Housing

This compilation of 7 graphics takes a look at the costs associated with U.S. home ownership and renting.

Experts have been closely watching several indicators that point to rising bubble risks in some housing markets. Earlier this week Bloomberg published results from a new study that tracks four key metrics and this infographic reveals how they apply to the 22 countries covered.

Toronto is still the King of North American real estate development according to the Rider Levett Bucknall (RLB) Crane Index that shows Toronto had 120 active construction cranes in July...[which is] more than twice the number of active construction cranes than the next city on the list. Where does your city rank? Here's the list.

The rate at which Canadian real estate prices have grown dwarfs even the frothiest of U.S. cities. This articles compares the home price growth in Canada's 3 largest cities (Toronto, Vancouver & Montreal) with San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York City & Seattle. The findings are amazing, to say the least.

In the past few decades, the concept of home ownership has been completely turned on its head. Previously, homes were considered a very long-term consumption good...[No one] ever considered tripling the value of their homes by retirement time and selling them to move beachside yet, somehow along the way, this became a reasonable investment expectation. Even today, home buyers still make their purchases with the hopes of escalating prices. [It begs answers to these questions: Is a house just a home? Should a house be expected to behave like an investment? Is the housing game nothing more than a Ponzi scheme where the end buyer before the market corrects becomes the "greater fool"? Let's try and answer those questions.] Words: 935

prices continue to rise in most regions of the world, spurred on by historically low interest rates and generally benign credit conditions

Below is a look at the newest S&P/Case Shiller home price data which shows that, on a month-over-month basis, 16 of 20 cities saw home prices gain, with Charlotte, Cleveland, Minneapolis, and Boston seeing declines.

A recent study examined home affordability relative to incomes and found that Canada’s largest markets rank just as highly as the hottest ones in the U.S.. Check out the infographic below to see how U.S. and Canadian markets rank.

“Buy as much house as you can,” real estate agents urged clients. “The more you buy, the bigger your tax break” is their advice using the mortgage interest deduction (MID) to explicitly promote over-investment in housing. Unfortunately, such advice fueled the previous housing boom and exacerbated its bust and could do so again.

Most people seem to think owning a house is a great “investment” but, in actual fact, when you look at the numbers closely, such an acquisition is anything but. Let me explain with supporting evidence.