'There was a lot of denial going on'
The Sacramento Bee interviews Doug Pautsch, former Sacramento division president of Centex Homes (2006-2008). On the past:
Q: Sacramento was one of the first U.S. housing markets to fall apart. Was it a problem communicating that to headquarters?On the present & future:A: The first nine months everyone was in denial: "That's just a little cold that Sacramento has, just a little speed bump. We'll get through it. It's just Sacramento."
They didn't realize it was a flu that would become an epidemic. My local counterparts and I would talk about it. At their respective corporate offices, not just mine, people just didn't understand. Across the country everyone was full speed ahead. Money was flowing and sales were happening. It must just be Sacramento because it went up so quickly.
It was six to nine months before people realized this wasn't just a Sacramento issue. They'd say maybe it was just California or Florida, and maybe it was just Northern California. There was a lot of denial going on. But as we know, everybody caught the flu.
Related Centex posts:Q: Where is this market going?
A: I think we're at the bottom. We're going to bounce around a little bit...I think it will be next year when we start to see recovery. I define that as prices starting to go up.
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6 comments:
Recovery next year? He must be smoking something. Even the usually upbeat industry analysts are predicting no recovery before 2010.
This guy is a total doofus. If he represents the quality of management at the public homebuilders, they are all in BIG trouble.
As they say it's easy to not see the truth when your job depends upon it. Now that he's out of a job and fighting Centex for his $350K bonus, maybe he'll start reading the blogs and finding the truth. No bottom until 2012.
The recovery is happening right now. Prices going back up is not part of the treatment for this flu.
Lending standards were so relaxed, people took on so much debt, how evactly do prices go up any time soon?
And looking at past busts, when have prices gone up right after the bottom? Never...
You cant even get a piggy back loan anymore, so your only hope if you dont have that 20% is FHA, but how long will that last? And you still need 3% down and no more seller assistance (supposedely).
I was talking to a realtor last weekend, I think she was with Coldwell. Anyway, she said her office had been notified they will be getting 1200 more floreclosures within the next month.
Maybe the banks are moving out of denial and trying to sell at any price before the last few exits slam shut.
He flip flops like John F'ing Kerry. First he admits they missed the bubble then goes on to lose credibility by saying were now at the bottom. How lame are these guys. I wonder which level of hell they'll be sentenced to, I missed that in Dante's Inferno
Recovery??
Housing Tracker shows inventory up this month in 79% of the nation.
It also shows prices continue to drop in 88% of the nation.
This builder has no clue....it is the used home sales market that will continue to drag the builders down for years to come....
Foreclosures are going to haunt us for quite some time. There is just too much inventory and more coming....all at bank owned prices...which are still dropping, so they can move it off the books.
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