What is going on in your part of the world? House sales, rents, jobs etc.

[5150female]

Instead of the crap we are being told about the recovery (what? where?) I prefer to believe my lieing eyes as my litmus test on how things are really going. I am interested to know what is going on in your part of the world as far as jobs, home sales, rentals, business openings/closings. It may be of help to others to know as well. Maybe someone is considering a relocation or has family that they are concerned about etc. I'll go first.....

I live in a suburb of L.A. called Santa Clarita (its near Magic Mountain). This is what I have observed and discussed with friends:

Jobs: no "Help Wanted" signs anywhere. Many friends of mine are commuting outrageous distances for jobs. I also have never known so many people on food stamps and welfare.
House sales: Prices are at about 1998 levels. Many homes for sale, alot are homes that have been owned for 12+ years and were treated like "piggy-banks" and are now repo's.
Rentals: Price for rentals is up a few hundred dollars and they stay empty for about 30 seconds. More stringent credit checks for renters.
Spending: alot less 50K a year wanna be millionaires. Alot less Coach purses, Hummers, 20K new trucks with 10K rims, lifts and systems being driven by teenagers. No one is having construction done on their homes like new kitchens, baths, pools etc. You just dont see contractors working like before. We are the only one in a neighborhood of 250+ homes who have gone solar and put in a front and back garden.
Business: Large restaurants tanking & closing, along with clothing, yogurt, video rental & home decor shops. Box stores like Office Max, furniture and appliance stores sitting empty. Very large new malls with one or two anchor stores and empty storefronts in between.
Oh, and everyone now wants to "Buy your Gold" or have you "Host a Gold Buying Party with Your Friends."
So how you doin'?

[Avalon]

Here in the RTP area of NC we are just starting to feel declining home sales/prices and jobs.. Life is still booming here for the most part.

The malls and restaurants are packed. The last two times i went to the Cheesecake Factory they had two hour waiting lines..Last time i was at the mall the very high cosmetic counters and coach purses were busy. I have noticed an increase in people shopping at discount places like Big Lots and TJ Max... I would say we have been affected a lot less then other parts of the country SO FAR..

[Meetzos]

Here in Florida things are kind of rotten. We have been buried by these so called investment real estate owners. They were building and buying 3 or 4 maybe more homes and condos at a time. Well needless to say they are foreclosing on many and I mean many of them now. There are so many homes empty that the banks are not even putting them up for sale. I guess they will continue to eat the losses for the time being. Many of these people are just walking away from their mortgage notes. The housing market here is DOA for many years to come.
We have a lot of empty strip malls. Target even moved out of one, because they were the only store left. A lot of restaurants are still busy even though the unemployment rate is 14% in our county.
Now we have the possiblity of fouled beaches from the oil well leak in the gulf.
I wonder how much more before this country comes completely unglued.

[Irons]

This explains my area to a T.

1984
1985
1986
1987
1988:vollkommenauf: :vollkommenauf: :vollkommenauf: :vollkommenauf:

[DualCarbon]

Northern suburb of Chicago; Just some off-hand observations here.

*Frequently see Obama stickers on cars.
*In strip malls, about 15% of store spots seem perpetually empty.
*No new condo buildings being built.
*In bad neighborhoods, many foreclosures.
*In good neighborhoods, not many foreclosures but a lot of "for sale" signs.
*Good neighborhood condo prices are probably down 20% from peak (estimate) and very slow to sell.
*No gardens or solar panels noticed. The home centers sell almost exclusively decorative plants.
*Not many brand new SUVs around, but still alot of older model SUVs seen on roads.
*There always have been homeless people around, and have not noticed many more of them.
*I still see alot of cars in shopping mall parking lots, but I don't know how much they're buying.

I think it would be difficult to notice changes in significant outward appearance from 5 years ago.
It seems public perception is being managed well here.
I don't believe people here are preparing for serious problems.

[SJS]

Near Lancaster, PA ...

Prices slowly going down on real estate. Using Zillow, it seems that there are:

# 70 New Home Listings in the past 7 days
# 588 Lancaster Township Homes for Sale
# 0 Upcoming Open Houses in the next 7 days
# 8 Properties Sold in the past 30 days

In Lancaster itself (old, lots of rowhomes, significant non-white population as white flight has already occurred to the burbs)

You do the math as to # of months of inventory available... outlying areas (suburbs with little to no blacks, Latinos, Puerto Ricans) are doing a little to a lot better.

User car lots - many of these have gone out of business, as they were not cash sales but credit based; so with the drying up of credit, they could no longer move inventory.

[andial]

Long Island. Plenty of money around here.

[Ardent Listener]

A lot of people walking on the streets, city or out in the country, winter or summer, they are walking instead of riding now. Their junkers have bit the dust and there are no replacements coming.

[Irons]

A lot of people walking on the streets, city or out in the country, winter or summer, they are walking instead of riding now. Their junkers have bit the dust and there are no replacements coming.

That food stamp card won't work at a gas pump. They have to get a bus card for that. Or a gas bridge card from thier caseworker. We are fuvked.

[Hystckndle]

Central Florida:
No order, just rambling.....
Housing prices down 50 to 60 points, some areas 70.
And that is IF and only IF you can get financing.
Condo's grossly overbuilt, some high rises of 100 plus units have 6 occupants.
People are still coming to theme parks, but a LOT of foreigners.
( We will see how the Euro affects this over next few months )
Restaurants still busy but clientele demographics have changed.
People that are spending money are DI and affluent taking advantage of deals
Used car lots closing, many having been open for many years.
New car lots in trouble
Lots of gardens popping up.
Lots of road construction ( shovel ready projects )
Capital spending on Telco infrastructure slow crawl
Ditto Utilco
( this IMO seriously compromises infrastructure )
New home building still going but at a slow crawl
I see more and more people paying with change at convenience stores
Cash at almost every other store is a now very frequent
BK at all time high
People still driving around 90 to nothing
Gov budgets at city and county and state level are toast and they are beginning to recognize it.
They staffed up and spent up expecting tax revenues from " if you build it, they will come " mentality.
Unemployment...who knows ?
Construction is 30% or more.
More as I think about it,
Regards,
Haystackneedle

[Green Light]

Fewer cars on the road is a dream of mine.

[Irons]

Fewer cars on the road is a dream of mine.

Zero welfare is a dream of mine.

[DualCarbon]

Stopping the constant immigration of every idiot in the world to the US is my dream.

[Green Light]

Yeah... immigrant idiots taking the jobs Republicans can't do..

[DualCarbon]

Save the false elephant/donkey paradigm for the TV watchers. I've got a real problem - third world invasion into my city.

[goldie40]

eastern upstate NY
there are almost no house sales which is because people still have their head in the sand thinking that their 180 thousand dollar house is going to sell for 350 thousand like they were in the 1990s,
jobs are none even for nurses which was the thing for the past 25 yrs.self employeed carpenters,plumbers,roofers, contractors ect. who had a real good time for the past 20 yrs and spent every dime they made on toys,ATVs ect. vacations ect. are crying the blues. Now they're finding their selves with no work, no med insurance, behind on trk, house and payments of all kind.
restaurants are closing or cutting down on hrs open trying to hang on. Hardware,lumber stores, auto part stores, are really hurting, most put on additions, extra help, ect. for the boom, but now it's over.
rentals are all over the place, again the landlords think their 450-600 per month house is still worth 1200-1500 per month.
even people on unemployment or with their hrs cut down to 25-30 are still acting like they're Warren Buffet and don't have a care in the world, they don't realize that people like me see that they don't hang out in the coffee shop as much, and their hair is a little long or they don't drive their gas guzzeling SUVs and pick ups around anymore like it's a VW bug. I think many will wish they were nuts like me and had been prepping over the yrs,getting debt free,buying silver,sorting pennies ect. with us, a garden,rabbits, bees,canning,burning wood has always been our way of life,

[mayhem]

Central Florida:
No order, just rambling.....
Housing prices down 50 to 60 points, some areas 70.
And that is IF and only IF you can get financing.
Condo's grossly overbuilt, some high rises of 100 plus units have 6 occupants.
People are still coming to theme parks, but a LOT of foreigners.
( We will see how the Euro affects this over next few months )
Restaurants still busy but clientele demographics have changed.
People that are spending money are DI and affluent taking advantage of deals
Used car lots closing, many having been open for many years.
New car lots in trouble
Lots of gardens popping up.
Lots of road construction ( shovel ready projects )
Capital spending on Telco infrastructure slow crawl
Ditto Utilco
( this IMO seriously compromises infrastructure )
New home building still going but at a slow crawl
I see more and more people paying with change at convenience stores
Cash at almost every other store is a now very frequent
BK at all time high
People still driving around 90 to nothing
Gov budgets at city and county and state level are toast and they are beginning to recognize it.
They staffed up and spent up expecting tax revenues from " if you build it, they will come " mentality.
Unemployment...who knows ?
Construction is 30% or more.
More as I think about it,
Regards,
Haystackneedle

I just quoted Haystack because it is pretty much the same here in south fla.

Noticeable decrease in illegal population, my well guy is busy but probably because he made it through the last two years while others didn't.

450k+ homes are selling. (they were 750k - 1m, 4 years ago, but that is always the way it is here. My property dropped another 30k last month according to zillo.

3k applicants for 20 jobs and they are usually entry level positions. IT type stuff still pretty good. Home repairs/remodeling not bad as they bring the foreclosures to market. (people just tore them up)
Lots of empty "new commercial" buildings. Construction is down I'd say 40 -60% in the home market. (Plenty of new home inventory).

Exterminators doing OK I guess, empty houses get pest infested very quickly. Still a lot of traffic during the day, but the nighttime has slowed way down. Most chain restaurants seem to be OK, but the specialty ones have disappeared by 40%. Local farmers markets are booming, while any supermarket other than Walmart is in a shaky position.

Post Office is closing some branches, and laying off (early retirement) a good size number. County repairs are taking longer. (I'm having Memorial Day with a County guy and will have the scoop come Monday)

[Green Light]

Save the false elephant/donkey paradigm for the TV watchers. I've got a real problem - third world invasion into my city.

The "third world invasion" sounds like a tough situation. Who are your neighbors?

[MorganTheGoat]

I lost about 25%++ of the value of my property in the past two years.

BUT,

The batsh*t insane lady that lives across the street is moving, so things are lookin' up. ;-)

[shades]

OZtralia:

The well off getting very shaky, and ruder than usual. Amuses me no end. They're probably losing money, or worse yet, their money is buying them less and less in terms of
goods and services, they hate that.

Middle class in debt or got financially slaughtered. Evolving into the haves and have nots even more, and the gap is widening.

House prices high across the board, the thing that amazes me is even the s*** areas went up in price the same amount as the best areas, that made no sense
to me at all, and they face massive falls across the board, particularly if the govt opens up new areas for housing developments.

Share market took a good hit, sign of things to come.

Stagflation evident, many CEOs still paid like rock stars. Must suck having no friends, an expensive house with a high-maintenance wife in your ear.

[Scorpio]

I find it interesting that the local rag, typical msm bs a week late every day, is losing subscriptions steadily,

enough so that a competitor fired up from scratch, more expensive, talks of 'different' things like RPaul, overzealous debt creation and so on,

starting to see more and more of those papers around,

as though it is scratching an itch for people,

Scorp

[Irons]

I find it interesting that the local rag, typical msm bs a week late every day, is losing subscriptions steadily,

enough so that a competitor fired up from scratch, more expensive, talks of 'different' things like RPaul, overzealous debt creation and so on,

starting to see more and more of those papers around,

as though it is scratching an itch for people,

Scorp

I do see regular folks waking up bear dude, then yet another tourist saws me off damn near into the ditch while talking on thier crackberry and I lose all hope.