Fed, Gold, and Housing and peso...

With the Fed not worried about inflation, and gold sailing right through $900 ($920 already today), and the dollar showing no propensity to rise, I would say these are signals that we are going to see at least a 25% correction in housing prices.

One of the fastest growing counties, where there are still plenty of jobs, Will County outside of Chicago here has literally frozen up. People are stuck. First time buyers aren't there, so people up the food chain are basically screwed unless they dump their houses for nothing. even then that's not working so well.

everyone is just sitting there hoping. Probably is many can't get loans. The banks are saying nada. Its not a lack of liquidity. Gold is showing us that.

Banks can't re-sell their loans because they've screwed the pooch too many times. Nobody trusts them.

If they have capital they need it to cover their bad decisions and loan losses, and maintain capital ratios.

I drove through Will the other day. Brand new homes, great homes, sitting empty. Many for sale signs. Many sitting empty with no signs.

One place, A lot of house for $590k has sat there for 9 months. This thing will likely be picked up for a lot less than that. a lot less.

Inflation and disinflation at the same time. Price of gold sky rocketing, asset prices like houses dropping like rocks. Necessities like food and fuel skyrocketing.

Many buyers who can get loans, and that are in expensive rents, are sitting and waiting for these prices to drop further.

This is going to be a LONG, LONG while before this fully plays out.

Recession is not the word for this.

Good luck investing. Traders should have fun this year.

I think that a lot of loans are out there, but any idiot knows there's no rush to buy right now. If you don't have to buy, the fear factor alone will make you wait. If you're smart, you're waiting and sniffing around knowing that the deals keep getting better. If I wasn't doing what I'm doing (rehabbing), I'd be very, very patient. I think that there will be some great deals done next summer. The summer after that, the rage will likely be some permutation of "rent-to-own". And, yes, 25% is pretty much in the bag, depending upon where you live. I don't think, however, that Gold or the buck are particularly predictive of such. It is fascinating to watch the sentiment, though. Housing is even more emotional than the stock market, but so much slower. Mark

hey nimblebear, coming back on ur commodity rebalancing (tks for posting btw), silver has had only 18 up days out of 19.... let's wait and see what's on the menu tomorrow and for the rest of the week for silver...