Things are looking pretty sideways.

I figured it would take me about a week before I could wade through the multi layers off bullshit to see how the economy is really doing. It was looking lurchy enough that I broke down and polled a couple of people in the real estate business.

I like to stay away from them, when it comes down to it - they just aren't that smart of people. And the phoniness I can only take in small doses. It always a good time to buy doncha know. Plus they don't always know why things are happening or recognise/admit they are happening at all.

Anyway. I'm thinking things are looking really soft right now. First, my property manager admitted things had slowed down in the past two months. Which freaked me out - because they never admit that. It's never been a better time to buy or rent. She is also a real estate agent. So, double that it's never been a better time to buy or rent.

Last night I went through the rentals because I have a rental, and even they are sitting on the market for way longer. I think I rented my place in about 6 days back in May. Places seem to be sitting for about 20 days now on average. Rents have stopped their rapid rise for now. I would say rents are slightly down to flat.

Then I ran into my neighbor in the store. His wife is a mortgage broker. You can't believe how many people are tied in one way or another to real estate. Seriously. I didn't realize until the recession. Anyway. He said that about a month ago things slowed down. His wife normally does around 25 mortgages a day, and they were down to about five a day. It must have been severe enough that he admitted that his wife started worrying about having to lay people off. He also said that the banks are getting more stringent because of bad loans? Or that there wasn't enough liquidity. I'm not sure which, and I didn't dive into that more because I didn't think he would know anyway. Plus I don't take one persons opinion. I got enough tidbits of info to ask other people about it.

I think things must be generally soft because you don't resort to thinking about layoffs if you only have a one or two week drag. Also I've started reading some stories of high end real estate areas showing some stress.

My guess is that the strains of deflation are really starting to hit companies now. But the internet tells me there is no bad deflation. Only good deflation. /sarc.