The whole housing market is catching...
"It is just a blood bath, a path of devastation," says a Denver Realtor. "It is just ugly."
Home prices down 15-17% from a couple of years ago...foreclosures up 63%...and the "flu" is spreading to Naples, Miami, Orange County, Boston...everywhere.
Boston Blues...
"It's unbelievable," a Realtor told The Boston Globe. These are "very large drops."Tears in Florida...
"One lady broke down in tears," says a Florida Realtor. "Her husband bought two investment properties, and they are going to lose their life savings."Minneapolis/St. Paul...
"15 houses per buyer. If we had buyers."
Dear Concerned Homeowner, It's here. For years, we've all heard about the housing bubble and how it could pop. Well, the wait is over. POP! POP! POP! POP! The worst real estate bust in American history has begun. Don't take my word for it. Just ask the people who are in the best position to know, like the Realtors quoted above. They see a drop in prices like you wouldn't believe... But wait until you hear the lenders - the people who made the bubble possible... Lenders see a 10-20% tumble in home prices Yes, you heard right: A 10-20% loss nationwide, according to a poll of American mortgage lenders. And much bigger losses in the hottest markets. How big? In the last housing bust about 15 years ago, prices in the hot Pacific and New England markets tumbled 25-30%. And that bubble was nothing compared with this one. Two out of every three lenders told the pollster there IS a bubble. It's real. A spokesman for the polling firm said, "In the minds of lenders, the housing bubble has moved from 'Loch Ness Monster' myth status to an economic reality..." It gets worse. Due to changes in the mortgage lending market, the housing bust won't be confined to a few hot markets this time. It will affect every single one of us. In fact, you'll discover in the next few minutes that we're headed into a devastating recession. 5 out of 10 lenders say the bust is here This is an amazing admission, coming from the heart of the real estate industry. It's as if the makers of aspartame were saying, "Forget it, you're never going to lose weight. And by the way, our product causes cancer." What's more, the mortgage lenders have lots of company. The activity index of the National Association of Home Builders is at a three-year low. And the National Association of REALTORS now predicts sales will drop this year. Remember, these are paid hacks for the housing industry. The real situation is two or three times as bad as they admit. Defaults rock the lenders Over the last few years, a lot of people paid for their homes with interest-only or adjustable-rate mortgages, called IOMs or ARMs. Now those mortgages are resetting at higher interest rates. Families can see their monthly payment go up 40 or 50%. The result is a huge, huge wave of defaults now hitting banks like a tsunami. My name is Dan Amoss, and my newsletter and weekly e-mail service - Strategic Investment - predicted the ARM disaster two years ago. At the time, everyone else was saying real estate is a "can't lose" proposition. The newsletter said, "Half of all buyers in those 'hot markets' are buying houses they can't afford...When interest rates spike up, their monthly payments are going to soar." My readers reaped enormous gains if they did exactly what was advised. They protected themselves with the investments recommended: As I write this, the average position in the portfolio is up 39.3%. Individual picks are up 144%...124%...79%...113%...67%... And these are just open positions. In 2004, our closed positions sported a gain of 49.5%, and in 2003, our average gain was just a whisker below 70% - to be precise, it was 69.96%. If you'd followed our strategy, you'd be up 300% in the last four years. That was then, and this is now. What steps do you need to take today? I explain how to protect yourself and profit in a FREE Special Report called Housing Leads the Way Into Recession: 5 Ways to Protect Yourself. I beg you to send for your free copy so you don't get clobbered by the worst real estate market in American history. Folks are losing their homes in record numbers. It's not just a personal problem when 10 or 15 million homeowners have negative equity or can't meet their payments. It will take down the world's biggest lenders. We're staring at a financial collapse. We've Already Gained 124% by Betting Against the Bubble The tears are coming, but they don't have to be yours A lot is about to change in the world. Very soon - probably within months - these will seem like the good old days. You'll wonder, "Why on earth didn't I sell at the top? Why did I stretch to buy overvalued property or overhyped stocks? I should have known it was a bubble." LISTEN: After a bubble pops, everyone "knows" it was a bubble. That doesn't do you any good. Time is running out - You must act now to protect yourself Don't wait. Protect yourself now. I've got a way you can do that, and I lay it all out for you in a free Special Report called The Ultimate Money Hedge: Your Best Safeguard Against a Dollar Collapse. The No. 1 pick in this report is an Australian mining company that's already up 124% since I my readers were urged to buy the stock. Let me tell you about this four-way winner... Why an Australian company? Several reasons: Real things hold their value in real terms Gold is a familiar example. If the long-term value of an ounce of gold is 15 barrels of oil, you can count on that relationship to hold with amazing consistency. The gold may go to $1,875 and the oil may go to $125, but you can still make the trade. Who's the loser? That's easy. Not the guy who bought the gold. And not the guy who bought the oil. The loser is the guy who holds the dollars. He lost value in terms of the things that count - the gold and the oil. It's as simple as that. And if you've been wondering why gold and oil have taken off, now you know. It's because of America's credit bubble and the shrinking value of our dollars. By the way, I didn't pull those numbers out of the air - $1,875 gold and $125 oil. Those are real-world possibilities. We've urged our readers to load up on both, and our model portfolio sports gains of 49%, 50%, and 84% in gold stocks and 73%, 85%, and 99% in energy. The Australian commodities giant is a screaming BUY. Get all the details in your FREE Special Report - PLUS more long-term winners. Rocky Mountain News calls it "Foreclosure Shock" In March, the Denver market saw foreclosures soar from a year ago. Georgia foreclosures were up by a hefty percentage as well. In Akron, Ohio, foreclosures are running about three times higher than a decade ago. In parts of Texas, foreclosures are at a 17-year high. But those figures may already be out of date. As I write these words, foreclosures nationwide were up 63% from a year ago, according to the U.S. Foreclosure Market Report. Events are moving faster than I can get the news out. It's going to get worse - much worse. By the time you read these words, foreclosures may double or triple. Here's why... Experts agree about $2 trillion worth of adjustable-rate mortgages are due to "reset" at higher interest rates. California is the worst culprit. Up to half of all first-time homebuyers used interest-only mortgages. In some markets, three out of four recent mortgages were ARMS, according to Fortune magazine. As recently as five or six years ago, most people would have laughed at the idea of an interest-only loan. It's a gimmick the lenders came up with so that millions more people could qualify for a mortgage. These are so-called subprime borrowers - bad credit risks. Now - surprise! - they can't pay their debts. The banks loaned tons of money to people who had no business buying a house. Can you handle 9 years of zero appreciation? Keep reading... In California, prices have soared so high only 15% of the people can afford a typical middle-class house. You have to make about $135,000 a year to afford an "average" house. The rest of the country isn't that far out of whack, but it's bad enough. The only way to bring things into line is for incomes to go up or home prices to come down or some combination of the two. 15% decline over three years... Barron's reports, "Such levels of overvaluation are typically followed by price declines of about 15% that take an average of three years to unfold." 12 years... The Economist, the respected British magazine, says "Home priceswould need to remain flat for over 10 years to bring America's ratio of house prices to rents back to its long-term norm." Five years, 20% price drop... Some economists are saying that the coming rebalancing period could last half a decade because it would require a 20% correction nationally... 10-15% drop in the next 12 months... "One likely scenario is that housing prices would drop 10undefined15% in the bubble zone over the next 12 months, then remain flat for maybe four more years while incomes catch up," says Fortune senior writer Shawn Tully. "And in some places, appreciation has been so sharp that a seller could see prices plunge 30%..." Five years, 25% drop... The Weekly Standard says prices in the Washington, D.C., area would have to drop 25% to return to a normal price/income ratio within the next five years. And that's if personal income continues to grow at a smart 5% rate. In other words, if there's no recession. Prices down 25% in Washington? Crazy? Impossible? Don't kid yourself. It's happened before. Listen to this report from D.C.'s Virginia suburbs: "My wife and I bought a home here in Virginia in 1998 for the same price the previous owners had paid way back in 1989. That's nine years of zero appreciation." Their mortgage is now bigger than the value of their home Many of these folks put nothing down. They have no equity in their homes. Over the last couple of years, about one homeowner out of four made no down payment. And if you focus on first-time buyers, 42% of them put nothing down. Of course, they have to pay a big commission if they sell the house, so they were losing money the minute the seller gave them the keys. In round numbers, half the people who bought a house last year have negative equity. As the housing bust deepens, their equity is going to get more and more negative every month. But it's not just recent buyers who have negative equity. With the refinancing boom, millions of long-term owners have borrowed all the equity out of their homes. Americans have treated their homes like piggy banks, taking the money out and spending on frills. The great appraisal scandal Here's a kicker for you: A lot of those people don't KNOW they owe more than their house is worth. They're about to get a shock. Folks who refinanced a year or two ago are finding out their homes are worth less than the appraised value. All over the country, appraisals have been inflated by lenders eager to make loans and real estate agents eager to close the deal whatever it takes. Here's a prediction for you: The appraisal scandal will soon explode in the mainstream media. When this mess falls apart, you're going to discover how lenders and real estate agents pressured appraisers to overvalue homes. The lawyers will be busy! Congress will hold 24 hearings asking how this could possibly happen. All they had to do was read my newsletter, Strategic Investment, a year ago and they would have seen it coming. It's too late for some homeowners They're learning the terrible truth. Their homes are worth less than they thought. But they still owe every penny they borrowed. Nationwide, a mere 5% drop in home prices will wipe out all the equity of about one homeowner out of five. And I mean one-fifth of ALL homeowners, not just first-time buyers or those who bought recently. But we'll be lucky if there's only a 5% drop. I expect much worse... Take a look at your neighbors and figure that one out of every five is "upside down" already. The house is worth less than the mortgage. And take a last look, because the FOR SALE signs are going to go up as they lose their homes. You see, besides having no equity, they also have an ARM and their monthly payment just shot up, maybe 40%. Plus, with the price of oil, they can't afford to heat the place and drive to work. And oh yes, local governments are reassessing like crazy to capture all the real estate appreciation. So taxes are going up, too, and the "nothing down" buyers didn't figure on that when they agreed to a payment that was 35% or 40% of their income. People brag about the gain they've made on their house. Who cares? Strategic Investments advised readers to take a 60% gain on one of our bets that house prices are going down. Our readers reaped that gain on one of the recommendations you'll find in my FREE Special Report, Housing Leads the Way Into Recession: 5 Ways to Protect Yourself. You've still got time to act - but not much! Events are moving fast, and every day, we're reaping gains on the recommendations in this report and in your issues of Strategic Investment. Click the "Subscribe Now" button on the following page to order your free Special Reports. 53 cities are "extremely overvalued," says major lender The chief economist at National City Corp., a giant mortgage lender, says real estate is way overvalued in 53 cities. His definition of "extreme overvaluation" is when prices are 30% above norm. What's amazing is that National City is one of the nation's top 10 mortgage lenders. This is like the doctor telling you you've got two months to live. No wonder the lenders expect a blood bath. The waiting is over. Florida builder sells homes for cost Big condominium projects have been canceled in Florida, Las Vegas, and Massachusetts. And the units already built are going for fire-sale prices. Houses aren't "For Sale." They're "On Sale." "Skittish investors, leery of the air seeping out of the housing bubble, have left at least one area homebuilder awash with completed homes and no buyers in sight," says a Daytona Beach newspaper. This builder was selling 40 homes at cost. A buying opportunity? I don't think so. The bust is just getting under way. The 3 stages of death for housing bubbles The United States has lots of company when it comes to housing bubbles. In fact, the housing bubble has been worldwide. According to The Economist, the total value of residential property in developed countries like Europe and North America rose by $30 trillion in the last five years. That's equal to 100% of their collective GDPs. In other words, the citizens of the wealthy countries have created more wealth by sitting on their rear ends and watching their houses go up than they produced by going to work every day. The sum total of everything we've produced from dry cleaning to computers to automobiles - everything we produce in a year - is less than we've made on our homes. Or that's what people think. Millions of Americans still believe this, but in some countries, the bust has already hit and they know better. Housing in the United Kingdom went from a 20% gain in 2004 to a loss in 2005. So did Australia. The Economist identifies three critical stages in a housing bust. First, interest rates go up. Then prices stall because first-time buyers are priced out of the market. Then investors see the boom is over and they stop buying too. Guess what... Investors throw in the towel In America, we're at the third stage. Investors are bailing out - and that's bad news because a huge portion of the buying over the last couple of years has been investors. In Las Vegas, developers just canceled a huge $3 billion, 11-tower condo complex near the Strip. Movie stars were among the investors. This deal was as high-profile as you can get. Now it's dead. According to a real estate consultant in Deerfield Beach, Fla., speculators own three-fourths of the condos in his area. He says the market is just "speculators selling to other speculators." Another real estate consultant estimates that "80% of the sales in Miami went to investors at the peak of the market." Miami has 25,000 new apartments under construction and permits have been issued for another 25,000. Yet the market absorbed only 10,500 in the last 10 years. This can only end one way. And it won't be good. The big lie about asking prices As I write this, official figures show home prices are still going up in most regions. Don't believe it. We spoke to a realtor who explained how the prices are cooked. The builders in his market now pay agents a 6% commission, compared with 1% or 2% a year ago. In fact, some builders wouldn't work with outside real estate agents back then. Didn't need 'em. Now the builders pay 6% commission PLUS a $10,000 bonus in some cases. That means they make $34,000 less profit on a $400,000 home. AND they lower the asking price $60,000. Add it all up and they're giving a discount of more than $90,000 on a $400,000 house. Then the builder books it as a $400,000 sale and hides the discount and commissions in the advertising budget. In the official stats, the price didn't go down. If you put that house on sale tomorrow, you couldn't get $300,000, much less $400,000. And you'd have to pay a 6% commission, leaving you with $282,000. 
While your neighbors go bust, we offer...
3 BOOMS for Your Money!
My readers hold a 67% gain from three long-term, locked-in trends: the electricity boom, the nuclear boom, and the Asian boom.
You could profit from all three - with one stock.
The opportunities most investors don't know about would fill a book.
It's as if the mainstream news were designed to keep you ignorant. That's why they're "discovering" the real estate bubble now - two years too late.
And of course, everyone wrings their hands about the oil crisis. You'd think it was the biggest thing going. But in reality, the world has been switching to other fuels for decades. Especially electricity. The electric industry is far more important than petroleum, yet you don't hear much about it.
Electricity is one of the biggest growth industries in the world
Better yet, the electric industry will grow like Topsy even if there's a deep recession. The information age runs on electricity - not oil - and every major economy needs more, more, more. Yet all you hear about is oil and gas prices at the pump - the never-ending obsession of mainstream news people.
The United States needs to build hundreds of power plants. So do China, India, Japan, Korea...every growing economy. China suffers from massive brownouts and blackouts. Some factories are allowed to run only during off-peak hours. Many others have been forced to buy their own generators.
So the Chinese have launched a crash program to build as much generating capacity as they can, as fast as they can. They have no choice.
Their dilemma is your chance to profit
We love it when a big player with lots of money MUST do something. You almost can't lose when you buy companies that supply electric power plant construction or equipment to the Chinese. You're at the cutting edge of two booms - China and electricity.
I've got a company for you that's already getting rich off the trend - yet Wall Street still hasn't noticed. That's OK by me. We'll be positioned when the herd piles in.
An under-the-radar player in a boom industry
Thanks to Wall Street's shortsightedness, this stock is still incredibly cheap. As I write this, its P/E ratio is a measly 9.20 and it sells for less than book value. 
Yet it's already up 67% since I mentioned it to readers.
And if that doesn't whet your appetite, it has a business plan to become one of the top 100 global companies within 10 years.
Imagine how much higher the stock will go when the public catches on!
What's more, my pick is not a Chinese stock. As you'll discover in your FREE Special Reports, buying Chinese stocks is NOT the best, safest way to profit from China's booming economy.
My pick is a power company in a nearby, more developed country that sells to the Chinese. You see, while America buys stuff from the Chinese and runs a huge trade deficit, China's Asian neighbors sell to China and run huge surpluses.
Boom No. 3: The fastest-growing segment of the power industry
If you're a typical American, you might be surprised to learn that nuclear power is the fastest growing part of the electric industry.
Americans are so scared of the nuclear boogeyman that we haven't ordered a new plant since 1973.
The rest of the world has a different attitude. France gets 77% of its power from nuclear plants. Belgium, Sweden, Finland - they've all gone nuclear.
While we lined up for silly Hollywood movies about meltdowns, other countries solved the safety problems and forged ahead. There are now hundreds of nuclear power plants worldwide - including 104 in the United States. And together they've logged thousands of reactor years without a single accident. The technology has advanced far beyond what scaremongers tell you.
Today's nuclear plants are safe, cheap, and clean Our Asian electric company is a major player in the worldwide nuclear power boom. And boy, is it going to make money...
Japan and Korea get 39% of their electricity from nuclear plants - and they've got 20 new ones on the way. But the big market is China. China plans to more than triple its nuclear power plants soon. Longer term, some experts believe the Chinese will build 200 more nuclear plants by 2050.
My pick occupies the sweet spot in this boom. Claim your share of the profits! Send for my FREE Special Report, The Real Asset Explosion: Make 10 Times Your Money in the Resource Boom.
The Alternative to Fighting in the Middle East for the Next 50 Years
My solutions are up 29% and 15% in mere weeks...
I'm willing to bet a six-pack of your favorite brew that America's days of desert war are over. George Bush has lost the support of just about everyone but his relatives, and I'm not too sure about them. No future president will want to go down the same path.
This comes just when oil-producing countries all over the world are flexing their muscles. Many are dictatorships or "fake" democracies like Russia or Venezuela. These oil-producing countries have got what the world can't do without, and as far as they're concerned, it's payback time.
Some, like Nigeria, are descending into chaos. Others, like Saudi Arabia, face revolution. As I write this, we stand on the brink of war with Iran.
No conceivable exercise of military power can ensure America's oil supply.
Meaning...
We've got to find new, safe energy sources, or give up our comfortable way of life. Even the thickheads in Washington see we've got a big national security problem.
How are we going to tackle the problem?
I reveal the two most likely choices in a new Special Report called Gassed to Go: America's Last Great Energy Boom.
The market seems to agree with me. Just a few weeks after I published these two picks, one of them is up 15% and the other jumped 29%.
First, I believe the United States is going to open up large offshore areas to drilling. These federal areas hold almost 90 billion barrels of oil, according to some experts, and huge amounts of natural gas to boot. It's the equivalent of seven or eight Alaskan North Slope oil fields.
Just a little leasing will make a big boom
The government won't open up this whole treasure trove, but they'll lease enough of it to create a bonanza in exploration and production off American shores.
I've spotted a company with a 50% market share in drilling. That's right: They own half the industry.
Revenue in 2005 soared 191% over the year before, and earnings as I write this are racing ahead - way more than double the year-ago period. All this is based on current operations - just wait until the new drilling boom gets under way!
The company sells for 19 times 2006 earnings. That's reasonable when you consider the energy boom. But get this - the price is only 13 times 2007 earnings. In other words, growth is baked into the cake. All you have to do is buy the stock and watch the profits roll in.
My second pick: Like buying Saudi Arabia in 1950
Your free Special Report also reveals my second pick - a play on America's abundant coal resources.
You see, the United States is the Saudi Arabia of coal - it's got about a quarter of the world's reserves. And if you think coal is dirty, think again.
Coal can be cleaned up - rendered pollution free - and even converted to a gas or a liquid - at prices that look cheap compared with petroleum at $70 per barrel. The truth is clean liquefied or gasified coal looks cheap even with oil at $30.
Not to mention we've got urgent national security reasons for shaking our oil addiction. So...
Welcome to the Age of Coal
I predict the next few decades will be the Age of Coal - and buying the resource now is like buying a Middle East oil field in 1950.
Boring, old-fashioned coal is about to become a glamorous growth industry!
America already gets half its electricity from coal, with 140 new power plants in development. True, we could meet our electricity needs with nuclear power. In fact, that would be more sensible. But I think our anti-nuke fanatics will make any move in that direction very slow, very cautious...and maybe downright impossible.
In other words, coal is in like Flynn. Buy it and count your profits - buy the coal colossus I recommend in your FREE Special Report, Gassed to Go: America's Last Great Energy Boom.