Housing

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 want to alleviate some of the uncertainty that comes with buying your first home, it's time you learned the truth about 6 home buying myths too many consumers still believe.

If you’re from Canada and the U.S., chances are you’ll never see market capitulation. However, you’ll likely see many corrections, and maybe even a couple of crashes. Here are the definitions of the meanings of the words: correction. crash and capitulation.

Over long periods the inflation-adjusted price of homes in the U.S. has tended to increase by a little more than 1% per year. That doesn't mean owning a home is a good way to make a 1% real return on your money though. This article explains why.

In a long-term strategy which employs both investments, there is a case for putting an over-weight on housing, and an under-weight on gold, given current relative price levels unless one is specifically investing for financial crisis.

The PHLX Housing Index (HGX), subject of our Chart Of The Day, closed today at a 9-year high...yet, as the chart shows, while technically a new high...it’s a bit of a reach yet to declare this a “breakout”. That said, the chart has a few things going for it, if you are a bull on housing stocks. [Let me explain.]

The infographic below captures three megatrends that are the driving forces behind global real estate investment.

Apparently the biggest banks in the U.S. didn’t learn their lesson the first time around because a few days ago, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and many of the usual suspects made a stunning announcement that they would start making crappy subprime loans once again! Words: 896

Last month the most people in eight years decided that if they were going to buy a new home, now would be the time to do it - but how much longer can this trend continue?

It is clear global real estate prices are heating up again and, due to interest rates being lower now than in the previous cycle, real estate prices in the U.S. and globally may actually surprise us with several more years of growth before they peak as global liquidity searches for the few relatively safe assets (in the least dirty shirt fashion) as a way to protect against reflation and devaluation in non-U.S. countries.