48 Percent Say A Great Depression Likely

Yes and some would say this is the BEST time to buy homes, stocks, bonds, etc....(Buying into Fear)

I wonder how many of those thought the same when they bought a home a few years ago thinking values were always going to go up?

In reality the "smart money" was out of that game in 2006 buying into commodities in preparation for this. I would find out what the "smart money" is doing now....
 
Clean the stats really aren't that scary when you look at polls of people who thought Obama was a Muslim or born outside the United States. Some questions are best left to people who know something. Now if this was a poll of the economics faculty at the University of Chicago...
 
Now is a great time to buy a house - if you're going to make it a long-term HOME.
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I agree in Florida, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Illinois, Michigan or California. Things can't get much worse there but it might. If you live in TX, I'd wait, things will be better for buying within 2 years.
 
Things in Texas in 2 years will be the same. And home prices likely will be slightly higher.
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it's possible but not likely. The only thing that is holding the TX economy together is the energy sector. The energy sector has been providing high paying jobs in san antonio, dallas/ft. worth and houston. austin is a government and university town so until the money runs out, austin will be fine. however, i have a lot of friends in both commercial and residential real estate and they are trying to survive. people in tx did well in the great depression if they were in the oil business. perhaps things will be fine here as well.
 
My dad actually just talked me down from buying a house here in Vegas, his point being that between the massive inventory still not turned loose and the uncertainty about the economy between now and the election, it's a better idea to hold off even if the rates do go up a little in the next couple of years.

Personally, I get why you would be irritated about buying a home when a year later you find you could have bought it for 20k or so less, but at the same time, you always have that risk. Unless you're going to move before long, or unless you lose your job and have to get out of the home, it's more of a theoretical loss.
 
I have a friend who bought a condo in Ft. Meyers, Fla. at the height of the bubble. He paid about $150,000. Now it's worth about $30,000, but no one is buying even at that price. He's just going to walk away (lost job).

70 to 80 percent real estate devaluations are not uncommon in Fla, Nev, Az, etc. If that doesn't scare you, what does? I've heard that real estate usually leads us out of a recession. If so, we're up the creek without a paddle because I read that over 11% of houses are sitting vacant in the United States right now.

I think trying to predict the timing of the next depression is like trying to predict the Rapture, but if it starts this year, it won't shock me.
 
it's kind of a strange question to ask, as i would gather most of the 48% could not articulate what caused the Great Depression or exactly what the specific effects of the Great Depression were. For instance, people generally know that there was large unemployment, but do they know the percentage of unemployed and are thinking that same percentage will occur again in the next 12 months? It was 80 years ago after all.

i think in reality one could gather from the poll that people don't exactly think a "great depression" is coming. More likely they have a general feeling that our economy is not only not recovering but will probably get worse.

Currently, most numbers show a barely improving economy, but the numbers are anemic and not perceptable to anyone's day to day life. I can certainly understand the anxiety, and that poll reflects that. A great depression equal to that of 1929 coming in the next 12 months? Naww.
 
Depends, are we talking about a general depression or an economic one? Cause it has been a cold streak for me socially and I'm a little down about that...
 
The biggest threat to our future is ourselves. We have become a nation of entitled whiners with a waning work ethic and poor understanding of economics. Too many folks piggy backing off of too few producers. This has transformed the solvency of the US Government into a fragile ponzi scheme that will unravel in the near future. Its not going to be fun watching the dollar turn into monopoly money.
 
The interesting thing to me is the depressive role real estate has played while at the same time the easy money is not making interest rates rise too much. People are paying down debt as well. (unless they have no job of course)

QE2 is ending in a month or less from what the main financial press is saying.
What are the other main finanical factors right now?
China not buying t-bills.
Oil prices steady near or above $100 a barrel.
Copper, Gold, Silver with price swings but mainly higher even with the price fluctuation.
Stock market hovering between 12000 and 12700.
Unemployment on the books around 9%
soldiers deployed across the globe.
middle east awakening, bold defiance of tyranny.
That last one is something we should carefully monitor to keep the impediments to democratic republic type government at bay.

Not sure what it all meant except that I bought a second property earlier this year instead of gold or other commodities. I'm thinking it will take another couple years before the malaise starts to lift.
 
Interest rates cannot go any lower, yes? If we can agree on that much, that interest rates have nowhere to go but up, the next question is "what happens to housing prices when interest rates rise?"
 
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