Analysis Topic: Housing Market Price trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.Thursday, May 22, 2008
Council of Mortgage Lenders 2008 Housing Market Forecast Demolished / Housing-Market / UK Housing
The Council of Mortgage Lender (CML) revised their forecast for UK House prices for 2008 from an anticipated rise of 1% as of Oct 07 to now project a fall in prices of 7%. The CML, inline with its member institutions has a vested interest in talking up the housing market as evidenced by the inaccuracy of their housing market forecasts during periods of falling house prices.
As a reminder to readers, the Market Oracle forecast for UK house prices made ahead of the actual peak in the housing market in August 2007 is for a 15% drop over 2 years from August 2007 to August 2009, therefore forecasting a 7% to 7.5% drop for the year 2008.
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Wednesday, May 21, 2008
US Housing Crisis and the Last Days of Cheap Resources / Housing-Market / Stagflation
Is the housing crisis over? Or even close to reaching its peak? Not according to the experts. It seems we have a way to go before all the dirt settles to the bottom. Which is another way of saying that we really do not know what the long term effects of this housing mess will bring. Many commentators are trying to put a happy face on this crisis and report that only a small number are being hurt by foreclosures, but the entire housing industry is already suffering with the downturn.Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, May 19, 2008
FDIC: Fights US Housing Market Deflation with Inflation / Housing-Market / US Housing
"...Apparent defender of US cash savers since the Great Depression, the FDIC wants to see $50bn pumped into the very worst mortgages issued in 2004-2007..."
AS THE U.S. and British housing bubbles continue to deflate, leaking stale gas like an air-bed blown up when you're drunk, just how much trouble will come from government schemes aimed at saving over-geared debtors and over-lent lenders?
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Friday, May 16, 2008
Mortgage Providers Fail to Pass on Interest Rate Cuts to Borrowers / Housing-Market / Credit Crisis 2008
“It is now five weeks since the last base rate cut and still 24 lenders (25%) have not announced their intentions with regards to their standard variable rate (SVR). Of those lenders that have done so, 20 (28%) have announced a cut of less than 0.25%. Even more disappointingly is the fact that those lenders which have passed on the smallest cuts offer some of the highest SVR rates.Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Fannie Mae Advertising Foreclosed US Homes to the Brit's / Housing-Market / US Housing
"...'Find a holiday home in America ,' shouts Fannie Mae across the Pond..."
YOU CAN'T BLAME Fannie Mae for trying. Last year saw British property buyers snap up around 20,000 homes in the United States .
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Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Caroline Flint UK Housing Market Briefing Notes in FULL / Housing-Market / UK Housing
Caroline Flint the UK housing ministers full cabinet meeting first page briefing notes on the state of the UK housing market follows in full. In summary the housing minister expects UK house prices to fall this year by between 5% and 10% which is precisely in line with the Market Oracle forecast for a 7.5% drop for 2008 as of August 2007 (UK House prices to fall by 15% between August 2007 and August 2009).Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, May 12, 2008
US Housing Dueling Views: Jim Rogers Sees More Pain, Warren Buffet Sees Rebound Under Way / Housing-Market / US Housing
When asked about their outlook for the crisis-ridden U.S. housing and financial-services markets, two U.S. financial experts provided outlooks that completely contradicted one another - once again underscoring how tough it is for investors to predict when the U.S. economy will turn around.Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, May 12, 2008
Credit Crunch Bites UK Mortgage Payers as Risk of Repossession Soars / Housing-Market / UK Housing
The number of home owners at risk of repossession surged in the first quarter of 2008. Home owners served with county court claims jumped by 16% to 38,700. Home owners actually issued with eviction orders surged by 17% to 27,500. The Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) upped their estimate for the number of repossessions for 2008 to 45,000. The Market Oracle forecast as of August 07 is for 70,000 repossessions this year, though the actual number will probably be around 60,000 as the CML repossession statistics tend to under report the true number of repossessions.Read full article... Read full article...
Sunday, May 11, 2008
UK Housing Market Surge In Mortgage Repossession Orders / Housing-Market / UK Housing
Welcome to the Weekly Report. This week we look at Gordon Brown the UK Prime Minister, US and UK mortgage markets and the US consumer.
We are all aware of the US mortgage problems which are now beginning to show up within prime mortgages but some people, outside the UK, might not be so aware of the problem growing in the 5th largest economy in the World.
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Saturday, May 10, 2008
Real Estate and Credit Deflation: The Next Dozen Shoes to Drop / Housing-Market / US Housing
"If the shoe fits, it's too expensive." ~ Adrienne GusoffI was offered a very nice position with Fisher Investments of Woodside, California last year and, although I passed on the opportunity, I truly respect their money management track record. At the same time, I have noticed from their website that they are comparing the current equity market with the set-up which existed in 1992; they see this as a brief cyclical downturn prior to a multi-year bull market run rather than an unfolding, post-triple-bubble economic downward spiral. In fact, as I look through the site's archives, the Fisher research team (60 strong, and plenty bright) doesn't address post-bubble possibilities in any way, shape or form.
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Friday, May 09, 2008
Pending US Home Sales Hit Record Low, Again / Housing-Market / US Housing
Pending home sales hit a record low for the second consecutive month in March. March's reading was down 20.1% year-over-year and 35% from the index's peak in April 2005. With the recent resilience in homebuilder stocks, powered by those who must believe that the housing market is bottoming, these numbers should be a disappointment. In my universe of understanding, a bottom should be followed by some sort of uptick, not continuing declines.Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, May 08, 2008
Fannie Mae Cumulative Defaults and other Mortgage Market Disasters / Housing-Market / US Housing
Inquiring minds are checking out the Fannie Mae 2008 Q1 10-Q Investor Summary . There are plenty of charts, graphs and other data to consider.For example, please consider this graph on page 27.
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Thursday, May 08, 2008
UK House Prices Tumbling- Interest Rate Conundrum / Housing-Market / UK Housing
UK house price data from Britains biggest mortgage banks for April 08 now show negative house price inflation year on year. Statistics released earlier than usual by the the Nationwide that house prices have now fallen by 1% on a year earlier, closely followed by the Halifax that also shows house prices down by 1%. This was originally forecast by the Market Oracle for the April 2008 house price data in the analysis of November 2007.
Despite the fall, the Nationwide put a positive spin on bad news by alluding to the Bank of England rate cuts and liquidly measures that would stabalise the housing market: "the Bank’s measures should help to restore a more orderly transition and ultimately bring about a more stable market."
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Wednesday, May 07, 2008
WaMu's Suspect Mortgage Pool- Fallout from Liar Loans Continues / Housing-Market / US Housing
I have been tracking a particular Washington Mutual (WM) Alt-A mortgage pool for several months. The pool is known as WMALT 2007-0C1.Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, May 05, 2008
Rebuttal To SmartMoney US Housing Market Bottom Call / Housing-Market / US Housing
Donald Luskin at SmartMoney is making a case that Housing Prices Near or at BottomI'm not here to tell you that home prices are at absolute bottom this very moment. But I can argue pretty persuasively that they might be. Or that they are close.
What establishes value in a home price? Like anything else, it's a question of historical norms. So how do we determine the norms? Try this way on for size.
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Wednesday, April 30, 2008
UK Housing Market Weakness Stretches into April / Housing-Market / UK Housing
- House prices fell for the sixth consecutive month in April
- The price of a typical house is now 1% lower than this time last year
- The Bank of England bond exchange scheme should help to improve financial market liquidity
- More than 5 million borrowers have benefited from Bank of England rate cuts
Sunday, April 20, 2008
UK House Price Futures Market Confirms Sharp Fall in House Prices During 2008 / Housing-Market / UK Housing
The UK House price futures market has been in existence for some 10 years now and is based on the Halifax House Price Index data. The market is managed by IG Index and operates under the principle of a spread betting market maker.
Current IG Index quotes against actual published Halifax Index data :
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Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Housing Market Worst Since 1978- Heading for April Apocalypse? / Housing-Market / UK Housing
The Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) report confirms that the UK housing market is in countrywide meltdown mode. House prices are falling at their fastest pace in 30 years (since records began). The net balance between those reporting price rises against price falls deteriorated to a reading of -78.5 in the three months to March 08, from -65.7 in February 08.Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, April 11, 2008
Tumbling UK Housing Market Leading to Sterling Devaluation / Housing-Market / UK Housing
Economic events in the United States often provide a sneak preview of what's around the corner for the British economy. Both countries run large external trade deficits, and much like the US, the British economy has been expanding on little else than the availability of easy credit and asset price inflation in the housing market. The ties between the US and UK run even deeper. About half of the profits for FTSE companies come from overseas, and 15% from US-based affiliates.Imaginative lending practices fueled a doubling of British home prices over the past six-years, the key engine of growth for the world's fifth largest economy. But British borrowers now face a perilous situation where their home values are tumbling, and the local banking oligarchs are lifting their lending rates, in order to recoup big losses of up to 20 billion pounds in toxic sub-prime mortgages.
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Tuesday, April 08, 2008
UK House Prices Plunge Over the Cliff / Housing-Market / UK Housing
UK house prices plunged by 2.5% in March (Halifax seasonally adjusted), the fall was far bigger than estimates and points to an acceleration in the pace of house price falls across the UK.
The credit crisis is continuing to lead to a much tighter mortgage lending environment as highlighted in December's article. Mortgages continue to vanish from lenders shelves, with the total number of products having been reduced from 11,000 in May 2007 to just over 3000 today. The tightening is as a consequence of risk averse lenders seeking to repair their balance sheets from US mortgage related losses and batton down the hatches in advance of a surge in repossessions and mortgage defaults amongst UK borrowers.
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