Analysis Topic: Housing Market Price trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Tuesday, April 01, 2014
UK Home Solar Panel Installations Good or Bad for House Buying and Selling? / Housing-Market / Solar Energy
By: Nadeem_Walayat
The solar installation industry has been busy for many years convincing home owners with well rehearsed sales pitches and graphs of how much they could earn each year by profiting from FREE energy from the sun to generate their own electricity by installing large arrays of solar panels onto their south-ish facing roofs, that like a contagion soon tend to spread to neighbouring roofs despite the fact that the southern most tip of the Island of Britain lies a good 500 miles north of the start of the optimum zone for generating solar energy.
Monday, March 31, 2014
How to Turn Disappointing U.S. Housing Market Data into Greater Returns / Housing-Market / US Housing
By: DailyGainsLetter
John Paul Whitefoot writes: Since the beginning of 2012, the U.S. housing market has been considered one of the bright spots in an otherwise uneven economic environment. Between 2007 and the end of 2011, the U.S. housing market fell 33%—since then, it has rebounded, climbing roughly 22%.
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Friday, March 28, 2014
How to Increase the Value of Your Home With Loft Conversions / Housing-Market / UK Housing
By: Nadeem_Walayat
Percentage added to the value of ones home is typically 125% to 200% of costs incurred. Typically £30k spent can convert into as much as a £60k increase in value.
If your loft is of at least 2.3 metres in height (centrally) then a loft conversion is one of the easiest ways to add both space and value to your home that can typically yield twice the amount spent. The cost to convert a loft into a layout of 2 bedrooms and 1 bathroom would typically cost £30,000 to £40,000 for a standard dormer window conversion, therefore adding approx £60k to £80k to the value of ones home.
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Wednesday, March 26, 2014
North England's New Mega-city - MANFIELD, Comprising Manchester, Leeds, Bradford, Sheffield, Rotherham... / Housing-Market / UK Housing
By: Nadeem_Walayat
Investing in Future New Mega-Cities
Whilst most house hunters will be viewing properties in terms of what would be a good investment over the next 10 years or so, I tend to gaze much further into the mists of time to try to ascertain what the mega-trends are and then attempt to leverage my wealth towards profiting from them, even if most of the payoff could come beyond my life-time and thus for future generations to profit from.
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Monday, March 24, 2014
What’s Handicapping First-Time U.S. Homebuyers? / Housing-Market / US Housing
By: DailyGainsLetter
John Paul Whitefoot writes: For months and months now we’ve been pointing to seemingly obvious economic data to prove that the U.S. housing market is in trouble because of the weak U.S. economy. Those in the “know”—economists and the real estate board—have been waxing eloquence on how the weather is the main culprit behind the disappointing U.S. housing market numbers.
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Sunday, March 23, 2014
Sheffield Best Estate Agents, Buyer and Seller Rating / Housing-Market / Sheffield
By: N_Walayat
(Last Update 2nd May 2014) Sheffield has a very active housing market with over 2,500 properties on the market at any one time and with nearby Rotherham another 1,000 that generates more than £2 million in commissions annually shared out between more than 20 local estate agents.
Saturday, March 22, 2014
U.S. Housing Market One Chart Says it All / Housing-Market / US Housing
By: Mike_Whitney
Get a load of this chart from DataQuick’s National Home Sales Snapshot. It’ll tell you everything need to know about housing.
Wednesday, March 19, 2014
Reverse Mortgages 101 / Housing-Market / Mortgages
By: Don_Miller
My grandfather liked to use clever sayings to make a point. One of his favorites was, “the same thing, only different!” As we pulled together this article, I immediately thought of how his funny little saying applied.
Sunday, March 16, 2014
Sheffield, Rotherham Best Rated Estate Agents as Voted by Home Sellers / Vendors / Housing-Market / Sheffield
By: Nadeem_Walayat
(Last Updated 2nd May 2014) Sheffield at anyone time has over 2,500 properties on the market with nearby Rotherham another 1,000 resulting in a large and highly active market with many estate agents of all shapes and sizes fighting for the highly lucrative sales fees and percentages of sales.
Wednesday, March 12, 2014
Fannie and Freddie reform is necessary, but not at expense of private sector investment / Housing-Market / US Housing
By: Ronan_Keenan
Private investors and the government don’t always make easy bedfellows and nothing exemplifies this more than the case of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. After verging on collapse in 2008, the government-backed mortgage groups are now turning significant profits, but investors are not happy.
Since their inception, the structure of Fannie and Freddie has been a point of contention. Established by government charter, the entities are owned by private shareholders and guarantee the vast majority of US mortgages, buying and selling loans from financial institutions to provide money for the banks to facilitate lending to home buyers. For much of their existence the groups’ configuration has drawn criticism as private investors enjoyed the profits while losses were felt by taxpayers. Things have changed since then.
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Wednesday, March 05, 2014
Has the U.S. Housing Market Hit the Wall? / Housing-Market / US Housing
By: Carl_R_Tannenbaum
The housing market began 2013 with a great deal of momentum, but recent data on this sector has moderated considerably. It would be easy to blame this trend on the weather, but there may be more to the housing story. The contribution of this sector to economic growth going forward may not be as robust.
Construction and sales fell to a very low base level during the depth of the recession, and therefore were able to show outsized gains as the recovery began. Residential investment was one of the biggest contributors to gross domestic product growth in 2011 and 2012.
Wednesday, March 05, 2014
The Securitization Fraud That Collapsed the U.S. Housing Market - JPMorgan Chase Mortgage Fraud / Housing-Market / US Housing
By: Ellen_Brown
In a nearly $13 billion settlement with the US Justice Department in November 2013, JPMorganChase admitted that it, along with every other large US bank, had engaged in mortgage fraud as a routine business practice, sowing the seeds of the mortgage meltdown. JPMorgan and other megabanks have now been caught in over a dozen major frauds, including LIBOR-rigging and bid-rigging; yet no prominent banker has gone to jail. Meanwhile, nearly a quarter of all mortgages nationally remain underwater (meaning the balance owed exceeds the current value of the home), sapping homeowners’ budgets, the housing market and the economy. Since the banks, the courts and the federal government have failed to give adequate relief to homeowners, some cities are taking matters into their own hands.
Tuesday, March 04, 2014
Three U.S. Homebuilders to Short During $336-Billion Housing Gap / Housing-Market / Housing Stocks
By: DailyGainsLetter
John Paul Whitefoot writes: I hate to harp on the U.S. housing market so much, but it is a major indicator of the health of the U.S. economy. Following previous recessions, investment in the U.S. housing market increased early on and helped drive the recovery. In fact, the U.S. housing market was a major factor that helped lift the U.S. economy out of past recessions in 1981, 1990, and 2001. But it isn’t happening this time around.
Tuesday, March 04, 2014
UK Mortgages Five Years of Historic Low BOE Interest Rate Analysis / Housing-Market / Mortgages
By: MoneyFacts
Thursday is expected to mark the fifth year of the historically low BoE base rate of 0.5%.
Moneyfacts has analysed the lowest mortgage rates available in March 2009 against today’s equivalents.
The table below shows the lowest mortgage rate five years ago for 60% LTV was 2.99% compared to today’s equivalent mortgage, which charges just 1.48%. After working out the true cost of the mortgage including fees and introductory offers and based on a £150,000 mortgage over 25 years, today’s borrower is saving almost £800 (£788.96).
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Monday, March 03, 2014
UK Facing Housing Costs Time Bomb - Millions at the Mercy of Bank Interest Rates / Housing-Market / UK Housing
By: Global_Research
Dennis Moore writes: Millions of people across Britain have serious concerns as to whether they will be able to afford to keep their homes, according to the housing charity Shelter.
A survey of 4,000 people by the charity, organised via YouGov, revealed the disturbing trend, as many said they feared they would not be able to meet housing bills. One in five of those surveyed said they were so anxious they did not open their post if they thought it could be a late payment reminder.
Friday, February 28, 2014
How to Profit from the Weakening U.S. Housing Market / Housing-Market / US Housing
By: DailyGainsLetter
John Paul Whitefoot writes: It doesn’t take much to get the bulls excited when it comes to the U.S. housing market. Solid new-home sales data seems to have erased everyone’s memory of the raft of negative housing market numbers that have been flowing in for months.
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Wednesday, February 26, 2014
Warren Buffett - What You Can Learn From My Real Estate Investments / Housing-Market / US Housing
By: John_Mauldin
It does not hurt to be reminded once in a while about what it means to be a “true investor,” and who better to remind us than Warren Buffett? Today’s Outside the Box comes to us from the pages of Fortune magazine (hat tip to my good friend Tom Romero of Capital Research Partners, who is a pretty fair investor in his own right).
Fortune seems to have had the inside scoop on Mr. Buffett’s pronouncements over the years. I still keep some old Fortune magazines with interviews of Mr. Buffett to remind myself about the basics. For whatever reason I was up at 5 o’clock this morning and began reading this piece, and it functioned just as well as coffee as a wake-up call.
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Saturday, February 22, 2014
U.S. Housing Market Firesales Could Trigger Another Financial Crisis / Housing-Market / Credit Crisis 2014
By: Mike_Whitney
Ask your average guy-on-the-street ‘what caused the financial crisis’, and you’ll either get a blank stare followed by a shrug of the shoulders or a brusque, three-word answer: “The housing bubble”. Even people who follow the news closely are usually sketchy on the details. They might add something about subprime mortgages or Lehman Brothers, but not much more than that. Very few people seem to know that the crisis began in a shadowy part of the financial system called repo, which is short for repurchase agreement. In 2008, repo was ground zero, the epicenter of the meltdown. That’s where the bank run took place that froze the credit markets and sent the financial system into freefall. Unfortunately, nothing has been done to fix the problems in repo, which means that we’re just as vulnerable today as we were five years ago when Lehman imploded and all hell broke loose.
Saturday, February 22, 2014
U.S. Housing Market Mortgage Purchase Applications Running Out Of Time / Housing-Market / US Housing
By: PhilStockWorld
Courtesy of Doug Short: For 2013, one of the main stories in housing was the cool down in existing home sales numbers over the second half of the year, in spite of the relative strength in GDP.
What was the main reason for this? Follow the data and the answer appears. When interest rates spiked we did not see the mythical sideline home buyer rush to the market place. Rather what we saw was a collapse of the mortgage purchase application index.
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Friday, February 21, 2014
Why Analysts Can’t Just Blame the Weather for Poor U.S. Housing Market Numbers / Housing-Market / US Housing
By: DailyGainsLetter
John Paul Whitefoot writes: No matter where you turn, bad earnings or economic indicators are being blamed on the cold weather. Weak January car sales figures were blamed on the weather; disappointing January housing data was blamed on the weather; Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE/WMT) revised its earnings guidance lower because of the weather; and even Panera Bread Company (NASDAQ/PNRA) says the cold weather negatively impacted its results.
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