Central Perk: 25 oct. 2014

sâmbătă, 25 octombrie 2014

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Home Prices Drop in 69 of 70 Chinese Cities; Did the Pool of Greater Fools Run Out?

Posted: 25 Oct 2014 10:25 AM PDT

China eased purchase restrictions last month ending its four-year campaign to contain home prices. And what a ridiculous campaign it was. Prices are down less than 1% this month and less then 1% year-over-year.

Bloomberg reports China Home-Price Drop Spreads as Easing Doesn't Halt Fall.

Prices dropped in 69 of the 70 cities in September from August, the National Bureau of Statistics said in a statement today, the most since January 2011 when the government changed the way it compiles the data. They fell in 68 cities in August.

The central bank on Sept. 30 eased mortgage rules for homebuyers that have paid off existing loans, reversing course after a four-year campaign to contain home prices as Premier Li Keqiang seeks to prevent economic growth from drifting too far below the government's 7.5 percent annual target. Home sales slumped 11 percent in the first nine months of this year.

Developers will keep prices attractive as they open more projects toward the end of the year to meet sales targets, boosting supply and increasing competition, Ping An Securities Co. Shenzhen-based analyst Yang Kan wrote in an Oct. 14 report.

New-home prices fell 0.7 percent from August in Beijing and 0.9 percent in Shanghai, according to the government. The port city of Xiamen in southern Fujian province was the only city where prices didn't fall, remaining unchanged from the previous month.

Prices in Shanghai fell 0.8 percent from a year earlier, the first annual decline since December 2012, compared to a 17.5 percent jump in January this year. Hangzhou, the capital of southeastern Zhejiang province, had the biggest decline among all cities, with 7.6 percent.

The average new-home price in 100 cities tracked by SouFun Holdings Ltd. fell 0.9 percent in September from August, dropping for the fifth consecutive month. The price rose 1.1 percent from a year earlier, narrowing for a ninth month in a row, China's biggest real estate website owner said.

The People's Bank of China's new rules give homeowners who have paid off their mortgages and want a second property the same advantages as first-time buyers, including a 30 percent minimum down payment, compared to at least 60 percent previously, and interest-rate discounts of as much as 30 off the central bank's benchmark. The PBOC also eased a ban on mortgages for people without home loan debt who want to buy a third home, allowing banks determine down payments and rates.

Home sales in September jumped 40 percent from August, the biggest increase this year, according to Bloomberg News calculations, based on a government report earlier this week.

Did the Pool of Greater Fools Run Out?

All it took for china to reverse course was a .8% year-over-year decline.

Home sales are down 11% this year, but that may not last long if September is any indication. Then again, the easing of restrictions may have suckered in the last remaining greater fools.

Either way, I laugh at the assessment analyst Yang Kan who says "developers will keep prices attractive as they open more projects toward the end of the year to meet sales targets".

The only thing that will make prices attractive is a 50% decline in price. That's how big China's property bubble is.

Even in China the pool of greater fools will eventually run out. Perhaps it already has.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Damn Cool Pics

21 One Line Jokes You Need To Memorize

Posted: 24 Oct 2014 10:34 PM PDT

You never know when you're going to need a good one liner.

Seth's Blog : The dorm-room startup mindset

The dorm-room startup mindset

"Selling enough records to make another record."

Rick Rubin started DefJam in his NYU dorm. Steve and I built TSR in Curtis Hall, and I went on to build my publishing business in my wife's dorm at NYU. It happens more than you might guess, and the reason it works is something you can use, even if you're not in college or living in a dorm...

You sell enough records to make another record.

You're not trying to sell the company or to make a huge payroll or to make sure the stock options are in place. You're building something.

The only way to build something when you don't have money to invest is to make something so great that people will pay for it in advance, that they'll eagerly sign up to use what you're making. Now not later. Now when it's new. When it's useful and fresh and interesting.

Too often, we look at the serious nature of starting a business (and worse, our imagined serious implications of failing when we do so) and we forget about useful, fresh or interesting. We forget to do that thing that might not work, to expose ourselves to things that are generous and new and fun.

You don't have to quit your day job to start something, just as you don't have to drop out of college to do so. You have weekends and evenings and all that time you're online...

Make another record.