Europe Debt: US Home Prices: Remembering The Past

The following map, courtesy of the Wall Street Journal, shows the coming maturity schedule for leveraged buyout loans in Europe from 2012 - 2016 as well as which countries have the largest exposure.  A leveraged buyout is when a buyer takes control of a company's equity using a significant amount of debt to make the purchase.  This massive debt rollover, added to the already massive European government debt rollover, will only add to the problems Europe faces in the years ahead.

CoreLogic released their pricing for the month of January this morning showing a 1% decline month over month.  Prices have once again reached a new post bubble low.

To begin the year I discussed the overvaluation of the stock market in terms of pricing and fundamentals in 2012 Real Estate Outlook: United States Stock Market.  Back in the middle of February I discussed the euphoria surrounding the market in Stock Market Sentiment: We Can Only Go Higher.  Since then the market has continued its day in and day out upward tear higher.  It had its first slow down yesterday, falling by over 200 points.  It is always good to go back in history and see what the sentiment was like just before major market downturns (people always were euphoric and believed there was no trouble ahead).  The following excellent video from PBS provides a review of the year 1929 just before the crash that led to the great depression.

 

Watch The Crash of 1929 on PBS. See more from American Experience.