Real Estate Market

With the economy going strong and the Fed raising rates, nobody really wants to talk about the housing bubble. However, whether you want to look at it or not, the U.S. real estate market has been heated up to extreme levels. Housing Price Surging Past Critical Level On…

RBC Mortgage Rates Bad News for Canada’s Housing Bubble On Tuesday, January 5, Royal Bank of Canada (NYSE:RY), one of the country’s biggest financial lenders, said it would raise its interest rates on several mortgages starting this Friday. Could this rise in RBC mortgage rates disrupt Canada’s housing…

Low Oil Prices Could Pop Canada’s Real Estate Bubble Low oil prices have hammered Canadian housing prices, threatening to pop the country’s much discussed real estate bubble, but according to one industry insider, you haven’t seen anything yet. Over the past few years, Canada's housing market has truly…

The U.S. housing market has come under pressure as housing starts have stagnated since the end of 2013, interest rates are poised to rise this year, and first-time buyers are missing from the housing market. Buyers Missing From U.S. Housing Market In February of this year, first-time home…

Ask any professional involved in the real estate market and they will tell you that when interest rates are low, it’s a great time to buy. Lower interest rates mean higher affordability because mortgage payments are smaller. In December of 2014, the 30-year mortgage rate tracked by Freddie…

In November, existing-home sales in the U.S. declined 6.1% from the previous month. They dropped to the lowest annual pace since May of 2014, falling to 4.93 million units from 5.25 million in October. (Source: “Existing-Home Sales Lose Momentum in November as Inventory Slightly Tightens,” National Association of…

As we progress to the end of 2014, my skepticism towards the U.S. housing market increases. In fact, the fate of home prices in 2015 is in question. I don’t expect an outright collapse of the housing market like the one we saw in 2007, but I see…

In spite of some doom and gloom scenarios for the housing market, so far it has been full steam ahead as the sector continues to blaze along since bouncing out of the Great Recession in 2008. With interest rates and mortgage rates continuing to be relatively low, and with…

The top one percent are spending and don’t really care about the other 99%. For the retail sector and particularly the luxury-brand stocks, this is welcome news. High-end jeweler Tiffany & Co. (NYSE/TIF) pleased investors and Wall Street on Wednesday after reporting better-than-expected results and increasing its fiscal…

The housing market picked up steam in July after some stalling in the first half of the year, which was negatively affected by bad winter conditions in the first quarter. Housing starts surged 15.7% to a seasonally adjusted 1.09 million units in July, the market’s highest production in…

The S&P Case-Shiller 20-City Home Price Index, a measure of the housing market in key American cities, declined in May by 0.31% from April—the first monthly decline in home prices in 27 months. (Source: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis web site, last accessed July 30, 2014.) The…

The U.S. housing market is in trouble again, and as crazy as it sounds, it won't surprise me to see home prices decline soon. Here are three reasons why: Existing-home sales have been declining since July of last year. The annual rate of existing-home sales in July of…

Looking at the current state of the U.S. housing market, one could say, “It’s the perfect time to buy a home.” Mortgage rates are historically low. Home prices are still down significantly from their peaks in 2006. But unfortunately, potential homeowners are not coming into the housing market.…

The housing market that lured institutional investors in during 2012 and 2013 is showing signs of cracking. Before I go into more detail, you have to keep in mind that affordability is the key to the housing market and affordability for housing only increases once home buyers’ wages…

I have been saying this for a while: You can’t have a housing recovery unless actual home buyers are involved. We are very far away from seeing the housing market reach its 2005 highs…and as time passes, it becomes clearer that this generation may never see them again.…

Compared to the past two years, the U.S. housing market will not have a great year in 2014. In fact, key indicators are now pointing to a top in the housing market recovery: The National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index fell to 47 in March,…

New York City is a colossal urban jungle, but what strikes me is the surging housing market rental prices in not only Manhattan, but also the strong price appreciation in the borough of Brooklyn. Average home prices peaked around $550,000 in early 2006, prior to a steady decline…

The chart below is of the S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index, an index that tracks home prices in the U.S. housing market. As the chart shows, from their peak in 2007 to their low in late 2011, U.S. homes prices fell by about 30%. Since then, prices in…

The harsh winter conditions have negatively impacted the housing market, but the underlying long-term fundamentals appear to be in place and have not worsened. If the economic renewal continues, my sense is that the housing market will strengthen as we move along this year, which means continued opportunities…

To see where the U.S. housing market is headed, we really need to look at what real home buyers—those who are planning to stay in their home for the long term—are doing. Institutional investors, who came into the housing market in 2012 and bought massive amounts of homes,…