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Originally Posted by Jims5543
I alluded to what I think may be the beginning of a slowdown in my previous post.
Since I am tied directly into home sales and home sales seems to be a great indicator as to how healthy or unhealthy the economy is. People buy houses when they feel like things are going good.
I saw a big drop off in closings in October and November is starting off pretty slow too. My builders are all balls to the wall but they never seem to read the market and tend to overbuild until there is huge inventory just sitting. Then many go bankrupt.
I think a big factor this time around will be student loans and car loans along with Credit cards. Cars are now the same price houses were 20 years ago and there is no regulation on who can or cannot get a car loan like the mortgage business.
You can now finance a car for 7+ years. Which is insane except it seems like everyone is doing it.
Same goes for student loans and same goes for credit card debt, all unsecured credit and both at all time record highs.
Throw in the Fed increasing interest rates and this turns into a fine mess.
I am not going into Tabs land the our Federal Debt, that is another thread.
I read an article, I do not have time right now to find it, it said we will look back at October 2018 and realize it was the start of the downturn in the economy. I hope they are wrong.
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How much of the reduction in closings do you think is due to normal cycle? What I mean is, when I was in real estate home sales slowed once school started, the same the closer we got to the holidays. If what I experienced is happening now along with a reduction due to higher rates, it would seem this is normal rather than an indicator of a slowing economy. From what I have read the market is switching back to a buyers market in that home prices are coming down due to the rate hikes slowing the pace. It's a good thing IMO that the housing market is slowing down because prices were going up way too fast.