Waiting For The Next Shoe To Drop. Ventura County Real Estate Doing’s for Week Ending Nov 8, 2008
November 9th, 2008 Categories: Weekly Real Estate Activity In Ventura County
All is quiet on the home front (relatively speaking). Mortgage rates continue to do a saw tooth scenario. Banks claim they have lots of money but say potential borrowers do not meet the updated rules of qualifying.
It appears that the commercial side of real estate is now wavering and is headed downward. This (in my mind) suggests that the residential side has started upward.
With the transition of the White House now going on it will be quiet for a period but the politicians will be doing their thing in the background. Watch out. It will get nastier before it gets better.
There are signs that the economy is going south at a faster pace than most want and this will have an impact on the residential and commercial real estate markets. This puts greater stress on the general population and individuals in particular. All are looking for quick relief to problems inherited by over zealous politicians.
It is easy to blame the politicians but the problems that we have are self-generated.
There is a significan part of the population who want things done for nothing and have no problem transferring their needs to some one else. When it doesn’t occur they get mad and expect government to do more.
Government is only too happy to cater to this group. It wants them to remain dependent on government which gives government its justification of being and doing what it does. We tell them this is what we want and they do it. This has been on going for nearly 75 years and only periodically do people reflect and say no, we do not want to go that route.
All government can do is to increase taxes to satisfy the needs of the population. Soon this runs it course and everyone suffers. That is spreading not only the wealth but it also makes most poor and makes government bigger. But there are a great number of people who think this is the model that should be in place and it something that we vote on every four years.
This market downturn does show how inter-linked we are with the rest of the world. Most countries are suffering as we are. Shortly we will see signs of protecting one’s own and various barriers will be into place which will exacerbate the problem. That is what people do.
Expect increase unemployment; an increase in commercial vacancies; significant curtailment of consumer spending; increase in personal taxes at all levels of government; and you will be reading about bailouts for the car makers but also there will be a number of local governments which will be declaring bankruptcy throughout the country.
Vallejo, CA has already declared bankruptcy and it is expected that at least 6 more local governments in the Central Valley and the San Francisco area will declare bankruptcy shortly.
The New Administration will push for an FDR type economy to create jobs in the areas of highway, water, bridges, and other type infra-structure which are in need of repairs.
Ventura County.
Staying put. That is going to be the state of affairs for the next several months. Listings are decreasing; sales however have slowed; and of critical importance is that unemployment in the County is increasing. Jobs are going to be cut across the board and this will have its impact on real estate.
Please forward your comments.
