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Housing Bubble Trouble in Massachusetts
By Howard Gibson
The decline of the housing bubble will have major effects on Americans spending habits in general. Since general savings rates have been going down for a long time, what will replace the housing bubble? Essentially nothing, it is irreplaceable. Housing prices, until the mid-1990s generally followed the Consumer Price Index. Then huge amounts of cheap credit were pumped into the housing market. This was done by the Federal Reserve through federally sponsored companies like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They in turn bought the mortgage paper that was sold by the local bank.
Fannie Mae, etc. repackaged the mortgages as Mortgage Backed Securities (MBSs) and sold them all over the world. Homeowners were able to refinance their home at a lower mortgage rate and get extra cash. They could even refinance with cash back, turning their home into a giant ATM machine. With the decline in real estate prices, this will no longer be possible, since this is based in huge increases in home equity. This will affect consumer spending, driving it downward. Establishment commentators at Forbes Magazine, Business Week, Barons, etc. have been looking for a replacement bubble, but haven't been able to find it.
Declines in homes sales and home prices have especially hit hard metropolitan areas on the West Coast and the East Coast. In the Worcester, Mass. Telegram, it is noted that foreclosures in Mass. have increased by 58% comparing this July, to July last year. This is from foreclosuresMass.com . Foreclosures are accelerating, because if you compare the last 12 months to the previous 12 months, they are only up 43.5%. Worcester is about 60 miles from Boston, a major center of the housing boom. There housing starts have also been falling.
There is some insinuation of padding of statistics on the sudden collapse of real estate sales in Massachusetts. According to Scott Van Voorhis, a reporter for the Boston Herald, while the official realtor group has been crowing about great sales, the MAR, Mass. Association of Realtors, another group saw the collapse coming. The Warren Group, which publishes "Banker & Tradesman", was showing declines in homes sales going back to April 2005.
Meanwhile, developers who have been planning a huge condominiums project over the Massachusetts Turnpike in Boston, are complaining that high costs have hit them, and that they need more government financial help, to complete the project. Inflationary price increases of 15 percent or more have hit steel, sheetrock and other building materials. Other condo builders are considering shifting their projects to rental apartments, in order to avoid canceling them altogether. Several condo projects including retail districts have not broken ground in Downtown Crossing, the Back Bay and the Eastie section of Boston. Government subsidies to large projects considered essential to the development of Boston may have to be increased, both to create more jobs and to deal with bankruptcy threats in the construction industry. There are solutions at least in the short-term.
About the Author
Howard Gibson is a writer on legal and real estate issues for Las Vegas real estate , real estate nationwide and golf course communities at http://www.millionsaver.com .
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