may be a good thing. The peak (pre-bubble) was composed mostly of people applying for and being approved for screwball loans they couldn't even afford if their net income was doubled for those super inflated prices.

Back during the boom my wife and I had the opportunity to buy my parent's home. The asking price for the the nice house in the ghetto was $285,000. Since we had a kid on the way they dropped it to $265,000 and had their agent work at getting us a loan to get in. I kept asking what my monthly mortgage payment would be and both parents and agent kept saying, " you can't think of it that way". They kept dodging the question. Finally we calculated what our actual payment would be. It was way more than we could afford, and the only way we could have gotten in was with a screwy BofA 40yr loan that didn't touch the principal for 10yrs and we couldn't sell it if we had to. I'm so glad we didin't buy... It was the worse time to buy yet everyone kept chanting,"If you don't buy now you will never own a home." How ironic. Now they are filing for bankruptcy and losing both homes.

On the flip side my sister-in-law has been doing the right thing by living with her folks for about a year now and has saved up enough $ to get a home through the FHA thing. She has literally competed in bids with up to 30 people. But it's a no-brainer for homesellers to shirk off the FHA applicants and go with the investor/flippers paying 10-20% more than the asking price. She can't compete.

I wonder who the flippers/investors are going to sell to when the housing prices start rising? Round 2 of the bubble crisis or a landgrab??

Excellent post. The rise in the stock market is also a ploy to get regular folks to things are going good. It will drop shortly. The truth is there is no economic recovery in this country and there are no prospects of it getting better. This is while you will see more military activity by the USA and the west in Korea region to stimulate their military industrial political complex while the rest of us take up the ass

reply to post by saturnsrings


Here you go:

reply to post by FortAnthem


The housing recovery is REAL in Arizona.

Home values are up 24%.

Many people are no longer in an underwater position.

It took about 5 years but we finally worked our way through the housing bubble thrown at us

by Countrywide Financial , Barney Franks and a bunch of other people.

New homes are selling as fast as they are built in Scottsdale, AZ.

And THAT is the scourge of Capitalism. Capitalism exists for one reason ... to limit access to goods and services so that a small group can get rich parcelling out food, water, health care, etc.

I have a friend who is a "high-end" builder in Dallas. He said metropolitan areas in Texas (DFW, Austin, San Antonio, and Houston) are doing great. He buys old single story houses (after grandma finally dies) in the Park Cities, tears them down, and constructs 3-story monstrosities on the lot. Most are pre-sold, or sold before he's completed the project. He is rolling in the dough.

Originally posted by solizer
The only time a person should be buying a house is when its on foreclosure and is a fixer upper. after that you sell the house and make a profit. thats the only way to benefit from the housing market. buying a house to live in is overrated and a scam. renting is a lot better and smarter.

While it is true that you can make money by buying a foreclosed fixer-upper, making a blanket statement that it is the only way to make a profit or that renting is a better and smarter choice is foolish.

I currently own my own home. In the 8.75 years of owning the house, I have paid approx. $61450 in mortgage payments. Of that amount, $28,000 has gone against the principle. The other $33,450 has been interest. That works out to approx. $320 per month. You cannot rent a house for that amount where I live. It would cost you over three times that amount, plus utilities, to rent the equivalent.

So not only have I saved some $71,500 in rent, but my house is now valued at more than $190,000 above the original purchase price at current market prices in my area. As I plan on selling and moving to another region where housing is cheaper, I will be able to live mortgage and rent free.

reply to post by TauCetixeta


By Australian investor groups?

This is what people do not understand: Housing prices are manufactured in a series of deliberate bubbles. This is how real estate professionals make their money in both directions. The common 3 bedroom / 2 bath "starter" single family home is never going to be worth more than what the average worker in that zip code makes in 3-4 years.

Income have not risen, therefore - its a bubble.

reply to post by FortAnthem


I don't think many people here are surprised. Good post though. SnF for u.

Originally posted by 0zzymand0s
reply to post by TauCetixeta

 

By Australian investor groups?

This is what people do not understand: Housing prices are manufactured in a series of deliberate bubbles. This is how real estate professionals make their money in both directions. The common 3 bedroom / 2 bath "starter" single family home is never going to be worth more than what the average worker in that zip code makes in 3-4 years.

Income have not risen, therefore - its a bubble.

All i know is that people are not underwater with their homes in Arizona anymore.

That's a good thing. They owe less on their homes than what it's worth.

Originally posted by erwalker

Originally posted by solizer
The only time a person should be buying a house is when its on foreclosure and is a fixer upper. after that you sell the house and make a profit. thats the only way to benefit from the housing market. buying a house to live in is overrated and a scam. renting is a lot better and smarter.

While it is true that you can make money by buying a foreclosed fixer-upper, making a blanket statement that it is the only way to make a profit or that renting is a better and smarter choice is foolish.

I currently own my own home. In the 8.75 years of owning the house, I have paid approx. $61450 in mortgage payments. Of that amount, $28,000 has gone against the principle. The other $33,450 has been interest. That works out to approx. $320 per month. You cannot rent a house for that amount where I live. It would cost you over three times that amount, plus utilities, to rent the equivalent.

So not only have I saved some $71,500 in rent, but my house is now valued at more than $190,000 above the original purchase price at current market prices in my area. As I plan on selling and moving to another region where housing is cheaper, I will be able to live mortgage and rent free.

edit on 11/4/13 by erwalker because: (no reason given)

Technically you are renting that house as it still belongs to the bank and your making payments. And it comes to 321 a month, but thats not what your paying every month.

What i said about the foreclosure was definately a vague statement but regardless you can get a loan like you did, fix it up, pay back the loan and keep the profit, and keep doing the samething. its no different than what your doing, you did say your going to sell your house. And remember nothing is ever free. you will still end up paying property taxes. so in reality the house will never be your but always be Uncle Sams.