Corzine won't veto Pinelands project

[Boyd]

Welcome aboard Supercilious.

OK, so should I just go shoot myself now or can I wait a couple years? Seriously, you paint a pretty depressing picture and I'm a cynic myself so I see where you're coming from. However I'm not sure it will play out like this, at least in the short term. The real estate bubble is bursting. I've been driving around the fringes of suburbia recently and it's startling how many new developments have begun, and how many "spec houses" are getting built in out-of-the-way places. But a bunch of people are gonna get burned now (and it will serve them right). I think we'll see a lot of foundation holes getting overgrown by weeds, and a lot of developments that don't reach their original goals. And we'll also be left with a good inventory of unsold houses which should meet supply for the next few years without further development.

But that's short term (5 or 10 years?) and eventually the cycle will turn I suppose. I can only live in the present, and have just moved somewhere that's pretty immune to development because of state and private preserves plus wetlands regulations.

Sooner or (preferably) later I will want to leave NJ and go somewhere with more open space. But in the meantime I'm happy here and I think there are still plenty of nice places if you know where to look for them.

 

[LARGO]

Welcome Supercilious. Hope you enjoy the site.

While I fear highly Development, and see it everywhere, I do find your projections slightly dark & depressing. Cheer up man!

Boyd,
I wouldn't exactly say the bubble is bursting, but yes these monsters and eyesores in the remote areas seem to be subsiding simply because they're just simply not realistic. There will be unfinished Developments and don't forget unfinished and empty stripstores. If the Cycle turns........ who knows.
These are some of the issues that could bring together the different groups working toward commons goals regarding Pine Barrens issues.

g.

 

[supercilious]

well remember route 130, when my father was a little kid in the 50's, it was a two lane road. At night time he said you could drive the road, and not pass a car. Route 130 wasnt filled with stores backed by developments, it was farmland and woodlands. Levitt bought out the farms and built levittown to be renamed Willingboro, now thats old sprawl, noone wants to live there, they want new houses. As for the housing bubble, even if it does slow down, its still not going to stop developments. All i do know, is that from what has been said, that the Pine Barrens will be needed to be opened to support more housing in New Jersey, because Camden and Burlington counties are "running out of room". Doom and gloom, what needs to be changed is rules about developments. I always thought a good way to allow or not allow developments would be if it was going to be more then 5 houses, let the public in the town if they wish create a petition to put it on the november ballot for its approval or disapproval. Im quite sure the Pinebarrens wont be actually leveled forever, but i can see alot of 100-200 acre pockets here or there being opened up and sold. There is too much money in land to stop it from happening.

 

[Teegate]

Im quite sure the Pinebarrens wont be actually leveled forever, but i can see alot of 100-200 acre pockets here or there being opened up and sold. There is too much money in land to stop it from happening.

I agree. It will happen.

Guy

 

[Boyd]

I wouldn't exactly say the bubble is bursting

Well you're right in that "housing bubble" has sort of become a cliche and various people have proclaimed it's "bursting" for the past few years. But if you follow the business news, you'll see that some big changes are afoot now. I just sold my home in Medford and while I did quite well on the deal, I don't have bragging rights about making a killing or anything. My agent kept telling me she was amazed by how fast their inventory (Prudential Fox Roach) was growing and how nervous sellers were getting.

This is also interesting, from Alan Abelson's "Up and Down Wall Street" August 14 column in BARRONS....

Toll Brothers, which can pass for one of the class acts in an industry not replete with class acts, saw its stock (ticker: TOL) peak at over $51 a share within the past year and trade Friday at 24 and change. By way of explanation for this lugubrious performance, you need look no further than preliminary results for the third fiscal quarter, ended July 31; most notably, orders were off a resounding 47% from the year-earlier quarter.

CEO Robert Toll (Bob to the analysts, of course) reflected somberly that "it is the first downturn in the 40 years since we entered the business that was not precipitated by high interest rates, a weak economy, job losses or other macroeconomic factors. Instead, it seems to be the result of an oversupply of inventory and a decline of confidence. Speculative buyers who spurred demand in 2004 and 2005 are now sellers; builders that built speculative homes must now move their specs; and nervous buyers are canceling contracts for homes already under construction...."

That's one neat definition of a bubble and its bursting, for which we offer Mr. Toll our sincere congratulations. In all his years at the Fed, after all, Alan Greenspan never came close to identifying a bubble, but then he suffered from a visual impairment that prevented him from seeing one.

As for the critical question of how long the -- shall we call it malaise? -- in housing will persist, Mr. Toll in the conference call that accompanied release of the early line on third-quarter results (earnings are due out the 22nd of this month) owned up to uncertainty. He indicated it might last six months or it might last two years. No way of telling. Just because we've a thing for symmetry, our own feeling is that just as the boom was far greater and endured a lot longer than we expected, so will the bust.

 

[Teegate]

"Alan Greenspan never came close to identifying a bubble, but then he suffered from a visual impairment that prevented him from seeing one."

Seems to me they were not happy with old Alan!

Guy

 

[supercilious]

The housing bubble, or whatever you call it was caused by low interest rates obviously. People buying houses for 500k when really they should be looking at houses in the 300k market. Low interest rates is all about if you can afford the payments, and hey, if you can get more now then before, then people jump on it, and i dont blame them. Now houses were still being built, and commerical properties, etc.. before the lowered intrest rates. The interest rates did spur alot of housing, and i mean a big fist full, but it was still inevitable because of people coming to age, it was about what was affordable. The problem is people wanting to live in suburbs, or so called "rural areas". People will buy a house that was developed on wetland woods, and then complain when the farmer next to them makes dust, noise, or a smell to the township. Then when the farmer sells it because money is more easier then aggrevation, they complain they want it stopped by any possible way to "preserve land". Now im not a city person, but we have empty cities, and major towns since 1950 from previous populations. Take Detroit, they lost over 50% population after 1950 and i dont think they gained the 50% back as of yet. People say hey, the city is dirty, and has irrational crime rates, and thats true. Now if the states and the cities formed an alliance on stopping sprawl, redevelopment of the cities, would bring back cash for an unreasonable large size police force to stop any crime. Now i say redevelopment, as not housing, as everything as a whole. It makes more sense for a business, in manufacturing, assembly, or raw material creation to be in a city, because of transportation logistics. This lowers costs, and provides jobs, but in NJ you can see these same businesses being out in the suburbs, or leaving to anywhere in the US. Its a tricky thing, but jobs should really be in cities or large towns, not two miles deep in some rural town, where employees are not local, and drive 40 miles to work. Im not about making demands on business locations, im about providing to the business to make a good choice on location, this can turn the suburbs back to the outlands, and preserve land just by the economic reasons. I doubt the suburban houses would lose value, they would become high income places, a two bedroom would be considered alot to someone distance travelling to work just to live in suburbia.

Take Camden i have heard story after story of Camden, from the 50's and before, how it was a real nice, safe place. Now lets be honest, the Delaware river is a major import port. Why not say, lets screw Pennsylvania, and expand the port to Camden, and make it tax free from any State import taxes? Also why not recruit large business into Camden, from incentives as having no tax payable from them to NJ for 20-30 years. This would drive in business, and farm business to produce, and export from Camden. This would not cost NJ anything, because people in Camden have a stupidly high unemployment rate, and also the black hole in crime in the nation. Tax revenue would come from the people there, and people flooding there to work. Conditions on the businesses would be of people living in Camden, or 10 miles of Camden to make up say, 60% of the work force, otherwise tax giveaways revoked. NJ could be a diamond, its a corridor, with two possible major ports, after the establisment of them in expansion, the future tax revenues on them could solve any fiscal problems, and force the people of New Jersey to wish to cap services to people who havent lived here in the past 20 years because of greed. I personally see New Jersey as an economic goldmine from its location, but nothing is encouraged to the benefit of New Jersey, just the benefit of votes, or for politicians to get part time jobs for $150k a year, when the jobs are in titles only, so they just vote for the special interest group. I could go on and on about how New Jersey could be insane in the amount of money it brings in, if it just made rational choices about things, but i dont want to waste any more readers time here anymore.