[LivinLOS]

As I have said a few times I think real estate is going to fall and the chances of a severe decline are stronger than a gentle one.. The leverage of zero down interest only mortgates and amount of morgate load per income is higher than ever seen before..

The article below (partial posted full is at the link) was on my email lists this am and collects a lot of data on the initial writing on the wall.. The implications of a housing market decline and the increased probability of a recession also have a knock on effect to us here on Phuket.. When people are pinched financially holidays are the classic luxury that can be downsized, or second holiday homes and retirements can be liquidated etc.

The world has had a 20 year boom and Phuket has had a 20 year period of stunning and accelerating growth. Is a global recession coming and of so what effect will that have on tourism and the fortunes of those involved in it.. Its not certain but its definately an increasingly possible outcome.

http://safehaven.com/article-5151.htm

The housing market in general. That some formerly hot markets are imploding is common knowledge by now. But it's still fun to see the numbers and hear the stories.

From the Honolulu Star Bulletin, May 6: Honolulu home sales down 41% year over year in April, and Maui condo sales off by 50%.

The New York Times, May 9: The inventory of homes for sale in the Fort Lauderdale area has quadrupled, year over year, to 20,000.

Dow Jones Newswire, May 8: "Preliminary reports from builders Hovnanian Enterprises Inc. (HOV) and Toll Brothers Inc. (TOL), whose quarters ended April 30, indicate demand is falling faster and more sharply than previously thought, and that the pullback is no longer confined to hot markets that had seen sharp home price run-ups in the past few years. Hovnanian's orders fell 20% in its fiscal second quarter - an about-face from the 5.5% order growth reported in its fiscal first quarter. Toll's orders declined 32%, which is steeper than the 29% dropoff posted in its fiscal first quarter.

For Toll, the order decline was across the board as all of its geographical regions reported year-over-year decreases in demand. Chairman Robert Toll attributed the declining demand to higher cancellations and to speculative buyers who are dropping out of the market and putting the homes they recently acquired up for sale. Although Toll said his company doesn't sell to speculators, 'we have certainly been impacted by the overall increase in supply.'"

According to real estate consultancy Majestic Research, new-home sales in all 40 markets it tracks fell during February and March. Some examples:

Washington, D.C., -22%
Tucson, Ariz. -50%
Phoenix -37%

The major homebuilders, instead of pulling back in the face of falling sales, are apparently trying to make it up on volume. According to Dow Jones, "Toll Brothers plans to open 80 communities during the next six months, and expects to wrap up fiscal 2006 with 295 subdivisions, up from 230 in fiscal 2005."

As all those adjustable rate mortgages ratchet up, it's getting harder for last year's marginal homebuyers to make ends meet. According to real estate consultancy RealtyTrac, "A total of 323,102 properties nationwide entered some stage of foreclosure in the first quarter of 2006, a 72 percent year-over-year increase from the first quarter of 2005 and a 38 percent increase from the previous quarter."

The California housing market. 80% of San Diego homebuyers chose adjustable rate mortgages in both 2004 and 2005. Home sales are down 46% in Sacramento, 30% in San Francisco, and 50% in Los Angeles/Long Beach, year-over-year. From the New York Times: "A house at 57 Marina Boulevard in San Rafael, across the bay from San Francisco, was originally listed at $1.45 million. The owner recently dropped the price to $949,000 when a competing house on the same street lowered its price to $959,000, from $989,000...In Marin County, the prices of about a quarter of all listings have been reduced....In Santa Cruz, inventories have tripled to 124 days, from 42 days."

As for the idea that California's population will keep growing because everyone wants to live there, real estate analyst Rich Toscano at Piggington.com notes that San Diego's population actually shrank in 2005. "But it's even worse than that, because much of the population growth of recent years has been due to births. Until Countrywide goes live with their Fetal Lending Division, we can probably just focus on migration: people moving in and out of San Diego (or, put another way, population growth with the effects of births and deaths removed)." Analyzed this way, it turns out that for three years running, more people have moved out of San Diego than have moved in -- and the trend is strengthening.

More from the New York Times: "For the first time in nearly a decade, you can smell the anxiety. The listing agent for a four-bedroom home on Scripps Trail in San Diego informed other agents in the multiple-listing service that a "very, very motivated seller will entertain all reasonable offers" and "will help with closing costs." The house was listed in September at $810,000. After a previous price cut, the seller is now willing to entertain offers as low as $685,000. But they didn't attract much interest...Inventories in the San Diego area have risen 25 percent in the last year, to more than 19,000 unsold homes, a record."

And on a personal note, my little town in northern Idaho is crawling with transplanted Californians. A neighbor (and recent immigrant from Sonoma) is a real estate appraiser, and says that the last five houses he's done have been for Californians moving in.

A final word from Rich Toscano: "There has been zero upward price pressure this spring, for the first spring in who knows how long. It looks like things are truly going to start falling apart."

Classic short. What does all this mean for banks? Well, since they make money by lending it out and getting paid back, a crash in home sales and a spike in defaults would seem to be a bad thing. As Fleckenstein Capital's Bill Fleckenstein put it in early April:

"It is indeed the financial institutions that are most at risk in the real-estate market (which is not to say that consumers and speculators won't get hurt). The lenders will bear the brunt of the pain, because in many cases, they loaned the entire purchase prices of many homes. As I have said often, the housing bubble has been more a lending bubble. It will be the impairment of the financial institutions that will stop the flow of credit to the real-estate market. In turn, that will accelerate the collapse in house prices somewhere along the way."