“You’re safer taking a ride with Lindsay Lohan than being in homebuilder stocks,” said David Lichtenstein, chief executive officer of Lightstone Group LLC in Lakewood, New Jersey, which owns malls and hotels. Actress Lohan was arrested May 26 for driving under the influence after crashing her car.”
And on a more serious (and perhaps local) note, “It appears that the impact of stricter lending standards, primarily arising from problems in the subprime market, is negatively affecting affordability at lower price points,” [Toll Brothers Chief Executive Officer] said. “This in turn can and probably does impact the entire housing food chain including some of our potential customers’ ability to sell their existing homes.”
For context, under 2% of Toll Brothers’ buyers are subprime borrowers. Did someone say bipolar (or bifurcated) market?
∙ Subprime Crash Squeezes Out First-Time Home Buyers [Bloomberg]
∙ JustQuotes: They Say Bifurcated, We Said Bipolar (A While Back) [SocketSite]
Bloomberg is just quotilicious today
“… the worst housing slump since the Great Depression.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a9WrgkMoBpyI&refer=home
My Realtor told me this won’t affect MY area for umpteen different reasons. Ironically, realtors in every other city in my state and every other state were saying the exact same thing.
So, apparently, these issues don’t actually affect anyone, anywhere.