In the olden days, before indoor plumbing folk would hoof it to the nearby well for a bucket of water. Being that we overlook how necessary water is for every day function, trips to the well must have been plentiful. I imagine that this is where the expression going to the well once too often came from.

Well, if you are looking for a post about water commoditization or where to get the best overpriced bottled water…look elsewhere. This topic is just my personal well, the one that I like to go back to ever so often. The one that keeps me coming back in genuine thirst, when all the beer, liquor, soda, juice and tea will no longer do. That’s right, it’s time for another housing market rant.

The Point of Panic…Passed…Tense

Coming as no surprise to anyone living on this planet, the U.S. housing market has double dipped. For those of you with an affinity for recreational self destruction and/or colorful analogies, the giant Methadone dumb did nothing to help the Heroin junkie overcome his root problems. For a while, the pain went away… sorta. But now he’s back in the ER writhing in pain, puking all over the place and the doctors have no clue what to do.

With U.S. home prices falling 4.2% in the first quarter of 2011, hitting a new post-bubble low and sending the battered housing sector into a double dip. The S&P/Case-Shiller home-price index only reaffirmed this bit of reality upon its release on this past Tuesday morning.
Twelve of the 20 metropolitan areas tracked in the index posted new lows in March, and prices nationally have fallen 5.1% in the last year, pushing them back to 2002 levels.

David M. Blitzer, chairman of the S&P Index Committee:

This month's report is marked by the confirmation of a double-dip in home prices across much of the nation. Home prices continue on their downward spiral with no relief in sight.

It never ceases to amaze me how powerfully The Ostrich Syndrome effects our world today. The fundamental issue with the American economy is, has and continues to be the putrid worthlessness of the housing market. As much as the occasional wannabe intellectual from the realms of banking, economics and public administration will bombard reality with buzz words and presuppositions about a magically improving situation… it just ain’t happening. There will be no major improvements of the economy without a stabilization of the housing market. We are still very far from that day.

Going over some of my older posts and those of others on this site, it really is a sad state of affairs. What most were predicting as better in a year or two has slowly stretched into three or four and is now a five-to-ten year prison term in the minds of many. In the meanwhile, housing prices continue to fall…the workforce remains immobile on a mass scale…cities and communities go from the 1st to the 3rd world and we just sit idly by wondering how we can squeeze out an extra buck out of our daily grind.

This has been your friendly trip to the well…it is once too often taken, I wish I didn’t have to but the thirst doesn’t give me much of an option in the matter.