Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Housing Bubble 2 arrives to Main Street

The "Skyscraper Indicator" (click here), developed by Edward Dewey, in the 1940s, correlates human optimism to the number of high-rise buildings under construction. Simply stated, when people are very optimistic, they tend to express their feelings in massive construction projects, especially tall buildings, like skyscrapers, because they have a need to build toward the sky! Since this extreme optimism is reached at major peaks, in the economy, severe economic downturns usually follow; not just declines in real estate prices.  


The housing bubble was felt in 2007 in small measure, where was Paulson?  In China.  At any rate, the send wave to housing bubble dynamics have arrived to Main Street.


The housing EXCESS cannot be deconstructed.  What was built in optimism of million-billionaires everywhere is still on the market.  Their deflated value is now arriving to local economies in the way of lower property taxes.


...More than five years after real estate prices began to tumble, (click title to entry - thank you) Americans are finally starting to get property tax breaks on their devalued homes, a USA TODAY analysis finds....



...Property taxes generated $436 billion last year, about $66 billion more than in 2006 when home values peaked. Public schools get about 40% of this money. The rest flows to other local governments....


For the States that saw this coming action was taken.  For all the Republicans in the Federal Senate and House that didn't back the President in his Educational Initiative in the American Jobs Act, are contributing to economic decline.


Kan. House approves property tax measure (click here)

March 12, 2012
House members have approved a measure that provides Kansas cities and counties with $90 million in property tax relief while requiring public notification when property valuations increase.
The bill, approved Monday 101-23, goes to the Senate. It restores a city-county revenue sharing program that ran from 1938 to 2004, and it requires the local governments to use the money to reduce property taxes. The bill would share $45 million in both 2013 and 2014.
The bill includes a requirement that cities and counties lower their property tax rates when the overall valuation has increased. The intent is to end a practice that legislators called “stealth’’ tax increases when property values increased but tax rates didn’t.