What are your predictions for 2008?

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1. Obama will win the election. I love the fact that he's the only candidate who actually works for a living. The rest are worth tens to hundreds of millions. As for Obama, he's only worth as much as he earns. I think he's a true American.

2. No recession.

3. Real estate will hit a temporary bottom in June. People who have been saving a great deal of money for the past 3 years will begin to buy. You can't convince doctors, dentists, pharmacists, and other professionals to rent forever.

4. Other than real estate, every other industry seems to be healthy right now. Health care and education are still in high demand.
 
Other than real estate, every other industry seems to be healthy right now.

Really? What sectors are growing at a healthy pace, other than medical and education? I'm being serious, and I am not trying to set you up. I mean, the professional and business service sector is flat, and I mean 0% flat. For the year that sector will not even see a 1% increase. Has OC recovered from the job losses in the tech sector from 2000?

Health care and education are still in high demand.

Sorry, but this statement drives me nuts. Nice spreadsheets can be found here. Health care has grown every single year since 1990. That is one nasty recession and one mild recession, that this sector continued to grow through. Education has only had two down years, 2001 and 2002. Other than that, these are two sectors that grow even in the worst of times. So, if they were in high demand in the last bust, what makes you think they will have any effect on demand?

Since much of the growth in the health care sector has been in the ambulatory services, then how many people in that sector would it take to qualify for a median priced home in OC? How about how many people in the education sector?



Real estate will hit a temporary bottom in June. People who have been saving a great deal of money for the past 3 years will begin to buy. You can't convince doctors, dentists, pharmacists, and other professionals to rent forever.

Please see above, and let me know if you still feel the same.
 
Hillary is nominated but looses to Bloomberg (Obama would've won but wasn't nominated), GOP is a mess.

I buy a house in either Irvine or Aliso Viejo. Between gold that doubled in price in the last 5 years and a house that doubled but then sold off 30%, I'll take the house.

Economists at universities start looking at the mid-2000s housing boom not as an irrational bubble, but as a payment of risk premium to protect against disintegrating dollar.

Eventually America inflates its way out of debt. The Chinese see the value of their US Treasury bond holdings evaporate.
 
Graphix: Lawyers will be doing well, especially the bankruptcy ones

Hs_teacher:

"You can't convince doctors, dentists, pharmacists, and other professionals to rent forever."

I am renting until prices become normalized. Besides, what percentage of the population are doctors, dentists, pharmacists, etc. . . .? Certain not high enough to prop up this market.

"Health care and education are in high demand"

Do not know about health care but education is definitely not doing well in SoCal. I think there was an article about how 80-90 percent of the school district in LA/OC/IE are experience lower enrollment rates. Many districts have hiring freezing and/or are closing schools (including Irvine.) Situation is going to get worse when the housing slump results in significantly lower property taxes for the state.

Citigroup and ML would like to wish all of its employees a happy 2008 by giving a lot of them pink pieces of paper. How nice of them:

www.cnbc.com/id/22476128

As for my predictions:

Want Obama to win but think Hillary will take it.

Mild recession but continual lag in housing market.
 
Maybe I should learn bankruptcy. The b-lawyers down the hall are going great guns.

They opened a branch in ground Zero, Cape Coral/Ft Meyers.

Closings in Miami Dade County were down 59%, worst in the state, in the month of November. Sellers still aren't capitulating, but I see a few twinges of capitulation, maybe my imagination. My mtg broker buddies are now selling cruises, and happy to be out of all the gloom and doom. Cruise ship companies like their employees to be happy and confident.
 
"At the end of December 2008, Connie DeGroot will still be saying, "Now is a good time to buy".

Thats not a prediction, that's a given.

My prediction is that she will drop the big hair for a smaller mop, a "Martha Stewart" look
 
My sense is that there is no way Huckabee will win the Republican nomination simply because he would get slaughtered against any of the top three democratic candidates. However, being a democrat, I would love to see him win the nomination and then get pummeled by Obama (not so much a fan of hillary. . .)

Obama/Edwards or Obama/Clinton 2008 sounds good to me.
 
didn's someone predict that Brittany Spears would fall farther in 2008 - can't find the comment but it is already coming true. I can't help but feel for her - and actually I have more faith that she can turn her life around than that the housing market can be turned around! :)
 
Someone asked about the percentage of the MD, Pharm.D, DDS (or DMD)? I don't have exact numbers, but can confidently say that there are not lots. Each school cranks out only about 100 graduates per year, on average. Some schools crank out as much as 200 students per year. On the other extreme, my school cranks out about 65 students per year.

As you can see, even a couple with of these degrees still cannot afford a home in Irvine. They can. However, their incomes are not average but the home they can afford is. I am assuming that they work full time. Their combined incomes would be around 250K per year. They also tend to have huge student loans though. Very depressing.
 
Okay, maybe I'm more bullish than most of the people at IHB, but I don't think doomsday is coming anytime soon. I was told that when Republicans are in control of the White House, the focus is on foreign policy and war. Whereas when the Democrats take over, emphasis is placed on domestic issues. And personally, I am so certain Obama and the Democrats will take over in 2008.

As for the economy, anything housing related is quite gloomy. But then again, it's been so artificially high for the past several years anyways. And although 80% of the recent real estate participants are suffering right now, there are the 20% who sold at the high who are laughing and living a lush life. From my experience in business and trade, there are always losers AND winners. Come on all, the real estate bubble was just a big pyramid scheme. There are a ton of people who reaped most of the profits and are now leaving the mass holding the bag.

As for health care, there is a demand for doctors, dentists, pharmacists, and numerous types of therapists and nurses. In education, there's a very high demand for math and science teachers.

Five years ago, the median home value was 400k (very rough estimate not based on anything) and everything was fine. Then it rose like crazy and all the idiots bought like there was no tomorrow. And now, in 2008, the median value should go back down to 450k. Although that's still high, it's becoming more normal.

So... in conclusion, I think 2008 will be a normalizing year. Definitely not a growth year, but more so a movement in the right direction (even if that means down).

Cheer up and enjoy the new year.
 
IrvineRenter,

I don't know who you predicted the Britney Spears hitting the bottom. It won't even come to my mind! It does seem you might have a crystal ball! With this correct prediction, I might just take your housing prediction more seriously! haha!!
 
Funny, I drove by the entrance to Britney's house last night...it's on Mulholland Drive, called "The Summit". There were around 100 paps out there, snapping pics of a Lexus SUV that was pulling out. I thought to myself, "there goes Brit"...but little did I know what was really happening.

For the record: I hate paparazzi.
 
profoilprediction-49tqoo8av.jpeg


Well, Prof is right on the $110 part, but is $110 the peak? I really hope so, but this chart is ugly.

oil110-49tqrcp4q.jpeg
 
Prediction: People will stop talking about/pretending to be green, and actually do it - but not by choice, but because they just can't afford the conspicuous consumption anymore...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/04/AR2008030403198.html?hpid=topnews&sid=ST2008030501534
 
On January 2nd, LM predicted: "WAMU, CFC, and Indymac will become insolvent and file for BK"

One for three LM, and CFC might as well be considered BK since they had to be bought out to continue......so one to go.....

IndyMac’s new price target: $0

Ouch

This sentence says a lot: "IndyMac was the second-largest independent U.S. mortgage lender last year after Countrywide Financial"
 
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