Study: No Housing Recovery Until 2015

The numbers referenced in this study jibe with my opinion but that worries me. The crowd is never right when it comes to things like this so I might have to push my recovery date further out into the future.

Ryland Shares - Update

   Last week, I mentioned that Ryland was my favorite housing stock. I also mentioned that I wasn't buying yet because I don't buy on weakness but on strength. When I wrote my post last week, Ryland shares were trading at around $16.50. Today, those shares are down to $14.98 because of a middling earnings report earlier in the week. From Reuters:

http://www.reuters.com/article/idCNN2812963920101028?rpc=44

Oct 28 (Reuters) - Shares of Ryland Group Inc (RYL.N) fell on Thursday, the day after the seventh-largest U.S. homebuilder reported a quarterly loss and a 37 percent drop in orders. Ryland shares were down 4.5 percent at $15.20 in midmorning trading on the New York Stock Exchange, compared with a 0.9 percent dip in the Dow Jones U.S. Home Construction Index .DJUSHB.

    The shares are off about $1.50 from last week. So, am I looking to scoop any shares up NOW? Not yet. As I've mentioned before and I'll mention it again in the future, I don't start a position on weakness. I know that the shares are a nice bargain now compared to last week but there's a chance that prices will be discounted further in the next 1-2 months. I'm a patient investor and my time horizon is usually a minimum of 5 years. I do have a price in mind where Ryland shares would be so compelling that I'd have to break my buying rule and start a small position. In general however, I'm looking to buy size in Ryland only on strength.

Foreclosure activity up across most US metro areas

   From an AP article today:

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The foreclosure crisis intensified across a majority of large U.S. metropolitan areas this summer, with Chicago and Seattle -- cities outside of the states that have shouldered the worst of the housing downturn -- seeing a sharp increase in foreclosure warnings.

California, Nevada, Florida and Arizona remain the nation's foreclosure hotbeds, accounting for 19 of the top 20 metropolitan areas with the highest foreclosure rates between July and September, foreclosure listing firm RealtyTrac Inc. said Thursday.

Those states saw housing values surge during the housing boom years. When the boom ended, values collapsed and foreclosures soared.

   I feel like I'm beating a dead horse when I state that the "foreclosure crisis" won't be over for at least another 5 years and recovery in the real estate market won't arrive until 2018-2019. I know that seems like a long time but this is how financial crises work. They take time and they burn up huge amounts of wealth before they're contained. While the foreclosure crisis is resolving itself over the next few years, the economy will continue to get stronger and the stock market's going to go ballistic. The seeds of the next boom have already been planted and all it's going to take is time. Most people don't have the patience to wait nearly a decade for all this to happen but my advice is to continue working at your job (if you have one), invest monthly, take care of your family, and watch for the boom to happen right before your eyes.