Hollis Tidwell

The U.S. housing market is now slightly undervalued after rapid price declines have overshot fundamentals, economists for IHS Global Insight said Wednesday. Yea right, and do we believe anything an economist would tell us? Not in this office.

House prices fell at a 6.9% annual pace nationwide in the third quarter, with prices falling in 241 of 330 metropolitan areas. Prices are down 6.5% from their peak in 2007.

Does this really shock anyone? In fact I would suggest we hold on tight if this has scared us because we ain't seen nothing yet.

In Denver, we have been late in prices faling and yet we will probably fall the worse due to the fact that homes have been extremely overvalued and priced for the past five years. Not to mention the quality of what is being built, really poor. It is amazing that anyone would buy a house at $200 sq ft in Denver. Have people here never been out of this part of the world to see what they are missing. Go to the south and see what real quality is and then come back and start demanding more from builders and real estate companies to treat the consumer fair. We have to regualte our own indutry and get rid of the greed. After all look where it has gotten us.

It is obvious that weak economic conditions and wary consumers continue to hold the housing market back and yet some areas are seeing some increase but that is due to foreclosure sales. A real false number.

Warning : As long as house prices stay as they are today there is no chance of the market recovering. So watch for prices to tumble and reach levels of the 80's or we might just be crying in the year 2010 and after for a while.

Sure it sounds scary but maybe we built this monster with over pricing the market and not demanding that builder give us what we should have for the price they are charging. We must regulate our own industry or our industry may be taken over by this socialist administration. And then who do we have to blame.

Maybe some of us would enjoy working for a min wage and selling houses as a government representative. So think about it and let's get the market in line with the ratio of buying vs renting. At this time renting looks a lot better until home markets come down to a reasonable level.

Best to you...

As reported today by Credit Suisse , it is projected that 6 million home owners will file bankruptcy in the next year. That means 1 of 8 mortgages will be out of there home. If this is the case we will have so many homes on the market that we could not reverse this process for maybe 10 years. The democrats are proposing some legislature that will not pass until Obama and his crew take over that may even make things worse. They are only proposing based on trying to make it seem they are doing something when it's obvious their plan will make things even worse. SO hold on, socialism and the ways of the left will put us in an even greater down spin.

It's similarar to what we are seeing from the left and the bail out of a failing auto industry. They want to throw money at a bad business that has failed even when the economy has been ar record levels the past 7 of eight years and now that things are turning bad they believe they can be profitable. A six grader could see this will not happen. So, once again we see the socialist move to control business and throw OUR money at bad business. If you think this is bad you are right and it will get worse, as they start to take control of the real estate business. When that strikes home with us in the real estate business maybe we will stand up and fight for a change for the freedom we will have lost and the right to run a business for success without government involvement and control that this new administration will lead us toward. We had best wake up and join in organizations that are fighting to keep us strong like http://www.wemuststartnow.com and others.

We must not let the socialist ways invade our lives in American and fight for our freedom on our own soil and in the chambers of Congress at the national and state levels or we will see the years of running a prosperous business a thing of the past. Just remember you may have to tell your children and grandchildren you were not will to stand up for protecting our liberty. Yes, it upset me and yes I am willing to fight. We had a 52% of uninformed voters in this last election that was influenced by a biased press and we have to stop this. We must become better informed and not be happy to vote in a cult society.

If you thin your 52% of voters were well informed visist this site and then see how you feel. http://www.howobamagotelected.com

It's up to us .... what will you tell your grandchildren

We have been in Japan the past two weeks and seems they are a bit more stable than here but nothing to get excited about. The yen is going up and they are buying like crazy so there goes more of our treasuries to foregn countries. Talk about buying high in goods, they are the masters of it. If it isn't high quality they don't buy it. And conside the average price of a Louis Vuittonton purse at $400 in the US it is $1100 in Japan and that's just the average price and 8 out of 10 girls 21 and over have one or two. That's just the beginning of the spending that goes on there. Amazing, it's a walking fashion show every day at work and the week ends look like everyone just steped out of a fasshion show for the outdoors in Paris. But what's happening in America. Wal Mart saled are higher than ever and everyone has figured out that high end buying just isn't smart at least in America where we have a lot of concerns with our financial future.

Home sales are starting to take the track most of us predicted. Home sales are going down like crazy and as we expected those last to fall will probably fall the most like Denver, Atland and Chicago.

Todays numbers were an increase in home sales of 2.7% but that's only 64,000 homes, really bad. And the average prices dropped to 218.000 vs 240,000 a year ago. So hold on as the market starts the 6 inning of this hopefully only nine inning game. The home prices are heading south and don't be surprised to see 40 or 50% drops in most markets and those that have been rediculously overpriced like Denver to drop even more. Housing has to stay in lne with incomes and interest rates nd that's just a simple economic fact.

We must help get rid of this big inventory and once that happens we might see a light at the end of the tunnel by the end of next year, let's just hope it's not a train.

Best to all

Here is the lastest for those that have a hard time pulling the numbers together.

Even though the fed cut rates there is no money available so the housing industry just continues to sink.

New applications for mortgage insurance dropped to the lowest level in over a year, while new mortgage defaults and cures of existing defaults also increased during the month, according to a mortgage insurance association.

Mortgage insurance applications are typically required for home buyers who make less than a 20% down payment on a home purchase. In August, the number of new applications dropped to the lowest level in more than a year, at 65,546 applications, down from 86,734 applications in July, and 206,457 applications in August 2007. Newly issued policies also fell, to 53,476 new policies with a total value of $10.2 billion from 70,588 written for a total of $12.3 billion in July, mirroring steadily declining home sales in the U.S. The group wrote no bulk policies on pools of mortgages in August.

Borrower action on overdue mortgages stepped up in August, with increases in both the number of insured home mortgages that went into default as well as an increase in the number of defaulted mortgages that cured, or were brought current.

In August, 41,783 defaulted mortgages were brought into compliance, up from 39,229 brought into compliance in July.

Defaults also rose, to 72,818, from 68,831 in July.

The figures for the month of August were released Tuesday by the Mortgage Insurance Companies of America, which represents the largest private mortgage insurers and reports on delinquencies of mortgages they cover.

If McCain wants the American people to run to get behind him, now is the time to vote no for this ridiculous giving of money to the banks that failed. This is America and businesses fail. If he supports this he is running with the same group as Obama and supporting socialism and it will kill him at election time.

More important to us, it will not help the housing industry and until this is fixed we will remain in the same problem in America, Hold on everyone home prices are about to drop like a hot potato.

Unless we see new credit leaders in the business the only way to sell will be from very, very low prices and that is just a repeat of history, so let the games begin so we can get things back to a productive business in the next five years or so.

As Realtors we have to be giving a straight message and moving these homes or getting them off the market. It's time for the professionals to step up.