Just stopped to check in and see how things were going for everyone this season. Sounds like mixed reviews. My markets here, in Up-State NY have taken a huge nose dive. (We are down by 50 to 75%.) I sell rare perennials and fruit N veggies, but all products are selling at a pathetic pace.I know, perennials are a luxury, not a neccessity. Still, I thought food crops would remain a good seller. Even the bigger veggie guys are way down from previous years. My guess is that so many of our regular customers are now growing their own produce, so they can save themselves a little $$. Even driving around the city, (Troy & Albany), you see these postage stamp sized lawns turned veggie garden.Kinda cool to look at, beautiful, even,... but definitely taking away sales. Community gardens are popping up everywhere, too. The only vendor at my markets actually UP in sales is the wine lady! Here's hoping for a recovery in the economy REAL quick. (OK, well, at least by next market season.)Or I, for one, will be back to working a dreaded "Real Job".

According to this chart, median income has little to do with medial home price. In fact, the income is the least affordable city is about 15 % *less* than in the most affordable. Least affordable City State Income Median price % affordable Los Angeles CA $56,200 $523,000 1.8% Santa Ana CA $78,300 $626,000 2.6% Modesto CA $54,400 $372,000 4.1% Stockton CA $57,100 $310,000 4.8% San Diego CA $64,900 $477,000 4.9% New York NY $59,200 $500,000 5.1% Riverside CA $57,500 $393,000 6.7% San Francisco CA $91,200 $759,000 6.8% Fresno CA $47,000 $306,000 7.1% Nassau/Suffolk NY $91,000 $450,000 7.9% Most affordable Metro area State Income Median price % affordable Indianapolis IN $65,100 $122,000 85.9% Youngstown OH $52,100 $86,000 85.5% Detroit MI $56,700 $95,000 85.5% Buffalo NY $58,300 $88,000 82.9% Grand Rapids MI $61,500 $128,000 81.6% Dayton OH $59,800 $113,000 81.2% Toledo OH $58,900 $115,000 80.5% Harrisburg PA $64,300 $140,000 79.5% Akron OH $61,300 $115,000 79.5% Rochester NY $64,100 $117,000 79.0% . As far as population, the 2nd largest population in the US in is TX which has cities on neither list. #3 NY has cities on both list. #4 FL- none, #5 IL-none , #6 PA-most, #7 OH-most, #8 MI-most, #9 NJ-none, and #10 GA-none. I'd like to see the entire list with population breakdowns, but I've been unable to find it. Also, as another poster listed, even within higher priced cities, there are homes more affordable homes if you're willing to compromise. I think breaking things down into clarifies the issue. Broad generalizations can be just as invalid. Statistics are open to intepretation. How many times on this board has someone mentioned buying a home for $X and someone posted "I can't build a garage/buy a 1/8 ac lot/remodel a kitchen for $X in my area"? RE is a regional thing. Then there are micro markets within the region. Simply saying that houses are less affordable now than they have ever been is silly if you look within the big picture. Many of the areas with "rising inaffordability" are simply leveling out to where median income buys median home. Again, I'm not claiming to be any sort of RE expert. I'm just trying to get a clearer picture and the more research I do, the more I realize I have not been hearing or reading about the RE market.

1) Financing is only a problem for the Big 3...not foreign cars..as you may recall we were talking about Detroit. Logic - your name confuses me.... Do you think that somehow the banks are not financing cars made by companies based in Detroit but others are fine? So I walk into my credit union and they say - "sure buy a car worth X but it can't be based in Detroit"? Yes - some (most?) of financing is done by a subsidiary of the auto manufacturer. But credit is credit and loans are not a problem to well documented, good credit score people. I guess maybe people buying Detroit based cars have lower credit scores than people buying other cars? As far as market share (for GM) - that has been falling for >35 years (almost 1% per year from 46 to 18). Yes people buy Detroit based cars ... well not really, they mostly buy trucks/SUV. Well guess what - trucks in current form are almost legislated out of existance in the next 7 years. It is much harder to get decent fuel economy out of a truck and the increased costs associated with that are going to end this truck/SUV love affair. It is showing signs of ending with the latest oil spike but it also has been legislated away. (The current CAFE standards do have enough holes to be toothless but don't expect that to remain. CA et al will make that legislation moot for 50% of the population) I can't find good numbers but GM sells more trucks than cars still. So if you are looking at car market share, you probably are less than 10%. That is - of all cars sold in the US, less than 10% are GMs. So the situation is more bleak than current market share. And how many of those buyers are just expressing misguided (IMO) patriotism. Also note that between may 2007 and may 2008, their market share went from 23.8 to 19.3 ... before the credit market collapsed. We all know that happened because of oil prices but a 4.5% drop is a quick acceleration from the .5-1% drops of the last 30 years. The problem is not all labor costs - that is fairly minor. Minor but a real source of money - frankly it has been quite overshadowed by the fall in the dollar which should tend to make US cars cheaper to build. The real problem is product mix and poor decision making. http://www.usnews.com/blogs/flowchart/2008/6/9/how-toyota-could-become-the-us-sales-champ.html

A stock market correction is given, not if but when, but the 500 lb gorilla is government debt and the bond market will be the deciding factor this time. The present cost to service debt is $525 billion a year with an average interest rate of 2.5%. All matured treasuries (old debt) and new debt is auctioned off and the interest rate is determined by what people are willing to accept and also determined by supply. The present supply is $26 trillion in government debt held by people around the world and freely traded, bought and sold at will. If more debt is offered up for sale in the secondary bond market than there are willing buyers the interest rates go up and the government must match these rates to sell new and rolled over mature debt. Mortgage rates follow the 10 year treasure rates and If lack of demand, excess supply or loss of confidence in U.S. treasuries happen then mortgage rates go up and it's just that simple. It has nothing to do with what the banks or the government wants, it all depends on who is presently holding U.S. treasury debt and what they want to do with it. A single entity could easily run rates up overnight just by dumping a huge amount of debt on the market at one time causing a panic sell off in the bond market. Now imagine The average interest rate the government must pay to sell debt rises to 5% from 2.5%, debt service would double to over a trillion a year, and the price of a mortgage would also double.