[…] Listen … I realize that we’ve been talking about this for two years, but I tell you right now … it’s an old saying: „Economists get the direction right, but the timing wrong.“ And in many ways this is because we’re being asked to forecast what’s essentially an irrational market. It’s like asking a psychologist „Say, hey, what’s that crazy guy gonna say next?“ If I knew that, he wouldn’t be crazy! [Laughter]

Quelle: Economics Roundtable: The California Economy — Housing Boom or Bubble? [42:30]

Nebenbei ein tolles Video, das wirtschaftsfernen Zeitgenossen (wie mir) das Problem hinter dem Häusermarkt (Stichwort: „Housing Bubble“) in den USA erklärt. Das Video wurde im April 2006 aufgezeichnet; mittlerweile hat sich ja auf diesem Gebiet einiges getan.

[50:00] Housing markets are not the same as stock markets. You don’t daytrade your home. Just that simple. You don’t do it. It seems like a simple thing to say, but the fix costs of buying or selling homes are enormous. The taxes and the personal cost involved are such that people don’t do that likely. They don’t daytrade on their computer their home. What ends up happening instead: You get an exact opposite type of a market pop. It’s not a pop on the price side, it’s e pop on the liquidity side. What you get is a circumstance in which people basically don’t buy and don’t sell their home. They turn of the TV, they cancel the newspaper and they forbid their children to talking to neighbours who may be moving.

[53:20] What are the big three drivers of the California economy? 1) Building new homes, 2) Buying and financing new homes, 3) Furnishing our new homes […] [they] are going to be removed.

Nachtrag

Eine verrückte Grafik, die diese Woche in der New York Times publiziert wurde:

Quelle: A History of Home Values