Economist: Housing Bubble 'Biggest in History'
MoneyNews
Monday, June 27, 2005
The figures detailing the bubble are daunting:
The total value of residential property in developed countries rose by more than $30 trillion, to $70 trillion, over the past five years – an increase equal to the combined GDPs of those nations.
The U.S. has experienced one of the largest increases in home prices over the past year, with the average cost of a home rising by 12.5 percent.
In Florida, California, Nevada, Hawaii, Maryland and Washington, D.C., the average price rose more than 20 percent. And in Palm Beach County, Fla., the median price of an existing home shot up 35 percent in just the past year.
Other countries have showed gains even higher than the U.S. in the last year, with prices rising by 23.6 percent in South Africa, 19 percent in Hong Kong and over 15 percent in Spain and France.
A recent report by the National Association of Realtors (NAR) showed that sales of existing homes in the U.S. soared to a record high 7.18 million in April.
But
23 percent of all American houses bought last year were for investment, not owner-occupation, showing that speculation in the real estate market is rampant. CNBC reports that in Miami, a hotbed of condominium building, an
estimated 70% of condo buyers are investors/speculators, and not residents.
Due to various new forms of riskier mortgages, 42 percent of first-time buyers – and 25 percent of all buyers – made no down payment on their home purchase last year, the NAR disclosed, making them especially vulnerable to a downturn in resale prices.
In California,
60 percent of all new mortgages this year are interest-only or negative-amortization. These loans are gambles that prices will continue to rise.
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/arti...27/25222.shtml