Salient to Investors: Mark Vitner at Wells Fargo Securities said housing will move significantly higher over the next year driven by low mortgage rates, a gradual improvement in the labor market, and very low inventories. The S&P Supercomposite Homebuilding Index is up 70 percent since year-end 2011 versus the 8.1 percent gain for the S&P 500.
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Jonathan Gray at Blackstone said: Investors have less than 2 years to buy foreclosures before competition and rising prices shrink the pool of cheap assets. The opportunity for funds to buy homes at discounts could last less than 2 or 3 years and the recovery in house prices could surprise people. The
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Real Capital Analytics said foreigners bought more UK properties worth over $9.5 million than residents for the first time in a decade, and bought 13.5 billion pounds of UK property through Oct. 12, versus 9.3 billion pounds of domestic purchases. Portfolio investments, including equities and debt, showed a 37.6 billion- pound net inflow
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Home Depot Q3 profit topped analysts’ estimates. The US housing market is healing, with new-home sales rising to the fastest pace in two years and construction starting at the fastest rate in four years. Americans’ real estate holdings have risen in value for two straight quarters. CoreLogic said over
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Two states voting to legalize recreational use of marijuana marks the beginning of the end of the war on drugs – which has cost $1 trillion over the past four decades. The OECD says the US has over 3 times as many prisoners per capita as it did in 1980, and 10 times as many as
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Mortgage REITs tumbled on the expectation that more homeowners would be able to prepay mortgages and because lower yields on new investments would squeeze earnings and dividends. Vitaliy Liberman at DoubleLine Capital said continuation of policies that started last year are basically assured now. Edward Mills at FBR Capital Markets said housing is a clear winner
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Bill Miller at Legg Mason said because housing has done so well, the next move there is in financials. Miller said an improved housing market means banks’ mortgage origination businesses will improve. Miller’s fund had 40 percent of assets in financial stocks as of Sept. 30, and
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Prices for single-family homes rose in 120 of 149 metropolitan areas in Q3 versus 110 areas in Q2. CoreLogic said US home prices rose 5 percent in September from a year ago, the biggest 12-month increase since July 2006. Paul Diggle at Capital Economics said tight supply will mean that house
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Michael Mandel at CompStak said the financial industry, the traditional driver of New York City office rents, is giving way to technology, media and advertising firms, who tend to steer clear of midtown Manhattan’s skyscrapers, preferring the older, low-rise buildings of midtown south, the area roughly between 34th
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Robert Shiller at Yale said the housing recovery is fragile and should be spurred by reducing the role of government in the mortgage-finance system. The economy needs further fiscal stimulus to create jobs, with increases in spending offset by higher taxes on the wealthy to avoid enlarging the national debt. Read the full article
READ MORE... →