There are a lot of very interesting facts in David Dayen’s most recent and highly educational post at Fiscal Times. For example, I didn’t know that 30% of new homes sold in 2002 cost $150,000 or less but today only 2% do. Or that one in three houses valued at $100,000 or less are underwater.
What’s even more interesting is his claim that there are actually two U. S. housing markets, one for the rich and one for everybody else.
I’ll throw in a fact of my own. Just about a third of all housing sales are cash sales (nearly half of all housing sales in Florida are for cash). Those cash sales are mostly some combination of flippers, other domestic real estate investors, and foreign buyers.
I’m not surprised. I live in relatively cheap Florida and I have yet to see a new housing development that doesn’t start at below $200k.