Thursday Morning: U.S. Housing Slump Hits Mexico

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The LA Times sees spillover effects from the weak U.S. home-building market on Mexico. Marla Dickerson, reporting from Mexico City, says the slowdown in U.S. construction means that less money is being sent home to Mexico by Mexican immigrants who build the houses. It’s not mentioned in that story, but other reports have pointed out that, because a large portion of the homebuilding industry is off-the-books labor, often done by illegal immigrants, the U.S. government is underestimating the econommic impact of a slowing home-building market. Over at the Native Intelligence section of LA Observed, TJ Sullivan argues you can’t trust the realtors when they start talking about housing affordability. He says the realtors have cooked the numbers to make it appear that the California housing market is becoming MORE affordable to first-time buyers. The article is a bit weighty, but you can remember the conclusion: Median, Schmedian. On the subject of homebuilding, Pulte Homes and Calabasas-based Ryland Group -- both big homebuilders -- reported crummy financial results. The media usually calls these stories ‘earnings reports,’ but in this case, that would be wrong, because there were no ‘earnings’ involved -- only losings. Together the two companies lost $110 million in the first quarter. A year ago, they reported combined earnings of $352 million in the first quarter. In a pretty unusual move for a big publicly-traded company, Ryland isn’t even offering a guesstimate of what its business will be like for the rest of the year. Comments? Feedback? Insight? Use the comment button, or send story tips to [email protected].