[al_bundy]

Fatwallet has had a housing bubble thread for the last two years and lately there has been a lot of anecdotal posts from around the country about how houses aren't selling at listed prices and sellers have to drop their asking prices

A few weeks ago the NY Times reported that in NYC there is price pressure and people don't want to pay 10% over last year's prices

On Jim Cramer's Mad Money, he said that 3 home care companies had bad earnings. One is in lawn care and the other two are in something else about making your home look nice. He also warned people to start selling Home Depot and Lowe's to lock in profits

Prices of building materials are increasing and this may hurt home builders soon

I don't know if prices will fall of a cliff like some are predicting, and I doubt it will happen because I don't think people will willingly walk away and take the bad credit hit. And every local market is different so we may see appreciation in some markets and depreciation in others. But I think that prices may have finally peaked and there will be a small correction or several years of a flat housing market. I think the mania and euphoria is finally over.



EDIT
a lot of people see australia as a leading indicator and things have started to cool off there as well

and earlier this week they had an executive from ML on CNBC and he said some of the firm's wealthy clients have cashed out of RE and into bonds

On Squawk Box on CNBC this morning they said that the Chinese wanting to buy UNOCAL is an indication that they are branching out of the bond market. less money going into bonds mean rates are going to go up