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In Financial Markets, the Herd is usually Wrong Financial markets are fickle monsters. Whichever way the herd moves the market will go the other direction. During the Great Housing Bubble rally, prices were pushed up the herd mentality. As prices rose, more and more people were convinced prices would continue to rise, so the pool of buyers swelled. Credit standards dropped to qualify more buyers, and the party went on and on. The Participation of Women in the Housing Bubble One of the unique characteristics of the Great Housing Bubble was the large increase in market participation among women, sometimes single women and sometimes as married women buying property on their own. Subprime Will Return, Alt-A is Dead Like a Phoenix rising from the ashes, Subprime lending will make a comeback. Lenders focus on the three Cs: Creditworthiness, Capacity, and Collateral. Creditworthiness is measured by one's FICO score, Capacity is based on one's income, and Collateral is the value of the property the loan is being written against. The subprime lending business model was originally intended to take people with poor FICO scores that had good income and savings and give them bridge financing until they could repair their FICO scores and refinance into conventional loans. This business model will probably return in a few years as there will be many people in this category due to the crash of prices in the Great Housing Bubble. The High-End Suburbs Will Also Crash The course of a financial market, particularly the real estate market, is a long and winding road full of twists and turns and unexpected outcomes. It was certainly foreseeable that banks and builders might fail and the GSEs might need to be bailed out, but the how and when of these occurrences are always unpredictable and newsworthy. The Loan Program for the Next Housing Bubble Lending during the Great Housing Bubble was too messy. There were too many loan programs. Since real estate always goes up, and since people want immediate access to this appreciation to spend it like income, a new loan product which readily provides this money is in order. The Option ARM was a major innovation. By allowing for negative amortization, people were able to add to their loan balance and effectively "cash out" their equity. The problem with this loan program is that it didn't go far enough, people still had to make payments, and they had to get HELOCs to extract the remainder. Can You Still Make Money Flipping Houses? Speculation is a battle. The forces of greed and fear drive the financial markets, and the speculator attempts to profit from these moves. Speculation is not investment, although most do not understand the distinction. Speculation is the battle of the individual against the herd. For those who understand it and have learned to move against the emotional forces of fear and greed, there is opportunity to profit. For those who follow the herd, there are brief moments when profits are available, but few have the discipline to take them. Most speculators are slain by the market. Forex Scalping Strategy Forex scalping is the art of using high leverage and a large number of short term trades to steadily increase an account. Usually, only 1 to 5 pips are targeted for each trade. This type of trading appeals greatly to day traders and those looking to minimize the risk involved in trading currencies. Next to money management, "risk control" is the single most important trait to a surviving (and thriving) currency trader. The small amount of time that is spent in the market limits much of the risk in exposure in comparison to a longer term system. Also, the freedom involved in a speedy Forex scalping system in such a liquid market is a "magnet" that drives many traders from other markets to try their hand in currency. A disciplined and steady scalper could seamlessly double or triple an account, and spend only a fraction of the time in the market as a common day trader. Why Were People Buying Houses While Prices Were Dropping? There is a great deal of price volatility in California. There are significant periods of time where house prices will appreciate faster than incomes increase. This is purely the result of irrational exuberance. Prices cannot rise faster than incomes on a sustained basis, but prices can certainly go up faster than incomes when a bubble is inflating. Moral Hazard and Housing Bailouts All bailout measures have embedded within them serious issues of moral hazard. Both lenders and borrowers were extremely foolish during the real estate bubble. To bail them out at the expense of the wise and prudent will discourage fiscally responsible behavior and encourage wild risk taking and speculation. Market Solutions for Preventing the Next Housing Bubble There is one potential market-based solution that would require no government regulation or intervention that would prevent future bubbles from being created with borrowed capital: change the method of appraisal for residential real estate from valuations based exclusively on the comparative-sales approach to a valuation derived from the lesser of the income approach and the comparative-sales approach. Both approaches are already part of a standard appraisal, so little additional work is necessary, other than appraisers will have to focus on doing the income approach properly. What Did Not Cause the Housing Bubble? To fully understand what caused the housing bubble, one needs to examine some of the purported causes that are not valid because these often lead to incorrect policy initiatives. Bad policy initiatives include interest rate regulation, hedge fund regulation, and loan-to-income regulation. Do We Really Need to Maximize Home Ownership Rates? There needs to be an open discussion of the goal of maximizing home ownership. Owning a home has become synonymous with the American Dream. Every Presidential administration has had the expansion of home ownership as one of its goals. The tax code is structured to give tax breaks to home owners to encourage home ownership. The idea of home ownership is deeply embedded in our culture. However, it is not good public policy to maximize home ownership rates because the methods for achieving this end are not sustainable. Personal Problems Resulting From the Great Housing Bubble The economic problems caused by asset price bubbles often lead to personal problems in the wake of the deflating bubble. Statistics about unemployment, foreclosure and bankruptcy are impersonal. The events that result in any one of these outcomes was anything but impersonal: these things happened to real people who had very real emotional responses. Many people during the fallout of the Great Housing Bubble experienced all three. Any one of these outcomes can lead to depression, suicide, divorce and a whole host of traumatic personal problems. All of it was preventable if the bubble was not allowed to inflate in the first place. Lingering Problems from the Deflation of the Housing Bubble As with any illness, the recovery is often plagued by symptoms of the disease and unwanted side effects. The recovery from the Great Housing Bubble will be no exception. The main problems will be experienced by those who bought at peak prices and did not go through the cleansing foreclosure process. As painful as foreclosure is to those who must endure it, foreclosure is the cure to the disease of the market. After foreclosure, a borrower is no longer burdened by high housing payments, and is free to move to find new work and spend income on consumer goods. How Does a Decrease in Home Ownership Rates Impact Residential Real Estate Markets? There is a strong correspondence to the growth of the subprime lending industry and an increase in home ownership rates. This is a direct result of lending money to those borrowers previously excluded from the housing market either because the borrower did not have the downpayment, or they lacked good credit. The collapse of the subprime lending industry in 2007 and the subsequent foreclosures on the millions of subprime loans caused a decrease in home ownership rates. Only a Fool Believes Real Estate Prices Always Go Up In 2007 and 2008, house prices declined nationally for the first time since the Great Depression. From 2002 to 2006, there was a massive Ponzi Scheme of ever-increasing debt that fueled the Great Housing Bubble. People bought in to this Ponzi Scheme because they believed real estate prices always go up. They were encouraged in this belief by the National Association of Realtors. Factors that Influence the Price Declines in Residential Real Estate Markets There are a number of factors that will influence the timing and the depth of the price decline. There are a number of psychological factors and technical factors in play. Akmanda’s Key To Financial Planning Credit Card, Loans, Real Estate Can money buy happiness? What are the ways to do Online Banking? Hope Now? The Big Lies of the Housing Bubble The first of the numerous bailout programs was "Hope Now" introduced in October of 2007. As the name suggests, Hope Now was sold to the general public as a reason for them to hang on and continue making crushing payments for as long as possible. It was a false hope, but even false hope gave homeowners a little emotional relief, and it provided a few more payments to the lenders. According to their website, "HOPE NOW is a cooperative effort between counselors, investors, and lenders to maximize outreach efforts to homeowners in distress." The plan was to streamline the process of negotiating workouts between lenders and borrowers to keep borrowers making payments and ostensibly to stop them from losing their homes. The emphasis was on making payments and maximizing investor value in collateralized debt obligations. Very few people benefited from the program, despite government claims to the contrary, and no rights or benefits were conferred to borrowers that they did not already contractually have. There was much fanfare when it was first announced, but the program did far too little to have any impact on the housing market. The Capitulation Stage in a Financial Bubble There are many identifiable stages in a financial mania. These include: enthusiasm, greed, delusion, denial, fear, capitulation, and despair. The transition from the fear stage to the capitulation stage is caused by the infectious belief that the rally is over. There is a tipping point where a critical mass of market participants either decide to sell or are forced to sell. In residential real estate, people are compelled to sell by anxiety, and the mechanism for force is foreclosure. Mortgages Were Viewed as Option Contracts by Speculators The options market is a speculator's paradise. Buying and selling options contracts requires a knowledge of how they work and what gives them value. During the Great Housing Bubble, residential mortgages took on the characteristics of options contracts. This was not by design. The practices of lenders created this problem, and in the end, it cost lenders and investors a great deal of money. Floplords - Flippers Turned Landlords When house prices stopped their dizzying ascent in the Great Housing Bubble, many speculators found themselves with large monthly debt service costs and no income to offset expenses. Many chose to quit paying their mortgage obligations and allowed the property to be auctioned at foreclosure. Many chose to rent the properties to reduce their monthly cashflow drain, and they became accidental landlords. In the vernacular of the time, they became floplords, flippers turned landlords. Primary Buyer Support Levels in Residential Real Estate Markets The two true real estate investor types, Rent Savers and Cashflow Investors, move in to a market and create a bottom when comparative rents come into alignment with the total cost of ownership. Rent Savers enter the market and begin purchasing real estate. It makes sense for them to do so because ownership becomes a savings over renting (hence the term Rent Saver). What Are the Two Kinds of Real Estate Investors? There are two types of true real estate investors: Rent Savers and Cashflow Investors. These two groups will enter a real estate market without regard to future appreciation because either the cash savings or the positive cashflow warrant the purchase price of the asset. These people are largely immune to the emotional pratfalls of speculators because the value of the investment to them is not dependent upon a profit to be garnered when the asset is sold. They will hold the asset through any price declines because they are not feeling any pain when prices drop. Since these investors will purchase houses even if prices are declining, they are the ones who move in to create a bottom and end the cycle of declining prices. One Hundred Percent Financing Ruined the Housing Market Once 100% financing became widely available, it was enthusiastically embraced by all parties: the lenders suddenly had a huge source of new customers to generate high fees, the realtors and builders now had plenty of new customers to buy more homes, and many potential buyers who did not have savings were able to enter the market. It seemed like a panacea; for two or three years, it was. The Credit Crunch Deflated the Housing Bubble Loan standards vary over time as the credit cycle loosens and tightens. Many borrowers in the bubble rally were qualified with low credit scores, very high combined-loan-to-values, high debt-to-income ratios, and little or no income verification. When the ensuing credit crunch occurred, all of these standards were tightened and many of those who previously qualified did not qualify under the new standards. If no other conditions changed, this tightening of standards would have forced many borrowers into foreclosure; however, this credit tightening caused a chain reaction sending market prices for residential real estate which were already falling into an even steeper decline. The Affordability Limit in Residential Real Estate Markets Affordability is the ultimate limit of any asset bubble. If prices are so high that no buyer can afford them, there are no transactions and thereby no market. The fear of many buyers in a financial mania is that prices will remain elevated to the absolute limit of affordability permanently. People who have this fear will put every available resource into getting a house before this happens. This becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy as prices get bid higher and higher by fearful buyers. The Supply Curve in Residential Real Estate Bubbles The supply curve is the opposite of the demand curve: sellers will make very few units available at low prices, and sellers will make a great many available at higher prices. Wherever these two curves meet is where supply and demand are in balance and market transactions are taking place. The Guide to Pick-a-Pay Option ARM Loans The Option ARM is one of the most complicated loan programs ever developed. It was heralded as an innovation because it allowed people greater control over their monthly payments, and it provided greater affordability in the early years of the mortgage. It proved to be a complete failure as it experienced the highest default rates of any loan program ever recorded. Eighteen Common Lies Realtors Tell Realtors are agents of sellers, and it is not uncommon for them to exaggerate the income and appreciation potential of a given property to help sell it. It is a realtor's job to obtain the highest possible sale price for a piece of real estate. The most common ploy realtors use it to attempt to create a sense of urgency in a buyer. In a seller's market, prices are rising, and buyers already feel a sense of urgency. In a buyer's market, prices are falling, and there is no urgency on the part of buyers. This fact does not stop realtors from trying to create urgency even if the truth is cast asunder. Debt-To-Income Ratios and Residential Real Estate The cumulative impact of the decisions of buyers is represented in the debt-to-income ratios, how much each household pays to borrow versus how much they make. Comparing the trends in debt-to-income ratios provides a great tool for elucidating the behavior of buyers. Price-To-Rent Ratios as a Measure of Residential Real Estate Value Price-to-rent ratios represent the cost of a dwelling unit relative to the cost of a comparable dwelling unit. This ratio is also subject to the same variability exhibited by the price-to-income ratio. This is not surprising considering rent is generally paid out of current income, so incomes and rents tend to track one another fairly closely. Price-To-Income Ratios as a Measure of Residential Real Estate Value Price-to-income ratios represent the amount borrowed relative to the incomes of the borrower. There are many variables that impact house prices, and some of the variability in prices over time can be attributed to changes in these variables; however, since most houses are purchased with lender financing, and since lender financing is linked to income, the price-to-income ratio is the best metric for evaluating long-term housing price trends. The price-to-income ratio does not need to be adjusted for inflation as both prices and income will rise with the general level of inflation. Most of the fluctuations in the ratio are based on changes in financing terms, in particular interest rates, and of course, irrational exuberance. Price Measurements of Residential Real Estate Markets There is no perfect measure for any broad financial market activity, and real estate markets are one of the most difficult to measure accurately. There are a number of methods for measuring prices and price changes in residential real estate markets. These include the median price, the median price per-square-foot, and the Case-Shiller indices. Housing Bubble - How to Identify One Prices went up a large amount during the Great Housing Bubble, but what makes this price increase a bubble? To answer this question it is necessary to accurately measure price levels and review historic measures of affordability to establish these price levels are not sustainable. Measuring house prices is not a simple task, and there are many methods market watchers use to evaluate market prices. These include the median, the average cost per square foot, and the S The Great Housing Bubble - Who is Responsible? Who is responsible for the Great Housing Bubble? It is one thing to identify who or what caused the bubble, but it is another to assign responsibility and blame. Borrowers, lenders, investors, and the FED are all responsible; it is only a matter of degree. Visualizing the Real Estate Bubble The Great Housing Bubble can be visualized with a simple thought experiment. Imagine a room with 100 people representing the pool of subprime borrowers. These are new entrants to the market. They were previously unable to buy due to bad credit, lack of savings, and other reasons. All of them are told they are going to bid on an asset that never goes down in value, and they will be given the ability to borrow unlimited funds (stated-income "liar loans") The only caveat is the borrowed money must be paid back when the asset is sold (not that they care, they already have bad credit). Imagine what happens? Residential Appraisals and Collateralized Debt Obligations There are three methods of appraising the resale value of residential real estate: the comparative-sales approach, the cost approach, and the income approach. The comparative-sales approach uses recent sales of similar properties in the market because comparable sales reflect the behavior of typical buyers in the marketplace. The cost approach determines market value by calculating the replacement cost of an identical structure plus the cost of the land or lot upon which the house would sit. The income approach determines market value by analyzing market rents of comparable properties and applies the gross rent multiplier of expected rents. Most lenders give the greatest weight to the comparable sales approach when establishing market value before applying any loan-to-value limitations to the loan amount. The income approach is generally only considered for non-owner occupied homes. The three-test approach to appraising market value as used during the Great Housing Bubble is fraught with risk and is seriously flawed. Risk Synergy for Investors in Mortgage-Backed Securities One of the major failings of the credit markets in the Great Housing Bubble was the failure to take a holistic view and evaluate the systemic risks involved. A standard credit analysis reviews various risk parameters and attempts to rate the impact of each. The implicit assumption is that the total risk is equal to the sum of the parts; however this is not necessarily the case. Synergy is when the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and there is a strong synergy in default loss risk in collateralized debt obligations that became apparent during the Great Housing Bubble. The credit rating agencies failed to identify this risk synergy until after the fact. Mortgage Default Rates and Mortgage Default Losses There is risk of loss in any investment. Investors in residential mortgages do not necessarily lose money when a borrower defaults. In the event of a default, a property will be auctioned at foreclosure, and the investor is paid out of proceeds from the sale of the property. Only in the event that the sale of the property does not cover the outstanding balance on the mortgage does the investor lose money. Therefore, mortgage defaults do not necessarily create mortgage default losses. Credit Rating Agencies and the Secondary Mortgage Market Credit rating and analysis of collateralized debt obligations and all structured finance products are integral to the smooth function of the secondary market for mortgage loans. A credit rating agency is a company that analyzes issuers of debt and debt-like securities and gives them an overall credit rating which measures the issuer's ability to satisfy its debt obligations. Explore The Changing Real Estate World Of Panama Panama for sure is taking full advantage of the recent real estate market and is earning quite good from its resources. As this is one of the most widely visited tourist spots therefore, tourism also is helping in developing this country. The website panamarealestateboom.com, says all about the real estate of Panama. Are Mortgage-Backed Securities Dead? One can argue that structured finance creates greater efficiency in our financial system because capital is freed to pursue other objectives. Although, it can also be argued, as Warren Buffet has, that derivatives, the product of structured finance, are "financial weapons of mass destruction." Both arguments stem from the same characteristic of these securities: excessive debt. The Structure of a Collateralized Debt Obligation Collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) are asset-backed securities formed from bundles of residential mortgages. These structures provided the capital delivery mechanism that helped inflate the Great Housing Bubble. CDOs are merely a tool. If used appropriately, they can speed the delivery of capital and create a more efficient capital market. If used inappropriately, they can be a financial weapons of mass destruction, and they can threaten our entire capitalist system. The Housing Bubble was a Credit Bubble The Great Housing Bubble was not really about housing; it was about credit. Most financial bubbles are the result of an expansion of credit, and the Great Housing Bubble was no exception. Housing just happened to be the asset class into which this capital flowed. It could have been stocks or commodities just as easily, and if the government gets too aggressive in its actions to prevent a collapse in housing prices, the liquidity intended to prop up real estate prices will likely flow into some other asset class creating yet another asset price bubble. Why did Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae Go Under? The Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, also known as Freddie Mac, was created by Congress in 1970 to make possible a secondary mortgage market to provide greater liquidity to banks and other lending institutions to facilitate home mortgage lending. The Federal National Mortgage Corporation, also known as Fannie Mae, was originally created by the Federal Housing Authority (FHA) in 1938. In the beginning, Fannie Mae would securitize FHA loans, and it was the first to create a secondary mortgage market. How to Value a Vacant Home Building Lot The market value of an individual lot is equal to the revenue it could generate when a residential housing unit is built on it minus the cost of creating that revenue (construction cost, marketing, profit, and other costs). Sales revenue will largely be determined by what can be built on the lot and how much that unit would sell for in the market. The dimensions of the lot, building codes, and the local zoning ordinances create constraints on what can be built. Most often there is some variety in choices available to construct on a given lot. Each of these options has a revenue potential and an estimated cost. Builders produce the combination which yields the greatest profit. Valuation of Lots and Raw Land The valuation of land used for residential housing is mysterious and often misunderstood. The valuation of lots and raw land requires a detailed knowledge of construction and marketing costs as well as a good estimate of the sales price of the final product: a residential housing unit. In short, the value of a lot is the total revenue (sales price of the home) minus the costs of production and the necessary profit. Land value is a residual calculation. The Inflation Premium for Residential Real Estate Residential housing does have a cash-saving value, if financed with a fixed rate mortgage. Over time, the growth in income and rents increases the cost of housing for renters. The inflation of housing costs for renters is greatly lessened for homeowners using a fixed-rate mortgage because their housing costs are effectively frozen at the rate of their ongoing mortgage payment. Other costs of home ownership, such as property taxes, insurance and maintenance do still rise with inflation, but since the mortgage payment is about two-thirds of the cost of ownership, fixing this amount provides a large benefit. Over time, the savings accruing to homeowners from a level housing payment can be quite substantial. Applying the technique of discounted cashflow analysis, this savings over time can be evaluated. Residential Real Estate Investment Value - How Is It Calculated? The United States Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics measures the Rent of primary residence (rent) and Owners' equivalent rent of primary residence (rental equivalence). They make this distinction because a house has both a consumptive purpose and an investment purpose. The consumptive value is measured by rent or rental equivalence. There is legitimate financial reason to pay more than the rental equivalence price. The normal rate of house appreciation, not the unsustainable kind witnessed during the Great Housing Bubble, can provide a return on investment. The source of this added value is the leverage of mortgage financing and the hedge against inflation obtained through a fixed-rate mortgage. The investment premium, which is about 10%, is less than most people think. Home Interest Tax Savings Are Always Overestimated When a borrower takes out a home loan, the interest is tax deductible up to a certain amount. For borrowers in the highest marginal tax bracket, the savings can be significant, and this can make a dramatic difference in the true cost of ownership. However, this benefit diminishes over time as the loan is paid off and the interest decreases, unless of course, the borrower has used a toxic interest-only or negative amortization loan. How Much Does a House Really Cost? When contemplating purchasing a home, one should examine all of the costs of ownership to budget properly for the expenses they will face. Most people simply focus on the payment, and soon after they purchase, they realize that the true cost of ownership is often 20%-30% greater than they expected. Did Lenders Cause Their Own Credit Crunch? It seems lenders forget basic facts about lending every so often and create a new financial bubble. Perhaps they succumb to the pressure of the investment community or their own shareholders, or perhaps they just start believing their own "innovation" marketing pitch and forget the basics of sound lending practices. Great News For The First Time Home Buyers! Are you planning to buy a new home? If you are a first time home buyer then don’t worry for the money required because new plans and financial programs are now there for you. Through the new 8,000 Tax Credit or to say, the first time home buyer tax credit, the first time home buyers are surely going to enjoy preferences. Understanding the Annual Percentage Rate or APR One of the most difficult decisions to make when purchasing a home is choosing a mortgage. With all the variations in the different loans that are available today it is sometimes very difficult to compare one mortgage to another. what is Amortization? Amortization is the process by which your monthly mortgage payment is determined In an Amortized loan you make periodic or monthly payments. The Mortgage Payment The mortgage payment is the money you give to the lender or bank each month to repay the loan and pay the costs for borrowing the money. Closing Costs When you close or finalize a mortgage there are many fees, taxes and insurance costs that you will need to pay. These are called closing costs. What is a down payment The Down Payment A down payment is money that the buyer must pay up front to buy a home. Mortgage Interest Rates - How Are They Determined? Mortgage interest rates are the single-most important factor determining the borrowing power of a potential house buyer. When rates are very low, a borrower can service a large amount of debt with a relatively small payment, and when interest rates are very high, a borrower can service a small amount of debt with a relatively large payment. Have California House Prices Always Been Crazy? Volatility in real estate prices is not new to California. During the 1970s, real estate prices detached from typical valuations of three-times yearly income seen in the rest of the country. Once residents realized they could push up prices in their real estate markets to dizzying heights, they have been doing it ever since. Greed springs eternal. Foreclosure Help The sites tender to aid homeowners in pecuniary privation to reform their loans and avoid foreclosure. Second Chance Loans To Help You Correct Your Finances If you are in a situation where in you need to regain enough strength after experiencing downfall in your finances; however, you cannot resort to making any major loan anymore, then maybe it抯 time to consider going for second chance loans. At this point of time, you might already be in need of a loan which is meant for individuals who have a bad credit status to enable yourself to fix things and rearrange your life. Need Foreclosure help Don't let your banks or lenders threaten you with foreclosure. Www.westopforeclosureusa.com is here to help you prevent foreclosures. Foreclosure is not the ultimate solution to your mortgage payments. You can't just afford to give up all hopes and sit surrendered; think of the home - the home for the purchase and/ or acquisition of which you've employed all your blood-and-sweat; is it a possession to let go so easily. No, never can it be. And probably this is why the "Stop Foreclosure" department at westopforeclosureusa.com is here to stand by your side and help you fight all odds against foreclosure. Government Loan Assistance Google up and you'll come across hundreds and thousands of discussion forums, threads and blogs with a group of people bursting out their rage and concern over the fact that the plan seems to not just benefit the needy, but also the greedy. Here comes a set of new websites promising to track information related to Government Loan Modification programs; websites offering to help you overcome the crisis of losing your home from the cruel grudges of foreclosure. Loan Modification Assistance It’s been a prolonged suffering of millions of Americans who still continue experiencing the tough bites of the worst financial times on the word of the United State’s history! Proud home owners across the country, who once had had the faith of relying upon the tough shoulders of the equity in their homes as a defense shroud, are to their dismay finding those mantles quickly fade or ebb away! What is the Option ARM Payment Rate? A negative amortization loan is any loan where the monthly payment does not cover the monthly interest expense. Interest-only or conventionally amortizing loans do not have this feature, and the monthly payments are based on the interest rate charged and/or the duration of the amortization schedule. Since the negative amortization loan breaks down this traditional relationship, there is a completely separate rate calculated for the minimum payment amount. Should You Worry About the Opportunity Cost of a Housing Downpayment? The initial equity in a home is equal to a purchaser's downpayment. If a buyer pays cash for a home, all equity is initial equity. There is an opportunity cost associated with downpayment money. This cost should be considered when someone considers buying residential real estate. Where Is The Epicenter Of The Housing Bubble? The epicenter of the Great Housing Bubble is located in Irvine, California. One of the primary causes of the bubble was the lowering of lending standards and the extension of credit to people who could not handle the responsibility: Subprime borrowers. The word "subprime" has become indelibly linked to the Great Housing Bubble. It is one of the causal factors that make the bubble unique, and the collapse of subprime is widely regarded as the pin-prick which began the bubble's deflation. People Will Not Want Mortgage Debt in the Future The next big psychological change to impact housing will be a change in homebuyer's relationship with debt. When prices were going up, and nobody thought they were going to have to pay the debt off themselves, people borrowed all they could. Once prices stopped going up, and people were faced with paying off these enormous debts, the appetite for borrowing cooled significantly. The Pent-Up-Demand Meme Is Complete Nonsense The realtor spin about "pent up demand" is complete nonsense. There is probably a lot of pent up desire for housing, but demand is measured in dollars, and there is a major lack of demand with the absence of lender funds, and a large and growing "pent up supply" of foreclosures. The Key to Housing Affordability Is Not Mortgage Finance The difficult problem with affordable housing is how to provide it without making it unaffordable. Finance is not the answer. We all want affordable housing. There are numerous government programs designed to provide low-cost rental and ownership properties to people in all walks of life. Lenders, builders, realtors and buyers all benefit from affordable housing because affordability means an increase in transaction volumes and more money into the pockets of those dependant on the real estate market. The One Stop Mortgage and Home Loan Solutions Murfreesboro, Brentwood, Clarksville and all of Tennessee and Nashville home loan mortgage solutions and secrets have finally been unveiled in a radically designed website; an educational, informative and inspirational site, www.yourmoneysource.net is fully equipped with Nashville home loans and mortgage related info, loads of free reports, a home buying guide and free mortgage calculators. Specifically designed to enlighten the site visitors, YourMoneySource.net reveals all facts and figures aimed to empower our customers to take sensible decisions while obtaining a mortgage. Regulating the National Association of Realtors Would Help Prevent the Next Housing Bubble The sales tactics of the National Association of Realtors should be examined and potentially come under the same restrictions as securities brokers through the Securities and Exchange Commission. Realtors routinely lie about the investment potential of residential real estate. People believe these lies and enter into transactions that often harm them financially. Strict Loan Documentation Standards Will Help Prevent the Next Housing Bubble One of the most egregious practices of the Great Housing Bubble was the fabrication of income by borrowers that was facilitated and promoted by originating lenders. Stated-income loan programs were widespread, and they were the cause of much of the uncertainty in the secondary mortgage market during the initial stages of the credit crunch in the deflation of the bubble. Basically, investors had no idea if the borrowers to whom they had lent billions of dollars were capable of paying them back. Changing Appraisal Methods would Prevent the Next Housing Bubble Investor confidence in the market for CDOs and all mortgages was shaken during the decline of the Great Housing Bubble, and rightly so. Investors were losing huge sums, and nobody clearly understood why. There was a widespread belief these losses were caused by some outside factor rather than a systemic problem enabled by the lenders and investors themselves. How to figure out how monthly interest and principle The first thing you need to understand is the amount of interest you will pay each month will change. What to Do When the Sale Price of a Home Does Not Pay Off a Mortgage Once a price decline gets underway many buyers who were late to the price rally find they are in a property worth less than they paid for it. As prices continue to fall, many find themselves "underwater" owing more on their mortgage than their property is worth. When these late buyers want to become sellers, they cannot sell and pay off the mortgage balance with the proceeds from the sale. Then they have a real problem. The Down Payment A down payment is money that the buyer must pay up front to buy a home. When a person takes out a mortgage the lender or bank in almost all cases will require that the person borrowing the money make a down payment. Housing Bubble Credit Expansion - Credit Inflated the Housing Bubble The Great Housing Bubble was inflated by a massive expansion of credit and the influx of capital into residential mortgages. The expansion of credit took four forms: lower interest rates, lowering or eliminating qualification requirements, different amortization methods, and higher allowable debt-to-income ratios. Mortgage Interest Rates and House Prices Mortgage interest rates are determined in an open market and are subject to the forces of supply and demand. These rates are the sum of three main components: riskless rate of return, risk premium, and inflation expectation. The Great Housing Bubble was characterized by historic lows in the federal funds rate, risk premiums and inflation expectations which resulted in the very low mortgage interest rates. These low mortgage interest rates allowed people to finance large sums of money, and these larger bids helped inflate the housing bubble. Buy Now or Be Priced Out Forever... Not! When prices rise faster than their wages, people can obtain less real estate with their income. The natural fear under these circumstances is to buy whatever is available before there is nothing desirable available in a particular price range. This fear of being priced out causes even more buying which drives prices higher. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Price-to-Rent Ratio for Housing is Like the Price-to-Earnings Ratio for Stocks Just as stocks have price-to-earnings ratios (PE Ratios) used to establish relative value, houses have a price-to-rent ratio to establish relative value. Rent is the income or potential earnings a property can produce. It does not matter if the property is rented or if an owner lives in the property. The potential for rent is equal to the potential for earning. Speculative Equity - What Is It and How to Get It? People who purchase real estate use the phrase "building equity" to describe the overall increase in equity over time. However, most people think in terms of capturing speculative equity, the equity gained from other speculators bidding up prices. Everyone wants to make money by doing nothing, and the lure of speculative equity is that one can make millions by simply buying and holding an asset. To really understand equity, it is important to look at the factors which either create or destroy equity to see how market conditions and financing terms impact this all-important feature of real estate. Mortgage Equity Withdrawal - Are Americans Addicted to It? Much of the money homeowners borrowed fueled consumer spending and reinforced poor financial management techniques. It was common during the bubble rally for people to run up enormous credit card bills then refinance every year and pay them off. It is foolish enough to finance consumer spending, but it is even more foolish to pay for this spending over the 30-year term of a typical mortgage. The consumptive value fades quickly, but the debt endures for a very long time. Judicial and Non-Judicial Foreclosure - What Is the Difference? When a borrower cannot repay a loan, the lender may or may not be able to sue the borrower to collect any shortfall. The key difference is whether or not the loan is classified as a recourse loan or a non-recourse loan. If the loan is recourse, meaning the lender can go after any shortfall, the lender still must go through a judicial foreclosure in order to collect the deficiency. They Aren't Making Any More Land... Not! All market pricing is a function of supply and demand. One of the reasons many house price bubbles get started is due to a temporary shortage of housing units. This is a particular problem in California because the entitlement process is slow and cumbersome. Supply shortages can become acute, and prices can rise very quickly. This does not mean land is scarce. It means that the supply of dwelling units is experiencing a temporary shortage. It may seem like a minor distinction, but it is very important. New dwelling units can be created; land cannot. Inflation and Home Equity - What Is the Relationship? House prices historically have outpaced inflation by 0.7% nationally. In a normal market, this is the only appreciation homeowners obtain. This appreciation is caused by wage inflation translating into higher housing payments and the ability of borrowers to obtain larger loan amounts to bid up prices. In some areas where wage growth has outpaced the general rate of inflation, the fundamental valuation of houses has increased faster than inflation. Downpayments Are Back! What Happened to 100% Financing? Downpayments are required again thanks to the credit crunch. Many people thought 100% financing would be made available forever. They were mistaken. One-hundred percent financing will never return because it exposes lenders to too much risk. Stated-Income Loans - How Common Were They? One unique phenomenon of the Great Housing Bubble was the utilization of stated-income loans, also known as "liar loans" because most people were not truthful when stating their income. When house prices were going up, greed motivated many people to buy homes to capture appreciation. Actually having the income to qualify for a loan was a limitation to participating in the financial mania. Stated-income loan programs eliminated this barrier and allowed people to borrow as much as they wanted without concern for home much money they made to cover the payments. House Prices Are Supported By Fundamentals... Not! In every asset bubble people will claim the prices are supported by fundamentals even at the peak of the mania. During the Great Housing Bubble, people believed everyone was making two-times their actual income, and that the unstable loan programs developed during the time were innovations that changed the fundamentals. It was all nonsense. Lies Realtors Tell - Ten of Their Favorites Realtors are agents of sellers. It is their job to obtain the highest possible sale price for a piece of real estate. By law they cannot misrepresent any facts about the property, but when it comes to opinions about the investment potential of the property, or the state of the real estate market, Realtors can say whatever they want. There is currently no restriction on the exaggerations or outright lies realtors are allowed to tell regarding residential real estate market performance. Pick-a-Pay Option ARM Loans - What Are They? The Negative Amortization mortgage (aka, Option ARM or Neg Am) is the riskiest loan imaginable. It has all the risks of an interest-only, adjustable-rate mortgage, but with the added risk of an increasing loan balance. Using this loan, there is the risk of not being able to make the payment at reset, and the borrower is much more at risk of being denied for refinancing because the loan balance can easily exceed the house value. In either case, the home will fall into foreclosure. Renting Versus Owning Residential Real Estate Renting versus owning is both an intellectual, financial decision and an emotional decision. The financial decision is first and foremost an analysis of the comparative cost of renting versus owning. It makes no sense to pay more than rental equivalence to own residential real estate. Many people still do because they are chasing the fantasy of endless appreciation and real estate wealth, but most of these people will find the increased cost of ownership over time negates any appreciation advantage they may obtain. Also, many people have found out painfully that property does not always appreciate in value. Bring Back Paternalism in the Mortgage Market As a society, we have created a system that strongly encourages a borrow-and-spend mentality. Saving in all its forms are punished while borrowing is strongly subsidized and encouraged. The credit orgy of the 00s saw this system taken to its ultimate extreme. The result was a vicious credit crunch, a collapse in asset values, and an economic downturn second in severity only to the Great Depression. Obviously, something needs to change. A little paternalism in the mortgage market is one of a number of necessary regulatory reforms. Subprime Containment Theory Was a Lie Conventional wisdom (or market spin) was that the risk of default from subprime would not spill over into Alt-A and Prime loans. This argument was made because these two categories have historically had low default rates. Of course, this argument ignored the "liar loans" taken out by those with higher credit scores, the unmanageable debt-to-income ratios, and payment resets for interest-only and Option ARM loans which were also given to the Alt-A and Prime crowd. Historically, this group had not defaulted because they have not been widely exposed to these loan types. Home Equity - What is It? Many people who purchase real estate have no idea what equity is, what creates it, what destroys it, and what to do with it. People who purchase real estate use the phrase "building equity" to describe the overall increase in equity over time. However, it is important to look at the factors which either create or destroy equity to see how market conditions and financing terms impact this all-important feature of real estate. Unaffordable House Prices, Will It Last Forever? During the Great Housing Bubble, prices detached from their fundamental valuations and became very inflated. This price inflation created a situation where affordability dropped to record low levels in many real estate markets. The fear of buyers was that failure to purchase a property would mean they would never be able to own because they would be priced out forever. For this fear to be realized, prices much sustain inflated levels of low affordability forever. Is this possible? Lose Your Money or Learn to Identify Asset Bubbles Many people did not see the NASDAQ tech-stock bubble. Many people did not see the Great Housing Bubble either. Those who participated in either financial mania lost a great deal of money. People need to know what to look for in order to avoid future financial manias. Housing Bubble - Why Should Anyone Care? Why should anyone care about financial bubbles in general and the housing bubble in particular? The first and most obvious reason is that the financial fallout is stressful. Many people lost a great deal of money. Beyond that, the housing bubble had enormous impact on the health of individuals, families and entire communities.
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