The Daily Reckoning
St. Michael's, Maryland
Friday, May 19, 2006
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*** Nothing is born under the sun that doesn't die in the shade...the
wildest profits are made from the weirdest investments during a bubble...
*** In gold we trust...continue executing the Trade of the Decade as we've instructed since 2001...
*** The three stages of a bull market...the poor Brits flounder in
absurdity along with their American cousins...and more!
"High prices beget low prices," said our old friend Rick Rule, speaking in
St. Michaels earlier this week. "High risk begets low risk. High
confidence begets low confidence. High stability begets low stability."
Nothing is born under the sun that doesn't die in the shade - including
bubbles, booms and bull markets. We read in today's news that the "Housing Boom has Gone Bust."
What begat this particular bust was, of course, the boom that preceded it.
Boom begets demand, which begets supply, which begets glut, which begets bust. Before you know it, the whole misbegotten property market is falling apart.
That seems to be what is happening in some parts of America now, according to Canada's National Post.
A few months ago, "pre-construction" was a powerful compound word. The prefix was pure magic - at least in South Florida. It tipped you off that
buyers didn't really want to own another condominium apartment. They
didn't even want to see it under construction, and they certainly didn't
want to pay for it. What they wanted was something without a roof or a
mortgage that they could unload to someone without a dollar or a clue.
That is what you get at bubble peaks. During the great tech stock bubble,
too, the wildest profits were made in the weirdest investments - the
dot.com equivalents of un-built condos - Internet companies with no
revenues, no business plans and not a prayer of success.
But that is just the great glory of our free-market system; it allows
people to make fools of themselves and lose their money on their very own with a flourish. (See the essay below for a current example.)
Thus, it is that in the south of the balmy state of Florida, the party is
coming to an end. Gone is the razzle when a new development is launched.
Gone are the acrobats, the clowns, and the bubbly. Gone are the lines of
people waiting to buy pre-construction or post-construction. Gone, too,
are the sales. According to the National Post, buyers are walking away
from $80,000 deposits rather than close on new apartments.
As many as 29% of the people who took out a mortgage last year have zero
equity in their houses, reports the Wall Street Journal. And there are 3.5
million units waiting to be sold - 30% more than a year ago. Delinquency
rates are "soaring," says the Journal.
Sic transit gloria bubbli.