Off to hopefully sunny Milan for five days... Wonder how bad the bubble is there in Italy - haven't read much on them, but damn, wouldn't that be a great place to pick up a post-bubble villa or flat
Post some good articles (use www.tinyurl.com to shorten the links!), have a good chat, keep it clean
I'll try to keep posts coming but it'll be a little slow for a few days
Peace out
9 comments:
republicans, as predicted, pull gay marriage out of their hat to drum up the hypnotized faithful before the election
http://tinyurl.com/ggd5k
I'd imagine flag burning rears its head too.
Oh, what important issues, when wars are raging, deficits are expanding, and the housing bubble is popping
we deserve the fools we get.
Amid increasing partisan tension over President Bush's judicial nominees and domestic wiretapping, the panel voted along party lines to send the constitutional amendment — which would prohibit states from recognizing same-sex marriages — to the full Senate, where it stands little chance of passing.
Democrats complained that bringing up the amendment is a purely political move designed to appeal to the GOP's conservative base in this year of midterm elections. Under the domed ceiling of the ornate and historic President's Room off the Senate floor, senators voted 10-8 to send the measure forward.
Iran eyes badges for Jews
Law would require non-Muslim insignia
Chris Wattie
National Post
Friday, May 19, 2006
Human rights groups are raising alarms over a new law passed by the Iranian parliament that would require the country's Jews and Christians to wear coloured badges to identify them and other religious minorities as non-Muslims.
"This is reminiscent of the Holocaust," said Rabbi Marvin Hier, the dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. "Iran is moving closer and closer to the ideology of the Nazis."
Iranian expatriates living in Canada yesterday confirmed reports that the Iranian parliament, called the Islamic Majlis, passed a law this week setting a dress code for all Iranians, requiring them to wear almost identical "standard Islamic garments."
The law, which must still be approved by Iran's "Supreme Guide" Ali Khamenehi before being put into effect, also establishes special insignia to be worn by non-Muslims.
Iran's roughly 25,000 Jews would have to sew a yellow strip of cloth on the front of their clothes, while Christians would wear red badges and Zoroastrians would be forced to wear blue cloth.
"There's no reason to believe they won't pass this," said Rabbi Hier. "It will certainly pass unless there's some sort of international outcry over this."
Bernie Farber, the chief executive of the Canadian Jewish Congress, said he was "stunned" by the measure. "We thought this had gone the way of the dodo bird, but clearly in Iran everything old and bad is new again," he said. "It's state-sponsored religious discrimination."
What happens to the dollar if the fed keeps raising interest rate? how does that affect the price of gold?
What goes down comes back up...
London's Real Estate Boomlet
http://tinyurl.com/ebrjv
Americans who are lying awake at night worrying that the prices of their homes will fall off a wall like Humpty Dumpty can take some comfort in the experience of Londoners. After house prices in the British capital racked up double-digit gains seven years in a row through 2003, most forecasters predicted a nasty snapback. So far it hasn't happened. In fact, there are signs that prices are beginning to resume their upward climb.
Sure, last year London's real estate market saw a sharp slowdown. Buyers, no doubt influenced by all the crashonomics, kept their powder dry. But that only caused demand to build up, and now the spark is back. First-quarter sales grew 41% from a year earlier, and prices are on track to grow 6% or more this year.
Not-So-Humble Abodes.
It's starting to feel like the feeding frenzies of three or four years ago. Instead of seeing houses languishing on the market, brokers -- or estate agents, as they are called in England -- say they can't find enough to sell. "There is an incredible shortage of property," says Lisianne Newman, director of Goldschmidt & Howland estate agents in Hampstead, a tiny North London neighborhood. "That has led to price rises of about 10% in the last three months throughout the entire market."
Newman says the action is hottest for houses priced at around 1 million pounds, or about $1.9 million, or higher. Each of those houses and well-appointed apartments attracts such a crowd that the agency is seeing multiple would-be buyers submitting sealed bids in envelopes.
Brokers and economists attribute the change in psychology to several factors. With private equity and M&A in high gear, the City, London's financial center, had a strong year in 2005. That led to big bonuses in early 2006 from banks and other financial institutions. Russians and other newly wealthy foreigners consider a London house an ideal place to stash some spare cash. And when you consider that Brits themselves like nothing better than to put money into property and that London will host the summer Olympics in 2012, you have the key planks in a possible floor under the city's prices.
Rate Cut.
It also helped that in August the Bank of England cut rates to 4.5%, down from 4.75%. Potential buyers had been spooked by Bank of England Governor Mervyn King's earlier warnings that the market looked dangerously frothy. But the bank's trim suddenly took the worry out of the rate outlook. "That removed a lot of uncertainty from the market," says Ed Stansfield, property economist at Capital Economics in London.
Capital Economics counted among the many real estate bears, forecasting a steep drop of 20% in British house prices -- but the dreaded bust has yet to materialize. According to the Halifax Index, kept by mortgage lender HBOS, prices in Greater London rose by an average of 2.1% in 2005. That may have been disappointing to sellers following the 16.6% pyrotechnic gains of 2002 and a 12.8% rise for an encore in 2003, but it was far from a plunge off a cliff. Now Capital Economics is forecasting 6% average price increases this year for London and 3% to 4% for 2007.
Brokers say the current boomlet began last fall after the Bank of England cut rates. It is too soon to tell whether it will last, but posher neighborhoods are showing signs of gathering strength. In the verdant west London borough of Richmond upon Thames, for instance, the average selling price of a stand-alone house was 29% higher than a year ago in the first quarter, or $1.89 million, according to the Land Registry, the official recorder of property transactions.
Riskiness Lurking?
In Camden, where Hampstead is located, the average selling price of a residence rose 18% -- to $943,000 -- from the fourth quarter of 2005 to the first of 2006. Sales volumes in greater London rose 41% year on year in the first quarter. With price increases in the less swanky neighborhoods more restrained, the Halifax says overall London prices have risen 7.2% over the last 12 months.
Of course, London house prices can and do fall. They did it for four years in a row in the early 1990s, and some homeowners didn't match the prices they paid in the 1980s property boom until near the end of the last century.
There's cause for caution today, too. Stansfield of Capital Economics, for instance, says it now costs 53% of an average Londoner's income to finance a home purchase. That's well above the 30-year average of 45%.
Looking Healthy.
"The risks are strongly biased to the downside. You obviously couldn't rule out fairly significant falls in prices," says David Miles, a Morgan Stanley economist specializing in Britain.
One reason: The new boom has caught Mervyn King's attention and helped make it likely the next move on interest rates will be upward. "The level of house prices still seems remarkably high," said King recently. But today's British economy, with its relatively low rates and robust employment numbers, still looks healthy. It will take more than a few cautionary words from King to scare off house-mad Londoners.
london is only going up because the multimillionaire stockbrokers and traders and bankers got paid their 2005 bonuses
it'll go right back down after the blip - especially with the bank of england raising rates at their next meeting
funny usatoday had this story after the blog had that babyboomers are screwed rant yesterday. I'll be damned if this article isn't a rip and read from this blog
http://tinyurl.com/o9x8t
Boomers bet on property for support
Baby boomers love their real estate. So much that they're counting on it to help them fund retirement.
Since most of them haven't saved much, they'll probably need it.
One in four Americans born from 1946 to 1964 own more than one property, according to a survey of nearly 2,000 boomers done this spring by Harris Interactive for the National Association of Realtors. They're also much more likely than the total U.S. population to own their primary residences.
Boomers have "an almost insatiable desire for real estate," David Lereah, the NAR's chief economist, said in a statement. They see real estate as "a way to build and protect a nest egg."
by the time this is over, tens of thousands of people IN PHOENIX ALONE will have been layed off - adding even more fire to the real estate crash
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/0519layoffs0519.html
Housing decline triggers layoffs
Home builders are laying off construction superintendents, subdivision sales agents, finance specialists and other employees, a telling sign that metropolitan Phoenix's new-home market has taken a radical turn from last year's selling frenzy.
Builders are struggling with reduced demand brought on by skeptical buyers hit with higher prices and rising interest rates. The pileup of unsold houses helped push Valley home building down nearly 24 percent in March and more than 16 percent in the first quarter, following a record 2005.
Builders say they don't have enough work for some of their workers. KB Home said it made across-the-board cuts at its Phoenix division this month
Compare your area home prices with North Dover, Toms River, NJ 08753 !!!!
ZILLOW.com: Toms River,NJ 08753
What happens to the dollar if the fed keeps raising interest rate? how does that affect the price of gold?
Increasing interests strengthing the dollar two ways.
1) reduces the money supply by reducing easy loans. The tighter money supply help to fight inflation by reducing the spending craze.
2) Increasing the rate on the Ten year note increases the demand for the notes. Increasing the Feds short term revenue/reducing the need in the short term to create money to pay it's bills.
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