posted
I dont mean to sound like chicken little but....THE SKY IS FALLING!!!!!!
-------------------------------------------------- Wednesday August 1, 7:08 pm ET By Tom Krisher, AP Auto Writer
DETROIT (AP) -- The Detroit automakers' share of the U.S. market dropped below 50 percent in July for the first time in history, according to two analysts who track industry numbers. Jesse Toprak, senior analyst for the Edmunds.com automotive Web site, and Jeff Schuster, executive director of global forecasting for J.D. Power and Associates, each said that foreign-based automakers took more than half the U.S. market for the first time, citing sales data released by the companies Wednesday.
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Autodata Corp., an industry sales tracking company, pegged the market share controlled by Chrysler Group, Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Corp. at 49.5 percent including foreign nameplates they own such as Saab, Volvo, Land Rover and Jaguar.
Excluding the foreign nameplates, Detroit's market share drops to 48.1 percent, Autodata said.
The market share drop came during a month in which all major automakers but Nissan Motor Co. saw sales declines.
GM sales dropped 22.3 percent when compared to a strong July of 2006, while Ford declined 19.1 percent and Chrysler fell 8.4 percent. Even Toyota Motor Corp., which had been posting strong gains most of the year, reported a decline of 7.4 percent after a record-setting July of last year.
The fact that foreign nameplates now control more than half the U.S. market will mean little to the average consumer, but it likely will damage the psyche of Detroit's automakers, Toprak said.
"It's probably a turning point for people who look at the record books. Domestics on their home turf are being beaten by the foreign automakers in terms of their market share," he said.
But George Pipas, Ford's top sales analyst, said the drop doesn't mean much to anyone since the Detroit Three have been below a 50 percent share of retail sales before. Retail sales do not include sales to rental car companies and fleet buyers.
"I don't think it is particularly significant," Pipas said during a conference call with reporters and industry analysts. "The reason is because there is relatively little fleet content in July, and obviously the Big Three do more fleet business than do the foreign manufacturers."
Erich Merkle, vice president of forecasting for auto consulting company IRN Inc. in Grand Rapids, said the Detroit Three are much more dependent on trucks, which are faltering as housing starts drop. Trucks represent around 30 percent of the vehicle mix for Ford and GM, compared to 5 percent of the mix at Toyota, Merkle said.
"They have their work cut out for them," Merkle said. "The Big Three are going to have to figure out how to be competitive outside of pickup trucks."
Analysts attributed the overall auto market dip in July to high gasoline prices, declining home values, higher payments on adjustable rate mortgages and reluctant consumers.
Toyota sold more vehicles than Ford last month. Its truck sales were flat thanks in part to heavy incentives, but its car sales fell 11.8 percent. Year to date, Ford still held a lead of 11,561 vehicles over Toyota, keeping it No. 2 in the U.S.
GM, still the biggest carmaker in the U.S., said overall sales were down 9.4 percent for the year. Paul Ballew, GM's executive director of global market and industry analysis, said GM's sales were down largely because the company had strong sales in July of last year. But the industry overall saw soft sales on both coasts and in the upper Midwest.
Still, GM is not meeting targets set in its restructuring plan.
"This is certainly not the way we wanted to start the summer selling season," Ballew said.
Nissan bucked the trend with sales up 1.7 percent, thanks to the addition of the subcompact Versa and the Altima coupe to its lineup. Nissan sales were up 4.2 percent for the year.
But for most companies, the news was dismal. Ford's U.S. sales were down 12.2 percent for the year. Part of the decline came from cuts in sales to rental car companies, Pipas said. Ford slashed rental sales by 57 percent, or 14,000 vehicles, in July as part of a broader effort to reduce rental sales by 30 percent in 2007.
Ford said one bright spot was sales of crossover vehicles, which were up 40 percent for the month thanks to new entries such as the Ford Edge and Lincoln MKX. GM and Honda also reported brisk sales of crossovers.
Honda Motor Co. said its U.S. sales were down 7 percent for the month, including a 9.7 percent drop in truck sales. Its sales were up 1.7 percent, year to date.
DaimlerChrysler AG said its U.S. sales fell 9.1 percent in July. Chrysler Group said sales were down 8.4 percent for the month, while Mercedes-Benz said U.S. sales fell 13.9 percent from the same month a year ago. The carmaker has fallen 2.3 percent so far this year.
Merkle said with high gas prices and rising rates on adjustable mortgages and home equity loans, consumers simply have less money to buy cars.
"You've got a consumer right now that's really being stretched," Merkle said. "In many cases debt levels are incredibly high to the point where you're seeing a lot of foreclosures."
The Associated Press reports unadjusted figures, calculating the percentage change in the total number of vehicles sold in one month compared with the same month a year earlier. Some automakers report percentages adjusted for sales days. There were 24 sales days last month and 25 in July 2006.
-------------------- "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication" Posts: 4005 | From: Shaolin | Registered: Oct 2005
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i posted in another thread that terrorists and revolutionaries come from the rich and the poor.. the middle class is too busy working to bother protesting and "insurging".. in essence? these guys damn well better figger out a way to create good paying jobs for the middle class, or within ten years? things are gonna be seriously ugly...
-------------------- Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise. Posts: 36378 | From: USA | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
well,budgee will like this: HUD Secretary Martinez Emphasizes President Bush's Homeownership Initiative
July 1, 2002 Housing and Urban Development Secretary Mel Martinez told the mayors at the plenary luncheon on Saturday, June 15, that President Bush was the first president to dedicate a full month calling the nation's attention to homeownership. In his weekly radio address, the Secretary said, President Bush had outlined the initiatives that the administration will pursue to increase homeownership in America, especially with minorities. Secretary Martinez reported that the President would go to Atlanta to follow up his radio address, and to "challenge the real estate industry and others to join government and non-profits to increase minority homeownership." The President also said that "the complexity and difficulty of the purchasing process" hindered minority homeownership. To overcome this problem, he said that his administration would increase its "efforts to better educate first-time home buyers." He added: Financial education and housing counseling can help protect home buyers against abuses, greatly improve the loan terms they are offered, and help families get through tough times with their homes intact." To hear HUD Secretary Mel Martinez's address, go to usmayors.org
i guess they forgot to make sure the education included the one-third rule
only allocate one third of your after tax income on mortgage payments...
i had to laugh the other day when Tony Snow EMPHATICALLY denied that the mortgage issues had anything to do with Bush and his policies...
American Dream Downpayment Act of 2003
Expanding Homeownership Opportunities for All Americans
On December 16, 2003, President Bush signed into law the American Dream Downpayment Act of 2003, which will help approximately 40,000 families a year with their down payment and closing costs, and further strengthen America’s housing market. This legislation complements the President’s aggressive housing agenda announced in 2002 to dismantle the barriers to homeownership.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Census Bureau released data showing that new home construction in November reached its highest level in nearly 20 years. Overall housing starts rose 4.5 percent from October and rose 17.6 percent from November of 2002. Single-family housing starts totaled 1,695,000 (SAAR) in November, up 3.3 percent from October and up 20.8 percent from November 2002 – a record for single-family starts.
posted
OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE: TENNESSEE ATTORNEY GENERAL BOB COOPER AND TENNESSEE DEPARTMENT OF FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS COMMISSIONER GREG GONZALES
NASHVILLE - Tennessee Attorney General Bob Cooper and Tennessee Department of Financial Institutions Commissioner Greg Gonzales said today that 5,690 consumers are eligible for $2.7 million in restitution from Ameriquest Mortgage Company and its related companies as part of a $325 million national settlement of a predatory lending lawsuit against the company.
The settlement resolves allegations by the Attorneys General and banking regulators of the District of Columbia and every state except Virginia (where Ameriquest did not do business) that Ameriquest and its affiliates, among other things, misrepresented and did not adequately disclose the terms of home loans, such as whether a loan carried a fixed or an adjustable rate; charged excessive loan origination fees and prepayment penalties; refinanced borrowers into improper or inappropriate loans; and improperly inflated appraisals used to qualify borrowers for loans. http://www.wreg.com/Global/story.asp?S=6796566
i can't beleive anybody would sign a mortgage not knowing whether its an ARM or not... this whole thing is looking worse and worse...
Lax regulation cited as root of loan fraud Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal - April 20, 2007 by Sharon Simonson Despite months of collective hand-wringing and copious media coverage of home loan problems, the residential mortgage industry remains succeptible to dishonest and ignorant workers who continue to originate poor and fraudulent loans.
People know that they most likely won't get caught," says Stanley Tseng, president-elect of the Silicon Valley chapter of the California Association of Mortgage Brokers. "That's why (fraud) continues to be rampant." http://sanjose.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/2007/04/23/story2.html
and Bush said "release the hounds"
-------------------- Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise. Posts: 36378 | From: USA | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
my sister bought a much bigger house in FLA...
i don't know the mortgage they got, but i do know they got hammered on taxes... i think she said the taxes alone went up more than 200/month and they hadn't expected that...
-------------------- Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise. Posts: 36378 | From: USA | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
Yeah I was talking to sombody about that. Basically he told me that Florida was notorious for being one big retirement community. Then with the housing boom alot of families started to move there. Now Florida has to start building more schools to accommodate the massive inflow of youngin's.
-------------------- "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication" Posts: 4005 | From: Shaolin | Registered: Oct 2005
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posted
They actually sent out search party...and when they found us "the sheriff" wanted to fine us for not having fishing licences! We were laughing.."we didnt catch anything" he said "did your hooks go in the water"
By that time my friends older brother was their and pissed. He told the sheriff to take his badge off and step outside...surprisingly the sheriff backed off
-------------------- "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication" Posts: 4005 | From: Shaolin | Registered: Oct 2005
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if i told you how low property taxes are here in MS you'd have a cow...
we make up for it (just a little) in grocery taxes, 7% .. i think we are the highest in the nation (and we have the most people who can't afford them too)...
-------------------- Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise. Posts: 36378 | From: USA | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
Yeah, well my friends wer actually 16. The guy that rented us the boat and polls didnt ask if we had them when he rented us the crap.
that was the first and last time this city-boy went fishing.....well unless I count the time when I was 5 and went out for MONSTER sunny's at a park lake near my home....LOL
-------------------- "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication" Posts: 4005 | From: Shaolin | Registered: Oct 2005
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