Tag Archives: house prices

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

If you’re like most Americans your house is the largest component of your net worth, and, naturally, you would like to see it go up - but by how much? This article provides the surprising - and disappointing - answer.

Guess where the hottest and weakest housing markets in the world are? Where are home prices growing faster than disposable personal income? It's all here.

A recent Gallup survey on expected future returns of asset prices shows that most Americans still think that owning a home is the best way to generate a high return in the future. Nothing could be further from the truth! It just shows how totally out of touch with reality the average American is.

For the past few months, existing home sales levels have been weaker than expected. The focus, however, should not be on the weakness of the headline numbers. In actuality, the softening in existing home sales is showcasing the potential for acceleration in new home sales. [Let me expain.] Words: 1205

With recent numbers positive for housing realtors, politicians, and others with vested interests, are quick to claim we are on our way back - but are such numbers really meaningful and sustainable? Many more objective analysts, however, are less sure or disagree with this conclusion that the bottom has been reached yet. Here's what some of them have to say. Words: 1377

Auto sales, consumer confidence, manufacturing, retail sales, exports - you name it - over the last six months, nearly every facet of the U.S. economy has shown improvement and the real estate market is no exception. [Here are 11 irrefutable signs that such is the case.] Words: 800

There has been a deluge of articles recently about the upticks in the housing data...[yet, while] I do not dispute the improvement in the data regarding home starts, permits, pending sales, etc.,... [see graph below] these data points are still mired at very depressed levels so the assumption is that if home building is stabilizing then it is only a function of time until home prices began to rise as well. Right? Not so fast.. [Let me explain.] Words: 1100

Canada, France and Switzerland stood alone among nine markets measured in recording annual price gains, based on second-quarter data, with inflation-adjusted price increases of 5%, 5% and 4%, respectively, compared to declines of 6% in the U.S., the U.K. and Australia, 10% in Spain and 14% in Ireland. In fact, Canada's home prices have escalated 44% since 2005 - with a high of 68% in Vancouver - and they are up 7.7% in the past 12 months! Words: 1244

Is a second recession in so short of a time in the offing? It certainly seems that way. The hope for a continued recovery has grown dim lately as many of the economic indexes are moving towards contractionary territory... There are several concerns pressing the U.S. economy and, in the words of David Rosenberg, chief economist at Gluskin Sheff, "one small shock" could send us into a second recession. [We, for our part, believe that even] another round of Quantitative Easing by the Fed...may not be enough to offset the real problems facing the U.S. economy. [Let's take a closer look.] Words: 1295