by Calculated Risk on 11/11/2005 04:36:00 PM

First comes rising housing inventories, then slowing activity and less mortgage extraction, followed by a drop in retail sales, rising foreclosures, falling house prices and less housing related employment. At least that is the general sequence I expect.

In Massachusetts, inventories to sales is already over 8 months, prices have started to fall and foreclosures are rising: A rise in foreclosures

Don't look now, but that whistling sound you're hearing is the air leaking out of the housing bubble.
...
More disturbing yet is a sharp rise in foreclosures. Over the first nine months of this year, foreclosures in Massachusetts are up 33 percent over the same period in 2004.

"We are seeing a big increase, we've seen a steady increase, and there's going to be more going forward," Jeremy Shapiro, president and co-founder of Framingham-based ForeclosuresMass.com said.

Behind the figures lie several factors. Zero-interest mortgages allowed buyers to borrow more than they could afford. Interest rates are going up, pushing up payments for those holding adjustable-rate mortgages. Families mortgaged to the hilt can't handle it when one earner loses a job or some unexpected expense comes up.

And from Australia, a country that has already seen falling housing prices: Unemployment rate rises further

Job-shedding in Australia has extended into a second month.

A plunge in full-time job numbers has more than offset a solid rise in part-time positions.

Official figures show full-time places slumped in October by 60,800 - the worst outcome since the 1991 recession.

The number of people looking for work has declined, and that has kept a lid on the rise in the jobless rate.

It now stands at 5.2 per cent.

Most of the United States is in the 'rising inventories' phase, but these stories depict the probable future for much of the US.