At the risk of slipping in a “I told you so,” TTAC flagged the current automotive meltdown back in summer ’06, when new housing starts cratered. A bit late, but there you go. At the time, TTAC pointed out that the housing slowdown would kill pickup truck sales– at the precise moment GM CEO Rick Wagoner and his media groupies were saying the then-new Silverado was GM’s salvation (Edmunds: “If these hit, GM might have a full turnaround on its hands.”) Obviously, we didn’t see the collapse of the entire housing market and then, by extension, the new car market. But we sure as Hell made the connection between too-easy credit (for both homes and cars) and an eventual, inescapable reckoning. I mention all this because it’s obvious enough that new car sales won’t recover until the U.S. housing market recovers. And not just to us. Speaking at the dealer wake in N’orlins, the National Automobile Dealers Association’s chief economist Paul Taylor preached econ 101 to the bruised and battered faithful.
“Taylor said auto sales are tied to the fall in real estate values,” The Detroit News dutifully reports, “and in order for vehicle sales to recover in 22 states, housing values must stabilize. The states generally are along both coasts, in the Northeast and around the Great Lakes.
“States with the highest residential real estate value declines are Nevada, California, Florida and Arizona, and all of them have among the highest percentage drops in new-car registrations, Taylor said.”
From this realistic perspective, Taylor jumps off into the deep end, telling his adherents what they want to hear.
“[Taylor predicts] sales in the first half of the year will remain slow, but slight economic improvement starting in the third quarter should push sales to at least 12.7 million vehicles for the year.
“That’s still 3.8 percent shy of last year’s 13.2 million in sales, but better than the 10.3 million annual selling rate in December. Other analysts and automakers have predicted sales as low as 10.5 million for the entire year in 2009.”
Housing recovery leading to car sales recovery in 2009, eh? Consider this, from Bloomberg:
“The [housing] rebound last month was led by a distressed-property related jump in the West, including California, Nevada and Arizona, the NAR [National Association of Realtors] said. Sales of distressed properties accounted for about 45 percent of all sales last month…
“Property values are down by about 23 percent, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller index covering 20 metropolitan areas…
“U.S. foreclosure filings jumped 81 percent last year as more than 2.3 million properties got a default or auction notice, or were seized by lenders, according to RealtyTrac Inc., an Irvine, California-based seller of default data.
“KB Home, the fourth-largest U.S. homebuilder, on Jan. 9 reported a fourth-quarter loss exceeding analysts’ estimates and predicted more pain for the housing market this year.
“’The housing industry continues to confront unprecedented downward pressure,’ Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Mezger said in a conference call. ‘These conditions persist nationally, with no visible signs of lessening in the near term.'”
@ RF
Today on the BBC I heard speculation of another credit crunch coming. All those big screen TVs, home appliances, furniture and the like sold “interest free” or “no repayment until” etc by Circuit, Best Buy etc are coming due…. The numbers are staggering.
This might be somewhat accurate. I see a bottom at the real estate market (in terms of prices) in a few months. (Hence the reason I will be in the market for a house very shortly.)
Now, in terms of the number of housing starts, it might take a bit longer. Also, I don’t see things climbing out of the bottom for awhile-just it will stop going down further.
In any case, 10.3 or 10.5 million yearly sales is really low for the full year. 12.7 might be optimistic, though. Let’s split the difference and say 11.5-12ish.
In mid December Sixty Minutes ran a piece on a second wave of bad mortgages coming in 2009.
If true the situation is going to get worse, not better.
In order for the housing market to rebound we either need more credit or more production of valuable goods and services. The sad fact is that the housing decline is now spreading to good credit having middle class homeowners. With the loss of jobs, available credit, and investment dollars and bank’s unwillingness to renegotiate mortgage terms we will see millions more foreclosures in this year. I have yet to see an answer for how to stop this decline. Without the easy credit that fuelled the consumer bubble, jobs and wealth are set to severely contract.
One thing to keep in mind: I have friends who just bought a house for 220k, that would have sold at the peak of the market for 440k. That $1000 a month they won’t be paying in mortgage payments sure makes it easier to afford a new car.
With the utmost respect, predicting car sales would tank is much like saying “GM will post a loss this quarter (complete with a “one off charge”)”. Anyone with half a brain could see that we were living in a bubble and that it was only a matter of time before it burst.
The bit which sticks in my throat (insert your own dirty joke here) is this:
The way the United States and the United Kingdom are going about solving this problem is to throw money at the issues, rather than letting economic nature take its course.
Don’t get me wrong, I feel for every single person who loses their job (especially due to the incompetence of upper management) I was a victim of the credit crisis and was made redundant recently; but it would just delay the inevitable if we subsidised these jobs.
Peter Schiff was right; the market was long overdue for a correction and this is it. Throwing money at the problem will delay it for about 3 to 5 years before we have to go through this all over again. Giving money to banks to “free up credit” and let people carry on buying things they don’t need with money they don’t have (Copyright Tyler Durden) will solve nothing.
The market needs this painful correction so the car sales figures will be more sustainable. Freeing up credit won’t fix this. We need people to start saving money and buying things WITH THEIR OWN MONEY rather than on credit.
The house is burning and the only people who have been saved are the arsonists who started it (i.e the bankers).
You’d think Mitsubishi would’ve been a cautionary tale for anyone launching Triple-No deals (No down payment, No interest, No payments for a year). Almost launched the Evo-maker right off the North American map — they’re still recovering from those self-inflicted wounds.
But yeah, retailers’ captive finance arms (or Household Bank, as is most commonly the cash-float partner), are seeing massive defaults.
And now, even worse than those big screen tv and love seat payments going bad…
Credit card defaults are up 45% already this year, according to the WashPost.
Seems that when your variable rate mortgage goes from getyoudone to welcometoreallife, you use the credit card for…everything. Until it’s maxed. And then you get another. And another. Again and again, till you can’t.
The big banks are looking on in horror. The credit card default tsunami on the horizon makes the housing crisis look positively positive.
So what’s in Capital One’s wallet? A lot of debt that won’t get repaid. Ever.
If the NADA’s Keneysian cheerleader is using some faint-glimmer housing recovery as some sort of economic indicator for happy times ahead, well, sorry. For every statistic that casts a ray of economic hope, there’s another stormcloud that says more pain is on the way. (Cue pillaging Vikings and Biker Dudes now…)
Here’s another few items to consider.
I’m very careful with my money, having always been in a position to “have” to be until the last few years (i.e. until our kids moved out, we had far less money to go around than we do now).
While I do have some credit cards, believe it or not, I pay them all OFF as in ZERO BALANCE, not just once I feel like it, but EVERY MONTH.
So on one hand, while my FICA score is 805 or whatever (i.e. “excellent”) and I have not trouble asking for important loans (like a car loan or lease, or mortgage), I’m also one of those folks who don’t make a penny for the credit card banksters.
Here’s why.
How does a credit card bankster make money? Charging interest. What happens if month after month, year after year, Menno (and others like me) pay off their balances EVERY MONTH ON TIME and don’t get the “privilege” of getting dinged on interest charges?
They don’t make money on us.
Which is far better than losing money on the folks who max out card after card after card and then default, of course.
But the “happy medium” where credit card banksters make money – folks who for whatever reason lack the willpower to say no to themselves and get an ongoing, but manageable (in their minds) balance on credit cards – are the only way that the credit card banksters make their lucre.
Now that many of those folks are now being laid off, and tipping towards the point where they can’t or won’t ever pay off these cards, well, to paraphrase the old musical song “we got trouble right here in everystreet USA”.
I can see where the banksters will simply shut down credit lines on their credit cards, wholesale, across the board. Obviously, if they are losing money on the cards, they’ll simply shut them down. Perhaps they’ll send out debit cards and “invite” customers to send along monies to put into a “bank” account to then have a safer method of buying online, or renting cars, etc. I dunno…
As for car loans, well, I’ve heard/read in several places that if you are financing a US branded car (whether made in the USA, Canada, Mexico, South Korea or wherever), “good luck with that” and some banksters are shying away from lending the money AT ALL; conversely, the exact same customer and bank but the deal being on a Non-US brand, major automaker (whether the car is built in the US, Canada, Mexico or other country) is far more likely to get a loan.
Interestingly enough, the ONLY Pontiacs available on lease right now in my area, are the Vibe, which most of the TTAC B&B know, is nothing more than a reskinned Toyota Matrix.
Actually menno, I was under the impression that cc companies STILL made money if you paid your balane by dinging the merchant for 1-3%. Did I hear incorrectly?
Menno,
“How does a credit card bankster make money? Charging interest.”
And charging merchants fees for processing charges. Even if everyone paid off their balances in full every month, credit card companies would still make money.
menno : How does a credit card bankster make money? Charging interest.
Actually, credit card companies make a surprisingly large amount of profit from charging customers “late fees” and other assorted “miscellaneous fees.” They shorten billing cycles and hope their customers won’t notice, making it more likely that a payment will be received late.
MSN Money columnist, Liz Pulliam Weston, in her column today http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/SavingandDebt/ManageDebt/6-steps-to-dumping-toxic-debt.aspx writes about how Chase Bank is now charging a $10 a month fee on customers who carry a balance but don’t make new charges on their account.
Robstar and jmo are correct. Merchants pay fees to card issuers, though bigger volume brings a lower fee rate.
My understanding is that merchants are (or at least were) forbidden from giving a discount for cash.
Still, Menno’s point is valid: cardholders who don’t incur interest charges, and especially if they don’t use their cards much, are unattractive customers from the card bank’s perspective.
And Menno, I not only endorse your attitude regarding credit cards, I mainly use my Discover card that provides a little rebate. I actually make a few bucks off Discover every year.
“My understanding is that merchants are (or at least were) forbidden from giving a discount for cash.”
For most businesses, it wouldn’t make sense to encourage customers to pay cash. The 1% fee you pay to the credit card companies is less than the internal and external theft you have to deal with when you deal in cash.
The only real reason to deal in cash is to skim and avoid paying taxes on the income.
Anytime you use a credit or charge card, you ought to get something in return. Hotel points, GM Dollars (err, maybe not), airline miles, etc.
You should get something in return for lining Visa or AMEX’s coffers.
Menno,
They are more scared of the people who pay of their balance every month. If they start to lent it is often because they have been let go which isn’t a good position to be paying back loans
It’s legal to give a discount for cash; it’s illegal to charge more to use a credit card. That is, you can print a price list and then say “5% cash discount” at the bottom. But you can’t print a price list and then say “5% extra for credit card purchases”. You can print two price lists, though. Cash discounts are fairly common from mom and pop computer dealers, and two price lists are fairly common at gas stations.
“They don’t make money on us. ”
Actually, they do. The banking system takes about 2% off every transaction you make with your credit card and keeps it. Whoever you used your credit card to pay is out that money. The right to a 2% tax on such a massive flow of transactions is a big money maker.