Realistbear Posted March 20, 2006 Share Posted March 20, 2006 http://biz.yahoo.com/usat/060319/13465735.html USATODAY.com Slowing home market to ripple through job market Sunday March 19, 9:14 pm ET With the allure of easy money, thousands of Americans flocked to jobs in the real estate industry during the boom years. "You saw it - there were dollar signs in their eyes," recalls Nick Vayonis, a former real estate agent in Los Angeles, where median home prices rose 145% in four years. (Graphic: Impact of housing-related jobs) He left the business a year ago, just in time, he says. Home sales have declined nationwide for the past five months, and sales in Southern California fell to their lowest level in five years in February, DataQuick reported Tuesday. As the housing market slows, there will likely be a lot of stories of people who are bailing out of their real estate jobs and other professions related to housing - appraisers, mortgage brokers and home construction workers - and many not by choice. This could send shock waves through the job market and the economy. With a slowdown in the UK many VIs will be out of work so we can't blame them for spinning what they can and inflating the statistics with mythical 5 million pound bedsits to improve the averages can we? Can we? IMO, the public can only be fooled for so long and it is evident that they are not buying the CPI data any loner as evidenced by today's thread on that topic. When everyone's neighbour or brother-in-law is having to drop thousands off their asking prices more people will become aware that house prices do, indeed, go down as well as up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jp1 Posted March 20, 2006 Share Posted March 20, 2006 (edited) I read recently that 50% of jobs created in US in last few years were in housing related field more details ..half of all new private-sector jobs created since 2001 rest on the housing boom Edited March 20, 2006 by jp1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Realistbear Posted March 20, 2006 Author Share Posted March 20, 2006 I am sure you are correct. The UK is in exaclty the same boat. We are seeing the DIY shops suffering and my guess is that the garden centres might see the cold chill of winter extend into the hot buying season beginning next month. If mortgages were 5% down last month as reported I fail to see how this correlates with houses "flying off the shelves" as reported by Rightmove. The HPC will take a lot of the economy down with it I am afraid. When you think that Gordon's entire miracle has been based on HPI and MEW there is going to be a terrible downdraft when enough people realise what is happening and head for the exit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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