On the same day that the worst economic growth numbers in the U.K. in 51 years, we also get some news that the British economy may be stabilising. Well, at least house prices seem to be stabilising as Nationwide reported a 0.9% increase in house prices in UK June.  That is the third rise in [...]

The chain of events whereby easy money leads to malinvestment that impoverishes a society is now fully manifest in the United States.  You remember Victorville, CA where new homes were being demolished because it cost more to maintain them than to demolish them? (see post here)  Well, that same phenomenon is going to be at [...]

Here is the SEC press release regarding the fraud and insider trader alleged to have been perpetrated at Countrywide Financial, now a part of Bank of America (emphasis added):

Jim Cramer is not just calling a stock market bottom, but now he’s calling a housing bottom too.  In fact, he says go buy a house.  “Buy a house and buy Bank of America too?”  Cramer says: “This is patently obvious.”
Take a look and tell me what you think.  Personally, I know his stock picking [...]

Is the housing market in the U.K. bottoming?  Many pundits are talking as if it is and now we get the Nationwide data for May 2009 which shows a second rise in three months.  I am sceptical that we are at a bottom, so let’s see what the Halifax data say.
Fionnuala Earley has moved on.  [...]

If you thought house prices were about to show some price gains, think again.  The Case-Shiller Home Price Index for March 2009 was released this morning and it paints a fairly grim picture.  The Composite-10 index shows an18.6% decline in prices over the last year, while the Composite-20 registered a 18.7% drop in that time.  [...]

This is a video from Bloomberg Television yesterday. It underscores the fragility of this incipient recovery. You will notice that California is leading the way in terms of foreclosures, one reason the state will 00 bankrupt or be bailed out. Here are some tidbits from the related Bloomberg News story:

342,000 homes were seized, foreclosed on, [...]

When you think about property, you should really be looking at its worth as the present value of future cash flow streams.  This is true for residential, commercial, rental or travel property.  One reason is that property is fungible, meaning what is a owner-occupied primary residence ca just as easily be a rental accommodation. It [...]

This video seems to be making the rounds. I saw it over at Calculated Risk first. The video shows new homes in Victorville, CA, just south of LA, being destroyed because it costs more for the banks to keep them up than to demolish them. That’s one way to pare the housing inventory glut.

Share

After a blip in the data last month, Nationwide is reporting that U.K. house prices have resumed their fall.  However, for the second month in a row, the annual price fall has slowed.  In March, the fall was 15.7%. This month we see only 15.0% compared to prices in April 2008.
Fionnuala Earley, the Nationwide’s Chief [...]