Homebuilder ‘Pessimists Outnumber Optimists’
The homebuilders association has a report out. “Confidence among U.S. homebuilders dropped this month to the lowest in more than 11 years. The National Association of Home Builders index of builder confidence declined to 42, the lowest since April 1995, from 46 in May, the Washington-based association said today. A number below 50 means pessimists outnumber optimists. The index hasn’t increased for the last eight months, the longest such stretch since 1994.”
“Builders say traffic among prospective home buyers is falling, and a measure of sale expectations declined. Confidence fell in all four regions this month, with the biggest decrease occurring in the Northeast, which plunged to 40 from 47. The Midwest declined to 25 from 29, the South fell to 49 from 51 and the West declined one point to 61.”
“The number of homes available for sale is 35 percent higher than it was a year ago, according to a Wachovia Securities report by analyst Carl Reichardt. The report said the housing slowdown is ‘worse than we thought.’ There were 565,000 new homes for sale at the end of April, a record.”
“‘These forecasts naturally are subject to a considerable degree of risk,’ said NAHB Chief Economist David Seiders. ‘The downside risks include the potential for large numbers of sales cancellations and re-sales by the investor/speculator group as well as more aggressive tightening of monetary policy than we’re assuming in our baseline forecast.’”
“‘The June drop is further evidence that housing is slowing,’ said (economist) Zoltan Pozsar. ‘Policymakers need to keep in mind not to overtighten.’”
“The president of the Dallas Federal Reserve bank, Richard Fisher, said on Monday that while the pace of activity in U.S. housing markets was slowing he did not see a crisis developing. ‘I don’t see a crisis on the edge of the table … I do see a subsiding of that (housing price) pressure,’ Fisher said. ‘The kind of 6 percent growth we had … in the first quarter just wasn’t sustainable.’”
“He said Fed policymakers were focused on fostering stable long-term growth and noted ‘we’re doing our level best to make sure that inflation doesn’t raise its ugly head.’”
‘Builders say traffic among prospective home buyers is falling, and a measure of sale expectations declined.’
Notice they don’t include the traffic numbers, like they used to do. This has been the weakest of the three components for months. I tried to download the report itself and it was garbled. If anyone has better luck, please post here.
I found this on a message board; can’t confirm:
‘Traffic of Prospective Buyers: June 2006 = 28.73, Lowest since: Jan 1995 = 25.77, Month after 9/11 was even higher: Oct 2001 = 29.97′
It is significant that the current builder confidence numbers have retraced to 1995 levels, which represented the *end* of the last bust, even though we are just at the beginning of the current one. My guess is these numbers will plumb previously unseen depths before we are out of the woods.
Yeah, and the mania buying spree was less than a year ago in Aug. 2005. Freakin’ amazing.
Not only that but inventory has or is about to retrace to 1995 levels.
Oh My!
getstucco,
while i agree with much ofwhat yousay, and you are very smart, i think that you misunderstand the nature of the liquidity bubble and the hedge fund industry. i’m betting that you don’t know much about this atall. If you did, I am convinced that you would drop those silly PPT theories. You are underestimating the degree to which crowds can be mad, and therefore you are coming up with a conspiracy theory to explain it. There is no PPT, there’s just a bunch of crazy ppl doing crazy thngs with the liquidity that other crazy people have provided to them.
“You are underestimating the degree to which crowds can be mad, and therefore you are coming up with a conspiracy theory to explain it.”
Mo –
Thanks for the backhanded compliment. I do not argue that crowds cannot be mad, nor do I take issue with your argument that “crazy ppl doing crazy things with the liquidity that other people provided to them” is important — both are certainly factors in what is currently unfolding. But these do not preclude the possibility of government intervention to prop up markets which natural equilibrium forces suggest should have dropped much further by now. Calling PPT theories “silly” simply ignores a great deal of evidence that I have brought up here, and which nobody has ever refuted. It is far easier to dismiss opposing views as “silly” and those who promulgate them as “tinfoil hat conspiracy theorists” than to actually do the hard work of demonstrating why they are wrong.
Getstucco,
may I ask what evidence do you have on recent govt. interventions? Mind that hedgefund assets are estimated to be to the tune of $10T, they can rock the boat pretty hard.
– Why would hedge funds care to hold the long-term treasury yields frozen on days when a selloff ensues in equities? It does not make sense from a financial equilibrium standpoint to have some risky assets exhibit extremely volatile price movements when others sit frozen in place.
– Why would hedge funds dump some risky assets (emerging market stocks, commodities, small cap stocks) but keep headline indexes (the ones which get headline attention in the USA) propped up?
– Why would hedge funds employ strategies which result in such a remarkably high degree of correlated movement in US equities across a broad swath of sectors that it appears the prices are synchronized?
– Yes, hedge funds have quite a bit of heft, but the movements we are seeing these days indicate one or a very small number of market movers with massive firepower — not consistent with a hedge fund industry with myriad individual firms executing strategies independently.
– Why would our govt *not* intervene if it believed that doing so was in the national interest (as evidenced by the creation of the Working Group on Financial Assets in 1988, and further evidence of candid admissions from time to time by Greenspan that he was using this-or-that intervention to prop up markets)?
– There really is no argument about whether the govt intervenes in the markets; after all, monetary policy and foreign exchange interventions are, by definition, interventions… Further, we know the Fed intervened with liquidity injections after Oct 19, 1987, and they bailed out LTCM in 1998. The question is whether interventions are exceeding the bounds which the public generally assumes, not whether interventions take place per say.
“Why would hedge funds care to hold the long-term treasury yields frozen on days when a selloff ensues in equities? It does not make sense from a financial equilibrium standpoint to have some risky assets exhibit extremely volatile price movements when others sit frozen in place.”
Just watch fed funds futures. The yields are not frozen in the futures market.
“– Why would hedge funds dump some risky assets (emerging market stocks, commodities, small cap stocks) but keep headline indexes (the ones which get headline attention in the USA) propped up?”
Its a flight to quality. Big names have more stable cash flow and have more share volume. Better liquidity if you need to get out.
“– Why would hedge funds employ strategies which result in such a remarkably high degree of correlated movement in US equities across a broad swath of sectors that it appears the prices are synchronized?”
I don’t think hedge funds do keep them synchronized. We live in a world of MASSIVE international trade. When the market of one country goes down, it affects companies in other markets. Its all intertwined now.
“– Yes, hedge funds have quite a bit of heft, but the movements we are seeing these days indicate one or a very small number of market movers with massive firepower — not consistent with a hedge fund industry with myriad individual firms executing strategies independently.”
Except all the hedge funds think alike. Commodities were a one way “sure bet” for them, as was carry trade from BOJ and and investing in emerging markets. When that starts to unwind, they all head for the exits. They see the writing on the wall. You didn’t expect the hedge funds to be buy and holders, did you ?
“– Why would our govt *not* intervene if it believed that doing so was in the national interest (as evidenced by the creation of the Working Group on Financial Assets in 1988, and further evidence of candid admissions from time to time by Greenspan that he was using this-or-that intervention to prop up markets)?”
Because our market is intertwined with others, we belong to the IMF, other countries are getting stronger, etc. If *ANYTHING* of that sort were to happen now, I expect it would be the IMF that would do it and I don’t see that happening. Basically, I think that monetary policy has gotten a lot better over the years (starting now with Bernanke) and the Fed now has the stomach to prevent further inflation and do whatever it takes to kill it, ie kill the housing bubble.
“– There really is no argument about whether the govt intervenes in the markets; after all, monetary policy and foreign exchange interventions are, by definition, interventions… Further, we know the Fed intervened with liquidity injections after Oct 19, 1987, and they bailed out LTCM in 1998. The question is whether interventions are exceeding the bounds which the public generally assumes, not whether interventions take place per say.”
1987 was a bit of a mistake. I am not sure that will happen again. LTC was small compared to what would be needed for the housing bubble. It is one thing to prevent people from losing their savings in a bank account and to stabilize the banking sector. It is another thing to reward a bunch of stupid speculators, especially when the inflation the interjection would cause would be hard to handle.
There won’t be a big intevention.
Ben, what does the number mean? 28.73 visits by prospective buyers per sale? that doesn’t seem right.
Well then it must be the bottom? I’m sure they’ll start to spin it that way soon enough the bastards.
if they need to increase traffic to all those open houses, perhaps they should hire this master sign-spinner:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIQgkc8VFr4&search=sign%20spinner
i know i’ve posted this before, but it really is worth watching. for those of you who have never experienced a true master of the spinning arts, this will let you know what it’s really like in southern california!
I remember back in the 90’s when I saw a builder walk away from a half completed tract. Days are comin back.
I remember in the early 90’s when the bottom fell out of the housing market a builder told me (joking) that he went to lunch, when he came back everything was different. He never recovered from his losses and works in the maintenance department of a manufacturing plant now. Man, the early 90’s were hard times for small builders.
Small time builders are going to get hammered in NNV. Greed is a trip, and it always seems to win out over prudence with these guys. Instead of taking a portion of the unbelievable profits they’ve made over the last couple of years and setting some of it aside for “just in case”, these guys pour every bit of profit they’ve made into every piece of developable land up here to build on spec. I know of one small time builder up here that has 7 spec homes over the million dollar mark just sitting now. 7 spec homes over a million up here in NNV!! Insane! He just figured because he moved several of them quick over the last couple of years that he should just go for broke. Well, I’m guessing broke is what he’ll be soon. The nice thing is he’ll be able to tell his grandkids that once, for a very short while, he was a millionaire.
The builders do this every cycle. It makes sense, in a way. They don’t know when to stop, so they build until someone pulls the plug. There is no voice of caution, even from the lenders.
I’m curious about these small builders (and the large ones too)
It seems like they wouldn’t get into trouble if they settled for slightly smaller profits and built houses that normal people could buy instead of McMansions. I understand that land values are higher and this makes them want to build something bigger, but where are all the 1500 sq ft moderate houses without granite counter tops.
Would they still be in trouble if they switched their model and built stuff like this?
Maybe. Or maybe they’re all screwed. But I have to believe that the small stuff will always have a market if it’s reasonably priced.
BuyMoreHouses.com
Hey Ben, great blog. I live here in the South Bay (LA). This area is dominated by small builders. Most were crushed in the 90’s RE crash but a lot are back in business thanks to the magic of BK.
I would love to hear more about how these guys are holding up in this “flat appreciation” environment. Most of these small builders have not had the luxury of buying a bunch of land 3-5 yrs ago like the big builders. Now thats not to say they havent done well during the RE go-go days - most have. I know a local builder who has over $40m in RE construction loans. This is not a lot for the big guys but $40m is a lot for a South Bay builder who builds 2-3 condo units per property. With margins of 20% he has to sell $48m in RE. Leverage seems pretty high to me considering where we are in the RE cycle. I am wondering if these smaller guys are continuing to party like it’s 1999 when most here know the police broker up the party 6 months ago. It sure seems like it to me.
It would be great to hear others people’s perspective on the small builder mentality.
No No No ,they are smart now they build only to meet demand. Yeah right builders will build until they go under, what else are they going to do.
Perhaps, rather than buy back their own stocks, they could have used their own information and research productively to short their own shares? That’s what they could do to build cash instead of burn it through buybacks…
The SEC has rules as to what a co. can do.
The company itself would only be able sell via a secondary offering. They cannot short their own stock or the SEC would come a knockin….
The employee stockholders have been doing that by selling their stock and exercising their stock options and selling. Look at how many shares Robert Toll has been selling. Hundreds of millions of dollars worth last year.
“They cannot short their own stock or the SEC would come a knockin…”
I don’t see a big difference between a company shorting its own stock and top management instituting share buybacks while cashing out their personal holdings. How come the SEC doesn’t come a knockin in the latter case?
who has been cashing out? Robert Toll? He’s still by far the biggest holder of TOL. You think he’s not feeling some serious pain these days?
After all he has already made, I doubt it.
Getstucco:
I agree with your statement. The company cant short it’s stock but they can buy back stock while insiders sell. It’s a screwy world we live in.
Prominent article here on Yahoo Finance about adjusting ARMs leading to higher forclosures. Anyone who reads this blog could have written the same article months ago.
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/060619/foreclosure.html?.v=4
It is good to see the media catching up.
Actually no the media couldn’t have written that. At the time it was a religion houses always go up, in which case a resetting ARM is no problem because you’ve got so much equity to liberate you can refinance or flip into the next size up McMansion. The real change in the media’s eyes is the underwaterness (ie lack of magically equity sauce) that prevents ARMs morons from re-financing. This is a fundamental change.
The people taking HELOCs because their home is going up in value remind me of the “buy and hold”ers of the dot-com days. Remember those? The ones who held on to stock as it went down to pennies a share, and then found out they owed taxes on the purchase price because they had vested their options? This sounds like a very similar mentality. Note to homeowners: You actually have to SELL your house to realize appreciation…
Actually, they were in that boat because they EXERCISED their options, then held. Vested, but unexercised, options do not have tax implications.
Speaking of pessimism, does anyone else believe the Marketplace.com “Countdown to the Close” feature is an inadvertent expression of gloomy sentiment — as though they are hoping the market can make it to the closing bell without crashing to new lows? I cannot recall seeing this feature back during the .com days, when new highs were attained on nearly a daily basis…
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/default.asp?siteid=mktw&dist=lnctab&refresh=on
“marketwatch.com” (Marketwatch is that NPR show which is trying to figure out why on earth risky asset markets are crashing pretty much everywhere…)
Sorry — my brain is asleep today (Marketplace = NPR, marketwatch.com = web site)
I was watching Bloomberg this morning and an analyst that was making a lot of sense was calling for 6% on the 10yr Tres by the end of the year. If that happens, the bubble collapse goes down more quickly. No way east and west coast housing can handle the effect on mortgage rates, regagrdless of toxioc loans.
The bulls either completely miss or ignore this — if interest rates simply return to historic norms, the coasts are toast. Too many recent buyers will get their ARMS broken, which seemed like a brilliant financial move when they signed the papers, as they believed 10% YOY appreciation forever would turn them into McMillionaires soon.
Real estate brokers are a cartel ! Who woulda thunk it !
http://money.cnn.com/2006/06/19/real_estate/real_estate_cartel/index.htm?cnn=yes
I love how the NAR admits to there being a “low-barrier of entry” into the realtor “profession.” Usually a low barrier of entry means that just about anyone, if they bother to spend a little time doing a bit of research, can perform the functions themselves. Including, gasp, buyers and sellers themselves.
As soon as a site like zillow is perfected (giving easy appraisal powers to buyers and sellers) and then an e-bay for buyers and sellers gains popularity, and people learn that they can save tens of thousands of dollars on commissions by doing a little bit of studying, then good-bye realtors. The problem is, and it would seem to me, that in a hot real estate market like there was until around August of last year, that buyers would have been the ones who thought “why the hell do I need a realtor?” They could have posted up a FSBO, and put it in the classified section. With the market the way it was, they could have easily sold it. Then maybe someone could have created, and could have started in one market, with an online site that acted like e-bay. Basically it would have been a way to bring the listing to a number, certainly enough to sell the house in a hot market. The site would have made money like e-bay or autotrader.com. Of course, the startup would have required some heavy marketing and a lot of tolerance for death threats from the NAR.
Now there is no such luck and if they want to sell there house, sellers have got to go to the cartel that controls the information that gets to the most eyeballs right now. The buyers are very limited, and no one is going to want to go with a startup or something where the listing will go unnoticed. So, they’ll go with the old MLS.
I (my wife) sold FSBO in a hot market with low inventory. On the 2nd Sunday the newspaper ad ran, there were 50 visitors and 4 offers.
In a down market is where the good realtors clean up and work for their money.
Gee, I wonder what class action lawyer read this blog and contacted the non-profit to sue and settle and earn a big fat fee.
Ben Jones doesn’t get enough credit.
I find it ironic that most homes sold through a Realtor are sold through one the big guys at 5% - 6%, even though there are several discount brokers out there. This surprises me, given that people will drive out of their way to save a quarter on a loaf of bread, but are so much less willing to tell the 5% - 6% brokerages to go %^&$*#! themselves.
Speaking of which, there are a spate of new warm ‘n fuzzy pro-realtor ads running here in NYC that espose that Realtors are loving and supportive members of their communities - awwww.
PS Ben, REBNY has not updated its site with 1st quarter 2006 report-it’s waaaay overdue..wonder why
In the 90/91 bust which took down all the major commercial banks in NH and a couple in ME, there were uncompleted condo and single-family subdivions project’s by the score.
You’d take a drive out in the country, see a project sign, go up the roadway, and there would be the exposed studs and Ty-Vec insulation wrap always flapping in the wind. The size and scope of most the busts were really mind-blowing.
Shoulda seen the subdivision where the developer got in over his head, and was using downpayments to cover previous material costs. All of a sudden mechanic liens were showing up in people’s mail-boxes with half-completed homes or in some cases finished homes, saying they owed XYZ Lumber $60k, and to pay up! Talked about the proverbial shite hitting the fan.
Builder solve “HIS” problem by blowing his brains out. There was no media follow up to what happened to the home buyers.
All of what is transpiring now is merely the “calm” before the storm.
I’ll bet there are beaucoup developers and builders who are using every damn financial trick in the book to keep their ball in the air.
Wont’ do ‘em a bit of difference. It’s all simply history repeating itself, except the absorbtion rate differential is 10X what is was during the last bust.
The collapse will truely be monumental.
More of the suicide stories to come.
I know of a failed development (from the last bubble) near Littleton NH, that is now a bunch of unfinished concrete basements abandoned way out in the woods. Before he went belly up, the builder’s agent would call my parents and beg them to buy a house “at below cost”
I wish I could post from Ziprealty, but if you have a login for LA area, check out the burned out house in Burbank, they even took pictures of the bedrooms and such. It’s a tear down for sure, but they are trying to sell it like it’s only slightly damaged, and asking over $450k..nice try
Read about Foreclosures May Jump As ARMs Reset.
“As more hybrid adjustable rate mortgages adjust upward and housing prices dip, many Americans can’t refinance out of this squeeze. They are finding themselves trapped in too-high monthly payments, and some face foreclosures.”
“The hardest hit states so far are those that have experienced the roughest times economically. Michigan, Texas and Georgia lead the pack, specifically around Detroit, Dallas and Atlanta, whose major employers have run into strikes, bankruptcies and industry downturns.
But as the housing market slows, experts expect foreclosures to skyrocket in those areas that have experienced the highest appreciation rate — like California, Florida, Virginia and Washington, D.C.”
This thing will start to snowball in the middle of summer. I just made a funny. Bwahaha!
The president of the Dallas Federal Reserve bank, Richard Fisher, said on Monday that while the pace of activity in U.S. housing markets was slowing he did not see a crisis developing. ‘I don’t see a crisis on the edge of the table … I do see a subsiding of that (housing price) pressure,’ Fisher said.
This is why the fed always over-shoots. The data that they look at is old. They are basing their decisions on what the market looked like 2-4 months ago. By the time they figure out that a crises has developed, rates will have gone up 50 to 100 basis pointes too far. By the time they are in crises prevention mode the economy is already in a recession. IMO that is exactly what we will see happen by the first quarter of ‘07.
Yes, but possibly this is through design as opposed to ignorance (?)
I believe the fed knows this. BB is no dummy. He also knows it is MUCH easier to try and stay ahead of the curve and then ease up, then it is to get behind and have to aggressively tighten. JMHO
Could he now pause because of the lag and “talk tough”? Win-Win?
Nope. After the tough talk, he has to follow suit, or else earn the title “Cheap-talkin’ Helicopter Ben.” And the long-term treasury bond yields, which are already rather buoyant, would take off like a rocket due to a confirmation that the Fed is not willing to walk the walk which needs to go along with all the recent talk about price stability in order to avoid sparking a bond market crash.
http://www.bloomberg.com/markets/rates/index.html
P.S. On a day when the markets were unsettled and the yield curve was generally gravitating upwards, the curve from 2yrs out to 30yrs mysteriously ended the day locked in to exactly the same levels where it ended yesterday. This is what I mean when I say the bond market looks rigged, as market forces involving the decisions of myriad individuals would not, by their nature, tend to produce moves through phase space at such low fractal dimension…
The Asian central banks need to put all of those excess dollars somewhere. If we go down so do they. I can hear their chanting all the way across the Pacific; help Americans spend…help Americans spend…help Americans spend.
“Microhouses” http://biz.yahoo.com/weekend/mini_1.html
RE: “Microhomes”-Too late the messenger…
Did I see the ten year treasury going at 5.15% at the opening? Watch out below !!!
It still cost $160k (not even including the land). That thing better be energy positive for that cost. It’s basically just a wildly overpriced cabin from what I can tell.
There is so much money floating around it takes obscenely expensive stuff like this to soak it all up.
I don’t think I’d want to own a house that was small enough to steal by loading it on a flatbed trailer…
From the Land of Hoz;
Hedge funds vs. central bankers
Will inflation, deflation or recession win in the coming months?
June 19, 2006
…”The Fed’s latest “flow of funds” report showed that in the first quarter of this year, household borrowing in the U.S. was up 32% compared with last year. That’s huge. It means that higher rates haven’t yet translated into retrenchment by American families.
Growing U.S. household debt has been the single biggest driver of global growth in the last five years. When Americans do finally stop borrowing and start saving, the effects could be bigger than the bankies anticipate. (Fact: 29% of borrowers who took out mortgages in the U.S. last year have no equity in their homes or owe more than their house is worth.)
My guess is that belts are already being tightened. Certainly, consumer confidence has fallen to levels we’ve seen only twice in the last 10 years.”
http://tinyurl.com/re9sj
Also from Forbes this video
Video: Choppy Waters For Hedge Funds?
http://tinyurl.com/phj7t
The Cowardly Rabbit of Hoz
That 29% is an outdated statistic, they were trotting that around a several months ago when were “soft landing” while waiting for “Spring Selling Season” — I’m sure the stat is much bigger now.
I am sure the damage is significantly greater than being reported. The Moscow News this morning reported the world wide derivatives to total 870 Trillion dollars. That is a lot larger than I thought. The world wide damage will be a lot greater than I thought.
“world wide derivatives to total 870 Trillion dollars”
I hope that was either a misprint or a lie…
Back in 1928 President Calvin Coolidge told his wife Grace … ‘Mama, I think a depression is coming’…..and Coolidge later ’said he did not choose to run for re election in 1928′…..’
Well a depression may not be around the corner- but a recession is- and it will be a bastard.
The housing sector is going bust- and its going to drag much of the US and world economy down with it.
I wonder if this report was published with the “low” numbers to push the Fed to stop raising rates???
Another ripoff from jaws:
Mayor Vaughan(realtors): “I don’t think either of you are familiair with our problems.”
Hooper(bubble bloggers): “I am familiar with the fact that you are going to ignore this particluar problem until it swims up and bites you on the ass!”
Ugh! Typos! I shouldn’t have to edit material I swipe, dernit!
CNN Article on Consumer Groups Going After Real Estate:
http://tinyurl.com/qlj7o
——————————————
Consumer group goes after real estate industry
Consumer Federation of America says home buyers pay higher prices because ‘cartel’ stifles competition.
By Les Christie, CNNMoney.com staff writer
June 19, 2006: 2:59 PM EDT
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - A leading consumer rights group, the Consumer Federation of America (CFA), on Monday issued a report charging that real estate industry members act as a cartel to stifle competition, resulting in higher prices and poorer service for homebuyers.
It’s the latest episode in the long-running soap opera that pits consumer groups and the government against the real estate industry. The dispute has become increasingly heated in recent years as soaring home prices have resulted in huge commissions for the industry. At the same time, the technology advances that have dramatically lowered costs in investment, travel and other industries have not had a great impact on real estate.
“Many traditional real estate brokerage firms, and their organizations, function as a cartel that tries to set prices and restrict service options,” said Stephen Brobeck, CFA’s executive director at a press conference in Washington D.C.
The CFA charges that consumers are harmed in three main ways:
* Traditional brokers charge high, uniform prices regardless of the quality of the broker involved. Even a newly licensed, inexperienced agent receives the same commission no matter what the level of service offered.
* Traditional brokers who work with both seller and buyer in a home sale almost always function as facilitators. Brokers try to make sure a sale is completed (and they get paid), rather than as fiduciary agents acting in the best interests of their clients, as the brokers claim to do.
* Brokers “double-dip,” promoting their own listings or the listings of their firm over properties better suited for their clients.
OT but like I said last week, ole BB has one hell of a hole to dig out of. Here’s just another part of the BB Trifecta starting to collape. BE is setting on one of those old fashion three legged stools that is starting to wear with age…….”n September, the PBGC announced that Delta’s overall pension shortfall was thought to be about $10.6 billion. If the government agency was forced to take responsibility for that amount, it “could make Delta the largest hit the agency has ever had to take, if all Delta’s pension plans end up with the agency. But the $10.6 billion estimate includes plans covering 91,000 active and retired flight attendants and ground workers at Delta who will not be immediately affected by Monday’s termination,” said CNN.”….and Delta asked for termination today…..
LA downtownnews reports downtown Los Angeles condo project is canceled. Buyers were at least given refunds and a nice bonus too!
The builder was standard pacific.
“Condo Buyers Surprised to Receive Refund Offers, As Development’s Future Is Uncertain”
http://www.ladowntownnews.com/articles/2006/06/19/news/news03.txt
Also see: http://la.curbed.com/