Category: US Housing
The analysis published under this category are as follows.
Saturday, March 24, 2012
U.S. Housing Market New Home Sales Show Disappointing Performance / Housing-Market / US Housing
By: Asha_Bangalore
Sales of new single-family homes fell 1.6% to an annual rate of 313,000 in February. The level of single-family home sales is up 12.6% from the historical low of 278,000 registered in August 2010 (see Chart 1). Sales of new homes rose in the Northeast (+14.3%) and West (+8.0%) but fell in the Midwest (-2.4%) and South (-7.2%).
Friday, March 23, 2012
New Wave of Foreclosures Will Sink the U.S. Housing Market Rebound / Housing-Market / US Housing
By: Money_Morning
David Zeiler writes:
The long-anticipated housing market rebound will hit a speed bump this year as the number of foreclosures rises again.
With January's mammoth $26 billion settlement between five major banks and a group of state attorneys general, foreclosures that had been held up for a year or more are now moving forward.
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Sunday, March 18, 2012
U.S. Foreclosure Fraud Settlement Documents Highlight Lawlessness of the Banks / Housing-Market / US Housing
By: Barry_Grey
On Monday, the settlement between five major banks and the federal and state governments of foreclosure-related fraud charges was filed in federal district court in Washington, DC. The agreement must be approved by the court to take effect.
The settlement, reported to be worth $25 billion, was announced February 9 and hailed by President Obama as a serious rebuke to the banks and boon to distressed homeowners. (See: “Obama administration brokers pro-bank mortgage fraud settlement”).
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Thursday, March 15, 2012
Real Estate 4 Ran$om: Role of Speculation in the Financial Collapse - Patience and Finance / Housing-Market / US Housing
By: Jesse
This is an Australian produced film, but the principles carry.
I would not focus on land to the exclusion of financial assets like stocks, and other vehicles for producing income and capital gains, that allow speculators to game the system.
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Evolving Global Financial Crisis, Selling "Foreclosed Homes" / Housing-Market / US Housing
By: Bob_Chapman
The government is preparing to package and sell foreclosed homes. We do not know what discount to the current market there will be but you can guess it will be 20% or more. This event will cause home prices to trend lower dependent on whether the houses are put up for sale or rented. These homes will only be available to big buyers such as hedge funds and others with enormous amounts of capital. It is expected that the homes will be sold in lots of 5,000 to 10,000 and the minimum bid would be $1 billion. This is corporatist fascists busy at work.
Thursday, March 08, 2012
Is a House Ever a Good Investment? / Housing-Market / US Housing
By: Casey_Research
Vedran Vuk, Casey Research writes: Recently, my parents were considering purchasing some real estate. As the financial professional in the family, they asked me, "What do you think? Will it go up in value? You know… not now, but eventually?" I've heard the same thing over and over again. In response, I shared my opinion: "Would you pay the current market price to live there even if its value never increased?" If the answer is yes, buy the property." Essentially, is the house worth it as a home, not as an investment?
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
America's Credit and Housing Crisis: New State Bank Bills / Housing-Market / US Housing
By: Ellen_Brown
Seventeen states have now introduced bills for state-owned banks, and others are in the works. Hawaii’s innovative state bank bill addresses the foreclosure mess. County-owned banks are being proposed that would tackle the housing crisis by exercising the right of eminent domain on abandoned and foreclosed properties. Arizona has a bill that would do this for homeowners who are current in their payments but underwater, allowing them to refinance at fair market value.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
U.S. House Prices Continue to Maintain Downward Trend / Housing-Market / US Housing
By: Asha_Bangalore
The Case-Shiller Home Price Index (HPI) slipped 0.5% in December on a seasonally adjusted basis. The level of the index is the lowest since January 2003 (see Chart 2). Of the 20 metro areas, Phoenix (+1.5%), Miami (+0.2%), Tampa (+0.2%), Dallas (+0.2%), Portland (+0.1%), Denver (+0.1%), and Charlotte (+0.1%) recorded increases of varying sizes in December. Among the other metro areas that showed decreases in home prices, the largest declines were in Detroit (-3.5%), Atlanta (-1.3%) and Chicago (-1.1%), while San Francisco was the only metro area to show a nearly steady reading.
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Monday, February 27, 2012
Has the U.S. Housing Market Finally Bottomed? / Housing-Market / US Housing
By: Money_Morning
Martin Hutchinson writes:
It was the most atrocious bubble in U.S. history pushing tens of millions of Americans into financial misery.
Even today, the last of the lawsuits have yet to be filed.
But five years later it's finally coming back.
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Saturday, February 25, 2012
U.S. January New Home Sales Moving Sideways But Record Low Number of Homes for Sale Raises Expectations of New Construction / Housing-Market / US Housing
By: Asha_Bangalore
Sales of new homes slipped 0.9% to an annual rate of 321,000 in January. Purchases of new homes have moved around 311,000 to 324,000 for the last four months. Combined sales of new and existing homes have risen in the last three out of four months, largely due to the relatively strong performance of existing home sales.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
U.S. January Existing Homes Sales Many Housing Market Positive Developments / Housing-Market / US Housing
By: Asha_Bangalore
Sales of all existing homes – condominiums, townhouses, and single-family homes – rose 4.3% to an annual rate of 4.57 million homes in January, up about 35% from the 3.39 million low of November 2008. Sales of all existing homes plunged 52% between January 2005 (7.1 million units) and November of 2008 (see Chart 1). Sales of single-family existing homes increased 3.9% to an annual rate of 4.05 million units, marking the third increase in the last three months. Sales of existing homes advanced in all four regions of the nation, with the West (+8.8%) recording the largest gain among the four regions.
Monday, February 20, 2012
From Riches to Rags, the U.S. Housing Market Crash and Bankruptcy / Politics / US Housing
By: LewRockwell
Brad C writes: My experience with a tax audit, real estate crash, rental house woes, foreclosures, layoff and bankruptcy:
In a nutshell, we went from a 4,000 square foot home, worth more than $1 million, a vacation home, new RV, Mercedes convertible, Jeep, $50,000 SUV, 20 rental properties, a property management company and a great full time job... To living in a modest rental house in the middle of nowhere.
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Sunday, February 19, 2012
U.S. Housing Busts and Obama's Report To Congress / Housing-Market / US Housing
By: DK_Matai
The 2012 Economic Report of the US President published by the Whitehouse for the Congress contains a startling chart in chapter 4 "Stabilizing and Healing the Housing Market". Red = The Great Unwind: start 2007; Blue = New England bust: start 1989; Orange = California bust: start 1990; and Green = The Great Depression: start 1930. What does comparing housing busts in US history suggest?
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Friday, February 17, 2012
Obama's Housing Market Refi Program Won't Work Because the FHA is Insolvent / Housing-Market / US Housing
By: Money_Morning
Shah Gilani writes:
In his State of the Union address last month, President Barack Obama outlined a plan to let homeowners, especially those underwater, refinance older mortgages to take advantage of today's low rates.
While serious political impediments stand in the way of the Obama refi plan, one reason it won't work is that it relies 100% on the Federal Housing Administration (FHA).
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Friday, February 17, 2012
U.S. Housing Market Starts, Jobless Claims, and Wholesale Price Index – Mixed Bag / Housing-Market / US Housing
By: Asha_Bangalore
January Housing Starts: It is a Multi-Family Story
Total housing starts increased 1.5% to an annual rate of 699,000 in January. The entire gain came from an 8.5% jump in starts of multi-family units to an annual rate of 191,000. New construction of single-family units slipped 1.0% to 508,000.
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Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Arbitraging Fed Policies With U.S. Rental Housing Market Cash Flows / Housing-Market / US Housing
By: Dan_Amerman
By forcing interest rates to record low levels, the Federal Reserve has effectively vaporized most interest income along with most of the ability to benefit from compound interest, with devastating results for many retirees, retirement investors and pension funds.
However, in the process of creating artificially low interest rates for an entire economy, the Fed has also opened up unusually profitable opportunities for individual investors with certain types of investments. Record-low interest rate levels are the most powerful of six different factors that are currently working together to increase owner cash flows from the purchase (or refinancing) of investment real estate in the United States.
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Wednesday, February 08, 2012
Banking, U.S. Housing Market and Mortgages / Politics / US Housing
By: BATR
The primary players that caused the housing bubble are:
Read full article... Read full article...1) The banking institutions that bundled and sold very risky mortgages
2) The Wall Street firms that bought these instruments and hedged for a default hazard by booking speculative derivative insurance that could never pay off on massive defaults
3) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac provided government backing, of last resort, on bad mortgages
Sunday, February 05, 2012
U.S. Home Foreclosures and Shadow Banking: Why All the "Robo-signing"? / Politics / US Housing
By: Ellen_Brown
A foreclosure settlement between five major banks guilty of robo-signing and the attorneys general of the 50 states is pending for Monday, February 6th; but it is still not clear if all the AGs will sign. California was to get over half of the $25 billion in settlement money, and California AG Kamala Harris has withstood pressure to settle.
Friday, January 27, 2012
The Next U.S. Housing Market Bailout / Housing-Market / US Housing
By: Mike_Whitney
Why are housing prices falling when the number of houses on the market continues to decline? Usually, when supply shrinks, then prices rise, right? So, why isn’t that happening now?
The reason is that housing market never completely cleared, which is to say that the Fed’s interventions and the manipulation of inventory by the banks prevented the market from finding a bottom. So, now– a full 6 years after the peak in home sales in 2006–the real estate depression continues while prices drift lower still. And–here’s the bad part–no one knows how much farther prices will drop, because the existing inventory of homes on the market (according to the Wall Street Journal) is presently 1.89 million while the shadow inventory (according to CoreLogic)… is “1.6 million units” which represents another 5 months supply, “the same level as reported in July 2011.”
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Friday, January 27, 2012
U.S. Housing Market Sales of New Homes Dips by 2.2% / Housing-Market / US Housing
By: Asha_Bangalore
Sales of new single-family homes fell 2.2% to an annual rate of 307,000 in December, putting the annual average at 303,000 units. The tally of sales of new single-family homes in 2011 is the lowest on record (see Chart 1).