Diana Olick, the renowned CNBC real estate analyst, was one of several experts who spoke this week at a housing conference where panelists included Robert Shiller (Case Shiller) and others. In the attached article she concludes that what is most disturbing to her is that "all these experts who are supposed to tell us when it's all going to be alright...don't have a clue." Well Diana, our resident expert Kirk Nace, has been sharing for years what was going to happen and upon reading your article I contacted him and asked him to update where the US Housing market is headed.
Mr. Nace shared that "The earliest we will possibly see a bottom will be the fourth quarter of 2015. This could of course be pushed out by another decade if our elected officials continue to meddle with the market. This bottom is AT LEAST 25-30% below prices as they exist here in June 2011. In some markets there will be an even greater future correction. Upon reaching this elusive bottom, we will bump along for years, at least 5-10, before slowly coming back. Reality is that prices would not return to peak levels before 2040 at the earliest. I say 'would' because there will be no US housing prices at that point. I have constantly been considered too extreme, so I suppose this is as good a time as any to again remind you that I don't expect US housing prices to ever get back to the levels where they traded during the peak because before that will occur I still fully expect the US to follow the path of The FORMER USSR and become The FORMER United States of America. States all send more tax dollars to Washington DC than they receive benefits for. Almost every state is operating at a deficit and its citizens will eventually recognize that sending $100 billion per year to Washington DC in exchange for $20 billion per year in benefits is simply bad math, particularly when you are operating at a deficit to begin with! The federal government has obligations it simply can't meet and if, or as I believe when, there ceases to be a federal government countries like China, Germany and others will be left with worthless paper and no one to collect from as the 5-10 smaller nations that will be formed when the USA collapses will not assume that debt. So if you are asking about US housing prices, they will continue to drop, probably bottoming well below where they are today and will certainly be a continued drag on the US economy, until there no longer is a US economy."
Click on the title above or the link below to review the entire CNBC article.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/43354956
