CNBC, 09/10/09, Meredith Whitney, Home prices will drop another 25%

[SANTORIOBUSTANUT]

meredith i will fuck you like the whore that you are.

[hkrainman]

Yes, they will live in those houses, but they will rent them!

[kierkegaardrulez]

Meredith is totally wrong to use homeownership% to predict housing declines. Obviously, with a vast oversupply of housing built during the boom years, home ownership SHOULD be higher than the historical level as prices fall. SOMEONE will live in those houses. Real calculation depends on affordability.

[kosai19]

Home ownership is more a function of credit availability than supply. Even if home prices drop another 50%, if the number of loans banks are willing to provide are small the number won't rise. Lets face it, the average person can't put 20% down on a home or even 10%. Add onto that the negative national savings rate and it's not hard to see that she has a valid point.

[brother234]

affordability isn't there she keeps telling us, and because of it, a drop is necessary. And based on your focal point, which is hers as well, here is her point on homeownership% - that without the credit, were going to tend to retrace back to certain percentage of the population who can maintain a home. Why this ratio established itself is unclear to me, but she has said elsewhere that home ownership ratios went up due to the governments creative credit financing programs for low incomes.