YT Says "Crash Imminent" But What's the Data Say?....

[James Hamling]

If your human like me, we have these moments where we scratch our heads in wonder, because what we are seeing across our screens isn't so much lining up with what were experiencing and seeing with our eyes. Your human so you wonder, am I just lucky enough to be living in the last safe place? Am I just ignorant? Am I missing something? Or is this all just BS media, click bait, fear mongering for views? 

Thankfully there IS a place we can get some unbiased answers.... MATH, we can go to the data to see what things ACTUALLY are. Is the sky falling? Has appreciation gone to 0? Let's get out of emotion and into FACTS to find out shall we. 

The following data source I am using is directly from the MLS itself. I am using Single family, all price ranges, all sizes, all bedrooms, previously owned, and we will toggle traditional sales and, for context, foreclosure/ short-sale/ lender mitigated. Yeah, were gonna find out, yes indeed we are.

Let's start at NEW LISTINGS. The message of all things falling apart, well, this should be surging, right, so what does the data say? 

Huh... It's up a sliver over past few years but wow, trending sideways for most part and way below historical norms. 

Ok, but, isn't there supposed to be a bunch of inventory on market and not moving now? 

Holy-cow, Homes For Sale and Months Supply, it's still sitting around historic LOWS ie SHORTAGE..... 

Ok, but what's out there, it's not moving, right? That's what YT and the fear messaging is saying, it's not moving..... 

Wait.... WHAT?! Days On Market is also sitting sideways at all time lows....... 

Uhm.... But price, price is surely dropping off a cliff? Appreciation is gone-baby-gone, that's what everyone is saying. 

WHAT THE!!!!.... BOTH Median Sales price and Cost Per SQFT are a unrelenting march UP...... But, but, but..... There supposed to be dropping..... Or flat..... 

Ok, but that's big-picture stuff, what about in recent months, that's surely walking off a cliff..... isn't it? 

Great gougamouga, it's going UP not down!...... 

Ok, but, foreclosures, those are certainly surging, and, and, and, yeah it's "coming" right..... Right?.....

WHAT THE HECK?! New Foreclosure Listings are DOWN..... Running flat at historic LOWS....... 

But certainly sellers are having to give discounts to get things sold, right? 

You've got to be kidding me! So sales are pacing 100% of list price, at a historic HIGH, not a low, not dropping...... 

The data, the REAL direct un-messed with data, DATA not opinions on the data but the data itself, it's rather clear..... There is no collapse in real estate as an asset, not in any way shape or form. So, how is that? How do we make this make sense..... 

What so many fail to grasp, and I blame our public education system for this NOT the people, is that were not watching housing cost more, cars cost more, food cost more, everything cost more..... It's our Dollar being worth LESS. 

See, one has to first have an education in exactly what "money" is. The US Dollar is itself not worth anything, it's just a piece of paper or all but useless metal, the coins are not even silver or anything like that anymore. You could use bills to wipe your butt if need be or start a camp fire, that's about the extent of their utility. The VALUE of a "Dollar" is PERCEPTUAL. Our money in the US, the Dollar, is simply a token of exchange. 

Now, to help explain this picture instead of using pieces of paper we use pieces of Apple Pie as our token of exchange. 

That Pie is controlled ie managed by the one baking it, that is "The FED". They bake it, distribute it, the manage this thing called the dollar. 

And through many different mechanisms they have the power to swoop in and cut that pie into more pieces. Picture that pie is cut into 4 pieces, each piece is pretty big and filling, right? That a lot of pie for a person, even though it's technically 1 "piece" of the pie. 

Ok, now cut that pie into 16 pieces, how filling is that 1 piece of pie you got now? Yeah, not so filling anymore is it. But it's still 1 piece of pie, just like before, but it feeds you so much less doesn't it. 

That's the dollar. The dollar is a piece of a monetary pie. And that pie keeps getting sliced and diced into trillions, literally trillions, of additional pieces in recent years making our pieces smaller and smaller, less and less "filling" meaning, the purchasing power is reducing. 

And that is why the things of unchanging VALUE, like improved real estate (a house), or Gold, we see the prices surge up Up UP. 

It's a whole lot less about them being worth more than the month, year, decade before than it is about that token of exchange were using to get it, being worth LESS. 

And the biggest problem is, most, the vast majority, the tokens of exchange there getting for their work is not increasing at same rate that tokens value of exchange is decreasing. 

If your piece of pie is 50% small than it was a year ago, and instead of buying 1 piece you buy 2 when sit down, your getting feed exactly the same you were a year ago, not more. 

So when you understand all of this, and what's truly going on, you understand the panic and fear is very real, but, BUT...... The messaging of the panic and fear is a LIE. The messaging should be, if it were honest and accurate; Get into ASSETS! Get OUT of declining dollars! The dollar itself IS the "falling knife". Assets are the "safe" island of wealth. 

yes, one could just sit in Gold and look, by the #'s would have 4X vs the declining dollar. But when in real estate, not only do you get it as a "piggy bank" of wealth, you can also monetize it's use while your holding it. 

Yes, there is up-keep of that real estate, so don't be dumb and think it is without it's expense to hold or operate that store of wealth over the years, this is where correct analysis and operational planning comes in. And not all real estate is equal as an asset just like gold vs silver is not equal. But vs the dollar...... It's rather hard to find any asset performing as badly as the dollar as a store of wealth. 

Holding dollars is a fast-track too poverty town.