The study by the Joint Center for Housing at Harvard (and MIT, that is why it is “joint”) that Jim Bacon noted in the 14 June posting “Housing Bubble Watch…” was also covered by WaPo. Their spin is that the Joint Center does not see any sign of the housing bubble bursting yet BASED ON 2004 DATA. (“No Slowdown in Housing Market Seen, Report Says.” 13 June 2005)
That is good news for housing speculators, you made it to 31 December 2004. Of course it is now nearly half-way through 2005…
A review of the report confirms many of the negative trends outlined in “The Shelter Crisis,” 23 May 2005 at db4.dev.baconsrebellion.com and adds some new factoids.
The WaPo story on the Joint Center report offers no guidance on when the bubble might break. Far more important, there is not even any discussion of the much greater negative impact of not having a housing bust. If housing prices (aka, the cost of shelter) do not come back into the realm of reason for the vast majority of citizens, the economies of prosperous regions are in for a major “readjustment.”
The next question is what will be the overarching impact of a slow fizzle of the housing balloon as predicted by Janszen of Always On noted in today’s post by Jim. No doubt there will be an effort to stem the bust but will it work? The real issue is: would a fizzle save the economies of the regions that now have “More, Better Jobs?” Those Creative folks can move in a hurry.
EMR
