Mickey, Where's The Mortgage Money?

More economic numbers out this morning. The core producer price index rose 0.2%. Including food and energy the PPI fell 0.6%, which also matched forecasts.
Housing starts fell 14% to 1.6 million units in Janaury. This was slighly less then the 1.65 million units and represents the largest monthly decline since 1997.
Building permits fell 2.8% to 1.56 million, also shy of the 1.59 million forecast. (Thank you RealMoney).

Wow, so the deterioration in housing shows no sign of abating. I live in a one of the real estate hotbeads down here in southern Florida...and from the people I speak to a low level of panic is starting to kick in...especially from the "late" adopters, those that purchased in the last year and a half.

A friend just said last night, "...so housing should start to recover here, right?" And YukTrader replied, "we haven't even crashed yet!" So when the panic starts in places like the "Treasure Coast, you can only imagine what the rest of the country is going through...see you in the empty lot...jfg.