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Sina Finance reports that since the bankruptcy on July 18 was announced, the Chinese website Sina Weibo has been all abuzz about how properties can be picked up for a pittance. Caroline Chen, a real estate broker in Troy, Michigan, claims to have received numerous calls from people in China. Chen says that some people have called and said they want to buy 100 to 200 properties. She said that a colleague recently sold 30 properties to a Chinese buyer. The buyer said we don't need to see the properties just pick the good ones.

The Mortgage Refinancing Boom Is Evaporating Before Our Eyes Mamta Badkar and Matthew Boesler June 14, 2013, 1:29 PM Mortgage rates have been climbing for five straight weeks, and the latest data from the Mortgage Banker's Association shows that the average 30-year fixed rate is now at 4.15%, up from 3.59% in the first week of May. Meanwhile, the MBA's refinancings index is down 36% from its peak at the beginning of May. The rise in mortgage rates has been driven by concerns about when the Federal Reserve will begin to slow its $85-billion-a-month bond purchase program, which is designed...

SAN FRANCISCO — VISITORS have forever left their hearts in San Francisco. But leaving the rest of your body here isn’t so easy: there’s no place to live. The City by the Bay is going through one of its worst housing shortages in memory. With typical high demand intensified by a regional boom in tech jobs, apartment open houses are mob scenes of desperate applicants clutching their credit reports. The citywide median rental price for a one-bedroom is $2,764 a month, but jumps to $3,500 in trendy areas. One reason for the shortage? Me. I’ve recently joined the ranks of...

Best Explanation For The Fake U.S. Housing Market Recovery Housing-Market / US Housing Jun 06, 2013 - 04:37 PM GMT By: Profit Confidential Michael Lombardi Michael Lombardi writes: The average American Joe isn’t participating in the U.S. housing market. As a matter of fact, according to the Campbell/Inside Mortgage Finance HousingPulse Tracking Survey, investors purchased 69% of “damaged” properties in April 2013, while first-time home buyers accounted for only 16% of “damaged” purchases. It is very well documented in these pages how home prices in the U.S. economy are being driven upward by institutional investors. Affirming my stance on the...

CHART OF THE DAY: Home Prices Are Rising At The Fastest Pace Since February 2006 Mamta Badkar Jun. 4, 2013, 9:24 AM Home prices (including distressed sales) climbed 12.1% year-over-year in April, according to Corelogic's latest home price report. Home prices were up 3.2% month-over-month in April. This was the biggest year-over-year increase since February 2006, and the 14th straight monthly increase. Moreover, on an annual basis, home prices were up in all 50 states for the second straight month. Ex-distressed sales home prices were up 11.9% on the year, and 3% on the month. "Increasing demand for new and...

Swedish repay their mortgages so slowly that it will take 140 years on average, according to the IMF. The International Monetary Fund lamented Friday that Swedish households pay their mortgages so slowly that they are planning to do an average of 140 years. "Financial stability is [...] reinforced by a steady reduction in repayment schedules - that exceed an average of 140 years," the IMF said in a statement after a mission in Sweden. This statistic was revealed in March by a government agency, the inspection of the financial sector. It covers loans considered relatively safe, those where the real...

Just a few blocks away from Nationals Park the federal government holds a below-market lease at 2100 2nd Street, SW, Washington D.C. The 600,000 square foot lease doesn’t expire until May 15, 2018 and is valued at least $48 million in rent and likely represents another $40 million in savings below market rates for commercial real estate. But, in a time of tight budgets, when taxes have been raised on all Americans to support Washington’s addiction to spending, bureaucrats at the General Services Administration (GSA) have decided to…wait… abandon the cost-effective space, move the employees to a new, higher rent...

If wonderful times are ahead for U.S. financial markets, then why is so much of the smart money heading for the exits? Does it make sense for insiders to be getting out of stocks and real estate if prices are just going to continue to go up? The Dow is up about 17 percent so far this year, and it just keeps setting new record high after new record high. U.S. home prices have risen about 11 percent from a year ago, and some analysts are projecting that we are on the verge of a brand new housing boom. Why...

Did You Blow Your Once-In-A-Generation Chance To Buy A Home? Matthew Boesler May 29, 2013, 11:09 AM The U.S. housing market crash of 2007-2008 presented a big opportunity for those in the market to buy a home. Mortgage rates lurched lower, continuing their downward trajectory to historic lows reached in late 2012. And, of course, home prices came way down. Here are mortgage rates. And here are home prices. The combination has propelled the "Housing Affordability Index" published by the National Association of Realtors to all-time highs. Note from NAR's website: To interpret the indices, a value of 100 means...

What U.S. Housing Market Recovery? Percentage Of First-Time Home Buyers Falls Again Housing-Market / US Housing May 29, 2013 - 10:59 AM GMT By: Profit ConfidentialMichael Lombardi Michael Lombardi writes: It’s almost as if the mainstream media is defining the U.S. housing market as being “hot,” while some economists are calling for robust growth ahead. But the reality is that we are far from a recovery in thehousing market and more troubles could follow. As I have discussed in these pages many times before, institutional investors are running to buy homes for rental income, because the yields elsewhere are getting...

"A powerful United States Senator’s husband is standing by, all ready to make millions from a U.S. taxpayer funded enterprise."

Not everyone agrees on how immigration reform should be handled but most real estate professionals agree it could be a good thing for their industry. According to the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals (NAHREP), “allowing a path for the legalization of undocumented immigrants could mean $500 billion in new real estate transactions.” NAHREP estimates that about half of the estimated 6 million undocumented immigrants presently in the country and likely to pursue legalization and citizenship would also pursue homeownership. That estimate is based on patterns of naturalized Latinos already in the country. “Foreign-born householders have a high value...

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Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog_post/beyond_the_echo_chamber/ Friday, February 6th, 2009 at 12:55 pm Advice from "beyond the echo chamber" We just learned the economy lost another 600,000 jobs last month. It's a staggering number, and it underscores just how deep this crisis is – and, as the President pointed out this morning, it’s accelerating. That's why he created the Economic Recovery Advisory Board -- to solicit ideas from "beyond the echo chamber of Washington, DC." "I’m not interested in groupthink, which is why the Board reflects a broad cross-section of experience, expertise, and ideology," he said. "We’ve recruited...

Who is Ed DeMarco? What is the FHFA? Even though it did not come entirely unexpected, the day has finally arrived. President Obama has decided to nominate Mel Watt instead of Ed DeMarco as the Director of the FHFA (Federal Housing Finance Administration). Most people have never heard of the FHFA, nor Mr. DeMarco. Who cares? Why should one care? You should actually all care. The real estate market has officially entered a new chapter. Analysts, economists, investors and homeowners, throw away everything you thought you knew about real estate and start all over. I would like to get right...

SHILLER: 'We're Living In A Totally Artificial Real Estate Economy' Drew Sandholm, CNBCMarch 27, 2013, 7:51 PM|10,709Housing data released Tuesday was mixed, showing home prices jumped while new home sales dropped, prompting renowned economist Robert Shiller to call the housing recovery positive in the short-term, but not without many headwinds. There might even be a bubble, he said. "One thing that makes it very hard to forecast home prices right now is that we're living in a totally artificial real estate economy," said Shiller, co-creator of the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller Index, a widely followed measure of housing prices. Shiller pointed...

Cullen Roche is worried that the trajectory of housing prices might deviate from what practical assumptions would predict. "Real estate returns are not rocket science. Because they’re such a huge portion of the consumer balance sheet they tend to be tied very closely to wage growth. Wage growth, by definition, is very closely tied to the rate of inflation. That explains why the long-term historical return of real estate is roughly in-line with rate of inflation. But this survey from Zillow shows that real estate “investors” are probably still too optimistic." I can see why these assumptions are attractive, but...

If trouble comes in threes, then what'll be the next global market to melt down after the U.S. and Europe? Some are looking nervously at China. China has been nothing short of a financial miracle. In just 30 years, this state-controlled economy became the world's second largest, deftly managed by government policies and decrees. One sector the authorities concentrated on was real estate and construction. But that may have created the largest housing bubble in human history. If you go to China, it's easy to see why there's all the talk of a bubble. We discovered that the most populated...

MICHELLE MEYER: Don't Get All Excited About Today's Huge Home Sales Report Mamta BadkarFebruary 26, 2013 This morning we saw two huge housing data points. Home prices posted their biggest gain since July 2006, while new home sales surged 15.6 percent month-over-month. However, the already tight housing supply is getting even tighter. Bank of America economist Michelle Meyer tells us that while we are seeing an improvement in new home sales, today's data could be revised in coming months and that monthly data should be interpreted with caution since it can be very volatile. She also says that housing supply...

We have a Chinese side to our family and have a brother- in-law and his wife who just came over from Peking for the Chinese New Year to visit relatives here, and also for business purposes. Seems his business in Peking is a venture capitalist. Apparently there are lots of wealthy business people in China that are buying up U.S. real estate. He is here representing a group of them and his job is to locate depressed real estate that he thinks has the best potential to take the most advantage of a new real estate boom if and when...