Speculators Control Markets Future
The housing markets big question is “What are the speculators going do?” The Wall Street Journal has an interesting article discussing this phenomenon. My impression, as long as we do not have a huge run up in interest rates, we are going to see the speculation market try to ride this out, except in a few markets that speculation was too rampant, such as Florida’s condo market.
So far, housing is cooling off “in an orderly fashion,” and David Seiders, chief economist of the National Association of Home Builders, thinks it will continue to slow at a gradual pace.
But that hasn’t stopped him from warning things could turn ugly if speculators dump their holdings, or if rates leap on the so-called exotic mortgages that also have had a hand in the record number of sales of new and existing houses.
“If you are looking for a trigger, that would be it,” Seiders said Wednesday at the NAHB’s annual convention here. “If there is a sudden unloading by speculators, or if interest rates go up by more than a few points, it could spark a quick reversal.”
The wild card is that no one knows for certain exactly how many houses were snapped up over the last four or five years by investors looking for quick capital gains.Via RealEstateJournal
