When one thinks “recovery”, some of the images envisioned include a healthy labor market (not one saturated by part-time, low wage jobs), rising earnings (not wages that have stagnated for years and in real terms are at Lehman levels) and a vibrant housing market in which new home buyers enter with confidence, and where mortgage loans are abundant and available to qualified creditors. One certainly does not imagine a housing “market” dominated by Chinese, Russian and Arab monely-laundering oligarchs, where half of all transactions are “all cash”, and where, as Fannie Mae just reported, the number of Americans who said “now is a good time to buy a home” plunging to 64% – the lowest print in survey history!
But then again, aside from the handful of Americans the bulk of whose net worth is in financial assets, accessible right here and right now (and the balance who are deluded that their equity-invested retirement assets will be worth something in real terms in 20, or even 10 years), nobody really pretends any more there is a recovery.
As for the housing market: stick a fork in it.
This post was published at Zero Hedge on 09/08/2014.
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