by Calculated Risk on 6/19/2007 09:37:00 AM

From the LA Times: Report from UCLA team skirts the R-word

"We suspect that the weakness in the housing market is finally spilling over into consumption spending," wrote senior economist David Shulman in the quarterly forecast being released today. "Retail sales appeared to stall in April and automobile sales have become decidedly weak.

"This is not a recession, but it is certainly close," Shulman said.

And on California housing:

In a separate report on the California economy, UCLA forecasters predicted home values would continue to fall slightly or remain flat in most parts of the state as many homeowners struggled to make higher payments on adjustable-rate mortgages.

"The pipeline of mortgage resets suggests it may be mid-2009 before California sees a normal housing market again," said the report by economist Ryan Ratcliff.

This fits with this Financial Times article: Bernanke hints at thinking on housing (hat tip Roubini)

Changes in house prices could have a bigger effect on consumption than the traditional “wealth effect” suggests, Ben Bernanke said on Friday in comments that offer some insight into how the Federal Reserve may think about the continuing problems in the US housing market.

The Federal Reserve chairman told a conference hosted by the Atlanta Fed that, in addition to making homeowners richer or poorer, changes in house prices might influence the cost and availability of credit to consumers.

This is because people with equity in their homes have more at stake in avoiding default. That, in turn, reduces the premium char-ged by lenders owing to their imperfect knowledge of their borrowers’ financial circumstances.

If this theory is correct, Mr Bernanke said, “changes in home values may affect household borrowing and spending by somewhat more than suggested by the conventional wealth effect”.