Salient to Investors: Thomas Simons at Jefferies said new-home sales have no traction whatsoever but overall housing data is encouraging, with everything moving in the right direction, though a little more slowly. New-home sales are tabulated when contracts are signed, and so are a more timely barometer than transactions on existing homes.
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Zhu Haibin at JPMorgan Chase said property investment will remain the biggest macroeconomic risk in half2 even as a deceleration in investment is less severe than half1. Hua Changchun at Nomura said completed apartments must come to market sooner or later, and potential buyers will continue to
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: TransUnion said as much as 20% of home equity lines of credit are at increased risk of default as they switch from interest-only to include principal, causing monthly payments to rise more than 50%. Ezra Becker at TransUnion said more than half of the outstanding HELOCs have
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: European countries including the UK, Denmark and Switzerland are enacting policies to stem housing bubbles, yet with German mortgage volumes at the highest in 16 years, Germans are taking out smaller home loans and repaying them faster as prudent borrowers and lenders bet that record-low interest rates
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Paulo Silva at Aguirre Newman said wealthy French are fleeing French taxes to invest in Portugal to take advantage of preferential tax treatment. The French have overtaken the British as the largest group of foreign home buyers. Gustavo Soares at Sotheby’s International Realty said the tax benefits
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Chinese millionaires who invest at least $4.7 million and qualify for Australian residency can get around China’s restrictions on converting currency and sending it abroad. China caps the amount of yuan that individuals can convert into other currencies every year at the equivalent of $50,000 and bars transferring currency
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: RealtyTrac said properties with a default, auction or repossession notice are at the lowest since July 2006, a month before prices peaked and then collapsed. Daren Blomquist at RealtyTrac said foreclosures are more like a troublesome gnat than a mortal threat to the housing market. Lawrence Yun
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Jay Morelock at FTN Financial said the ‘big recovery’ has turned out not to be, and expects a stabilization but not a crash or acceleration. Brad Hunter at Metrostudy said starts in the South may have been hurt by a shortage of buildable lots as development was
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Economists say a rise in interest rates or falling prices could repeat the record high repossessions of private-landlord homes after the 2008 financial crisis. 1 in 3 economists predict an increase this year in the BOE rate. The BOE’s loan-to-income cap does not apply to buy-to-let, the
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: A Zillow.com study of average home prices in the 50 largest housing markets over 117 rolling 5-yr periods since 1979 found: Real estate prices regularly rollercoast. The biggest risk of loss, 36.8% of the period, occurred in Hartford, Connecticut The least risk of loss – the most
READ MORE... →