In past downturns, it was a resurgent U.S. housing market that led the American economy out of the recessionary doldrums. But U.S. investors shouldn’t expect history to repeat itself this time around.
The housing bubble was one for the ages. We’ve all heard stories of one kind or another… There was the glass cutter who earned $5,000 per month, pretax. WaMu gave him a $615,000 home loan with payments of $3,600 per month.
While politicians, talking heads, and bloggers blab about the causes of the mortgage crisis, Stan Liebowitz of the University of Texas lays out why they’re all dead wrong in today’s Wall Street Journal.
Almost half of all American adults no longer believe that home ownership is a realistic way to build wealth. That’s according to Gail Cunningham of the National Foundation for Credit Counseling, quoted in Barron’s this week.
I could almost hear the collective groans of disbelief as soon as readers read my forecast. It was a column I wrote almost three years ago, warning about the impending U.S. real estate crisis and projecting that home prices were set to tumble by as much as 40%. Turns out I actually under-estimated the scale of the bust. Prices have fallen much more than that in some areas – and may fall even further. The are obvious reasons for this. The economic recession. The evaporation of available credit. A huge increase in unemployment. And, of course, the mere fact that the housing market had simply risen to bubble-like proportions and needed to correct. But there’s a bigger problem – and it’s…
No real surprise here, Existing Homes Sales are expected to increase. It should be a combination of two factors, too-good-to-pass-up deals on foreclosed homes, and families moving to new school districts over the summer to avoid switching schools mid-year.
On April 17, I wrote about the massive train wreck coming in commercial real estate. As it turns out, my estimates of the coming devastation – which seemed outlandish to some at the time – have actually turned out to be too conservative. The problem is far worse than anything that’s been reported so far, particularly when it comes to our icon of consumerism: the shopping mall.
Up to 60% of you could be saving money on your property taxes, says our resident tax expert Raife Neuman…
The U.S. housing market continued its tepid trek toward recovery as housing starts in May exceeded expectations, the U.S. Commerce Department said yesterday (Tuesday).
We wrote yesterday that we think the bottom is NOT in for Florida real estate. This view is bolstered by the fact that mortgage rates are spiking up fast.
