Tuesday, March 03, 2009

Where is the Housing Problem?
(And the Passage of the Californicator)

Carpe Diem, who has an unfailing eye for the counter-fact, points to an excellent chart showing how the mortgage meltdown is concentrated in four states (link). He's absolutely right, although I suspect there is more to it than you'd guess from these numbers alone. Indeed on his own data, we can see that the housing market is down everywhere--just as not as much other places as in the four disaster areas. Second while mortgages per se are not a general basket case, I suspect the data would show that construction employment--an insecure occupation in the best of times--has taken a dive almost everywhere. And while mortgages in general may not be a huge problem most places, I suspect there are segments of the market in which the problem is quite general. For example, I wouldn't be surprised to find out that vacation homes and time shares are in disaster mode almost everywhere. And non-residential: from what I hear, there is a world of pain in non-residential, and it's not just in the fearful four.

Finally, here's a curious tidbit from Housing Bubble about a secondary non-effect of the concentrated residential meltdown: the absence of the Californicator. This single datapoint recalls that some markets were bouyed up by the exodus of Californians fleeing their own meltdown for more hospitable venues like Oregon, Utah and (here) Colorado. According to this single datapoint, it isn't happening this time. This is indeed surprising: California clearly does seem to be in a mess, but evidently not so much of a mess that people want to leave--yet.

Update: Good comment thread on the topic at American Prospect. Cue one-liner from Ezra but I am not sure it really fits.

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