Analysis Topic: Housing Market Price trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.Tuesday, September 02, 2008
Chancellor Darling's Panic Move on Stamp Duty Freeze to Rescue Housing Market / Housing-Market / US Housing
The Telegraph is reporting Chancellor raises stamp duty threshold to £175,000 .Buyers of homes worth up to £175,000 will not have to pay stamp duty, Alistair Darling has announced, as he promised the country would "get through" the economic downturn.
In a surprise move to try to revive the housing market, the embattled Chancellor said that the £125,000 threshold at which buyers pay 1 per cent stamp duty will be raised from tomorrow and frozen at the new level for one year.
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Monday, September 01, 2008
When Will Southern California House Prices Bottom? / Housing-Market / US Housing
Inquiring minds are wondering about California home prices. My friend "BC" pinged me recently with the following thoughts:Were the Kuznets Cycle to confirm to past patterns, real median CA house prices will not again return to the '04-'06 levels for another 15-20 yrs., if then given the longer-term demographic profile, normalized lending standards, and likely slower real GDP growth trend (2% vs. 3-3.5%).
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Sunday, August 31, 2008
Fed Rate Cuts Fail to Halt US House Price Crash / Housing-Market / US Housing
Feldstein says low Fed rates may not stimulate growth
“Harvard University economist Martin Feldstein, a member of the committee that charts American business cycles, said the Federal Reserve cannot count on low interest rates to buoy economic growth.
“‘Lower interest rates are not going to get us anything more,' said Feldstein, who retired in June as president of the National Bureau of Economic Research. ‘The economy has really shown one sign after another of weakening.'”
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Friday, August 29, 2008
US Real Estate Another Bottom in Sight? / Housing-Market / US Housing
Once again, real estate market watchers have pounced on a shred of seemingly positive news to proclaim that the long sought “bottom” is in sight. The routine is becoming extremely stale, but somehow the media never seems to tire of it. This time the “good” news was that the percentage declines in national home prices (according to Case Shiller) in July where not as large as they were in June. Although the report contained many other negative data points, including increased inventories and a spike in foreclosure sales, it was the slowing declines that got spotlight. Talk about grasping at straws.
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Wednesday, August 27, 2008
UK Idiotic Tax Policy Demolishes Properties / Housing-Market / UK Housing
Previously we discussed the Growing Herd Of White Elephants in the US. Today, let's take a look at white elephants in the UK.Preemptive White Elephant Demolition
The Telegraph is reporting Buildings razed turning British cities into 'bombsites' .
Hundreds of buildings are being razed as a result of an empty property tax, turning British cities into "bombsites", a government regeneration chief said.
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Thursday, August 14, 2008
The US Housing Market Mess the Experts Missed / Housing-Market / US Housing
The latest data on housing continues to worsen on most fronts.In fact, the data is now showing strong indications of bold predictions I mad in 2006 and as recently as May 2008 – the prime mortgages would be next. For those of you who did not read my May 13, 2008 article, “NAR's Yun Continues to Mislead on Housing” I have reprinted it below.Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
American Housing Rescue and Foreclosure Prevention Act / Housing-Market / US Housing
Recently Congress passed the American Housing Rescue and Foreclosure Prevention Act., also known as the Housing Bill. Its passage was lauded by many who are legitimately concerned about foreclosures and the housing market in our country's economy. I was asked how I could vote against a bill to help American homeowners, but I found this bill to have more to do with helping big banks than helping average Americans.Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, August 08, 2008
The Day That Alt-A Mortgages Died / Housing-Market / US Housing
Bloomberg is reporting Fannie Mae, Battling Losses, to End Alt-A Mortgages .Fannie Mae, the largest U.S. mortgage- finance company, will stop buying or guaranteeing Alt-A home loans, such as those that require little or no documentation of borrower incomes or assets, by yearend.
The company announced the changes when reporting its fourth straight quarterly loss today. The second-quarter net loss of $2.3 billion, or $2.54 a share, included $5.3 billion in credit- related expenses.
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Friday, August 08, 2008
UK Housing Market Freezes as Chancellor Dithers Over Stamp Duty / Housing-Market / UK Housing
The crashing UK housing market is heading for a further deep freeze following speculation that the Chancellor, Alistair Darling is about to suspend the Stamp Duty tax charged on house purchases in an attempt to stabalise the housing market. The few buyers that are in a position to proceed with home purchases are now delaying completing contracts or pulling out altogether and thereby likely to make the collapse in the level of market transactions even worse, thus contributing to the squeeze on sellers, estate agents and other housing market transaction beneficiaries.Read full article... Read full article...
Sunday, August 03, 2008
US Housing Market Crunching Banks, Earnings and Economy / Housing-Market / US Housing
Housing, credit and labor … oh my! -“Recent data releases and reports suggest that the consumer will continue to be pressured on all fronts: income (or cash flow), wealth and credit. Consumers can spend using any of these buckets. However, with the labor market continuing to weaken, housing continuing to deteriorate and credit harder to come by, the outlook for spending remains bleak despite recent declines in gasoline prices.Read full article... Read full article...
Saturday, August 02, 2008
The Cost of Escalating Fed Bailouts is Sustainable Home Ownership / Housing-Market / Government Intervention
Mike Larson writes: When is enough, enough? How much is too much?
Those are the questions I've been pondering lately as I survey the housing and mortgage market landscape. It seems like every week we get another borrower bailout initiative.
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Thursday, July 31, 2008
UK House Prices Falls Accelerate to -8.1% / Housing-Market / UK Housing
- The price of a typical house fell by 1.7% in July
- The price of a typical house is now £15,000 lower than this time last year
- Housing purchase activity reaches a new low
- Weakening economic conditions raise the likelihood of earlier interest rate cuts
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
US House Prices Suffer Record Falls In Case-Shiller Home Index / Housing-Market / US Housing
The May S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices are now out. New York, July 29, 2008 – Data through May 2008, released today by Standard & Poor's for its S&P/Case-Shiller1 Home Price Indices, the leading measure of U.S. home prices, show annual declines in the prices of existing single family homes across the United States generally continued to worsen in May 2008.Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, July 28, 2008
UK House Prices to Rise by 25% States National Housing Federation / Housing-Market / UK Housing
The National Housing Federation (NHF) is forecasting that UK house prices will rise by 25% by 2013, that will take house prices upto an estimated £274,000 by 2013 from their current levels of approx £180,000 based on the Halifax House Price data.Read full article... Read full article...
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Government Plays Dr Seuss By Artificially Propping Up House Prices / Housing-Market / Government Intervention
Ever notice how those books at home on your shelves seems to grow higher and higher over the years? I noticed the same thing myself and decided to weed out the old books that no longer seemed worthwhile to keep. Among those dusty books I discovered were books that I read to my child just a few “short” years ago. The Tonka truck book, the book about trains and ships, Yertle the Turtle, Dr. Seuss.Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
UK House Price Crash of Summer 2008 / Housing-Market / UK Housing
The latest UK house price data as released by Rightmove shows that the UK housing market crash continues to accelerate by registering a fall of 1.8% for July 08. The rate of descent on an annualised basis now extends to -11% and on a quarterly basis to -6.7%, far above the originally forecast crash rate of 5% per quarter as per analysis of November 2007 for the quarter April to June 08, which came in at -5.8%. The housing market is in full panic selling mode, as property owners slashing prices are met with silence from potential home buyers.Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, July 21, 2008
US Mortgage Lenders Implode / Housing-Market / Credit Crisis 2008
There are two important financial headlines this evening and the futures are solidly red. Let's take a look at news regarding Wachovia and Bank of America starting with the former.Wachovia Halts Wholesale Mortgages
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Saturday, July 19, 2008
Fed Asks for Blank Check for Fannie and Freddie in Flawed Rescue Plan / Housing-Market / Government Intervention
The Fed's emergency rescue plan for the financial markets is hopelessly flawed. It's a scattershot approach that doesn't address the real source of the problem; an unregulated, unsustainable structured finance system that emerged in full-force after 2000 and spawned a shadow banking system that creates trillions of dollars of credit without sufficient capital reserves. This is the heart of the problem and it needs to be debated openly. The present system doesn't work; it's as simple as that. It makes no sense to provide trillions of dollars of taxpayer money to shore up a system that is essentially dysfunctional. It's just throwing money down a rat-hole.Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, July 18, 2008
Protecting Mortgage Giants from Slingshots / Housing-Market / Government Intervention
Whether he intended to or not, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's statements, in a July 15th Bloomberg article titled, “Paulson Sees Fannie, Freddie Share Purchase Only If Necessary,” show the weakness of our current financial markets.
“Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac ‘represent the only functioning secondary mortgage market,' Paulson said in written testimony today to the Senate Banking Committee. ‘Our plan is aimed at supporting the stability of financial markets, not just these two companies.'”
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Friday, July 18, 2008
Solution to the Current Crisis- Dissolve Fannie And Freddie / Housing-Market / Credit Crisis 2008
The Chinese symbol for crisis also can be expressed as an opportunity. The current collapse of confidence in the domestic system of finance and financial leadership provides such a potential moment. The three part proposal to rescue Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac has bestowed upon our political and economic leaders the responsibility of ensuring that no one company again becomes too big too fail. The crisis requires more than the avoidance of moral hazards. Rather, the solution to the current financial crises and its legislative response requires that no firm or enterprise ever again be permitted to obtain an implicit guarantee of Federal largesse. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac need to be taken under federal protection, its assets used to cover the risk of the taxpayer bailout and its charter legislatively dissolved.Read full article... Read full article...