JANUARY DATA IS SCARY BAD, PEOPLE
Over the past several months this website has been relentless in pointing out the flaccidity of America’s housing recovery … which even mainstream media outlets are now acknowledging has “lost steam.”
For our most recent commentary on that, CLICK HERE.
Anyway, data released by the U.S. Department of Commerce this week points to darkening skies. Most notably, housing starts in January plummeted 16 percent from December’s upwardly revised data … the eighth time in the last ten months this key measure has missed expectations.
Oh, and the sharpest month-to-month drop in three years …
And for everyone out there ready to reflexively blame all of this on bad weather, building permits (which aren’t dependent on current weather conditions) were also down 5.4 percent …
So yeah … like we said.
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It is down 2% from January of last year.
Typically there is a pretty big drop from Dec to Jan.
And despite what FITS asserts, building permits are indeed cyclical and seasonal.
All that being said, it doesn’t point in any way to a strong, recovering economy (as they’ve said every month for the past four years now).
Then why was last January way up compared to the Jan. of 2012, if it is typical to drop in Jan??
And in Cola. the decrease is 7% in Jan..and prices are dropping again, too.
Not to worry. I hear that double-wide sales are up across SC.
hey! that hits too close to home! I’m thinking of becoming trailer trash myself!
Actually the number of mobile homes has steadily decreased in SC, beginning with more GOP elected officials…
You’ll notice the most backward parts of SC vote D over and over…and never seem to rise out of the muck.
I said there was a typical drop from December to January.
Read.
Again: That DID NOT happen in 2013…And WHY have 2 of the last 3 months showed a decline in Columbia, compared to the same month of the year before???…
Your claim is not backed up by the data…
I don’t think you even know what I said. Or just ignored it. Or, more likely, looked and saw I am correct, but can’t admit it.
Taking your comment at face value only…it’s irrelevant at best…and does nothing to support your initial contention…
That said: before getting lost in immaterial points,your claim is that the news is not bad for housing. I say there is nothing to signal better housing numbers..and the news will get worse.
If history holds…when I turn out to be right, you’ll just lie, or make up some excuse to defend your error.
Reality makes no difference to yall. All you care about is getting your way…and F*#k everything and everybody else. That’s the liberal, liberal-tarian way…
That’s easy, SC has a Republican Governor, a Republican House and a Republican Senate. The economy is bound to suck for everyone except the rich in SC.
We’re actually doing better than the liberal democrat states. Why do you think the Rust Belt is losing people, and we’re growing? …
But still, we’re no where near the prosperity of the Bush years…
And where Haley fought Obama for those Boeing jobs, we’re in good shape. It’s why Sheheen has NO chance. We’d have nothing but BAD news w/ democrats in charge…
Easier access to welfare programs???
Get your facts straight- our economy sucks for everyone, pal…
Read.
That’s asking an awful lot of GrandTango, man.
I gave up on him on FishWrap’s page.
That’s asking an awful lot of GrandTango, man.
@GrandTango :
Comprehend.
*Go big or go home!
Nothing will get any better economically until Obama and the Ds are out of power. We can do a lot toward helping the economy by smashing the Ds in Nov.
The run on buying in 2013 was a lot of investors buying houses at BIG discounts from sellers who could not wait any longer to sell their house. The inventory glut has eased and the foreclosures from the first part of the Obama Recession are pretty much bought up.
Nothing fundamental has changed in the job market, except it’s gotten worse in most places…So home buying will reflect the lack of jobs and money in the economy by the avg. home-buyer. People are struggling, treading water, hoping for some relief from the disaster of Obama. And Obamacare has not really struck yet.
Media and housing industry people are lying about the health of the market. It is in bad shape, and will get worse.
Yay! Bad news means we were right all along! It’s like a cold winter proves no global warming. Bad, bad, news…
Let’s not mention how fucking many houses went into foreclosure as AAA investment vehicles with bogus insurance, being held by the banks without discount, on the books, as “equity” – even though they aren’t rented or selling, and depreciating without maintenance.
That kind of bad news might indicate that the “free market” fucked us.
Yeh Fits is sort of like these “seers.”They continually “predict” dire things happening.Months go by.Then when something of the many things they “predicted” would happen happens?
They brag about how right they were!
Republicans say to liberals “Why do you hate America?” when you point out the war is nuts and obstruction is nuts, and the tea party is nuts… and then, when they finally figure out it *was* nuts – it’s proof they were right all along… and we were simply pessimists.
No, but no global warming tends to prove no global warming…I mean pause…or whatever… I keed! Let’s not argue! ;-)
Too much cleverness in the world for *us* to argue! :D
I hate developers and real estate agents anyway. I heard too much of their get-rich-quick b.s. during the housing bubble. It couldn’t happen to a better group of people. The fact that the American economy is dependent on people throwing up poorly built houses in poorly planned neighborhoods is just sad and unsustainable.
Sadly true.
Housing’s going good for my little company. I give the TBTF’s partial ownership in my LLC, hawk their almost unsaleable crap while we pile the toxic assets onto my LLC balance sheet so they don’t get hammered on mark to market, and then collect my fees.
I got a little thing going on the side where I rent the better shit(which really is still shit) to poor people that lost their asses in 08 or 09 and can’t afford to buy even at low levels.
It’s amazing what good you can do with taxpayer money if you know the right people.
Houses are selling like hotcakes in Columbia.
It’s again an easy money market, like 06′. If you have a pulse you get a loan.
One of the any benefits of money printing.