Christopher Thornberg
Christopher Thornberg
Christopher Thornberg is the Founding Partner of Beacon Economics, LLC, an independent research and consulting firm. Under his leadership, Beacon Economics became known as one of the earliest and most adamant forecasters of the subprime mortgage market meltdown in 2007...
bite cooling economy employment estate growth market middle mystery pick question
By the middle of the year, the cooling real estate market will take a bite out of employment growth everywhere. The question is, can other sectors of the economy pick up the slack? That is a big mystery right now.
agents building estate financing people stores
It's people building houses, ... It's people financing the building of houses. It's people working in the stores that are furnishing those houses, and of course, the real estate agents who are making this all happen.
backside markets says sliding starting
The markets are starting to cool, and everyone says we may be sliding down the backside of a hill.
behaving difficult figure
It's an irrationally behaving market. It's very difficult to figure out where it is going to go.
fragile
Let's put it this way: We will be in a fragile economy.
maybe pay people prices today
Prices people pay today will be about the same in 2011, maybe 2012.
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We've never seen this size of a housing bubble before, so in a sense we're in kind of a strange place right now.
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We say it's a bubble, but a housing bubble does not pop like a stock market bubble, ... A stock market bubble, when it pops, lots of market activity, prices dropping rapidly. Housing prices don't drop that way because there's a huge fixed cost. You don't day-trade your home.
bottom economy point top
We're in a housing-driven economy from top to bottom at this point in time.
housing party signs
There are some signs that the housing party is ending.