Daily Archives: June 13, 2014

International housing bubble is forming, IMF warns | Bedford Hills Real Estate

The American housing market is frothy with some already seeing signs of a legitimate bubble, and now the International Monetary Fund is raising the alarm about housing markets in developed countries.

“House prices are inching up. But is this a cause for much cheer? Or are we watching the same movie again? Recall how after a decade-long boom, house prices started to fall in 2006, first in the United States and then elsewhere, contributing to the 2008-9 global financial crisis,” warns IMF’s deputy managing director Min Zhu. “In fact, our research indicates that boom-bust patterns in house prices preceded more than two-thirds of the recent 50 systemic banking crises.”

The IMF’s Global Housing Watch studies international housing market information to keep track of boom and bust cycles in dozens of advanced nations.

They assemble country-level data on housing trends in one location, allowing for more transparent cross-country and historical comparisons.

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http://www.housingwire.com/articles/30300-international-housing-bubble-is-forming-imf-warns

From Houston to LA, “luxury housing” remains relative | Bedford Real Estate

Luxury living is highly dependent on the local market when it comes to defining it, an article in the Los Angeles Times said. The article covered a panel of experts at the National Association of Real Astate Editors’ annual conference.

While the luxury price start point differs with geographic region, Frank Malpica of ERA Franchise Systems pegs it at about $500,000 outside of metropolitan areas.
Popular amenities vary by location as well. Media rooms are still “in” in L.A. — less so in Houston. Fireplaces are shrinking and changing in L.A., since newly constructed houses can no longer have wood-burning ones.

Source: L.A. Times

Where are Baby Boomers moving? Absolutely nowhere | Pound Ridge Real Estate

Some 10,000 Baby Boomers reach retirement every day, exiting a world dependent on jobs and kids and into a new lifestyle that drastically adjusts their housing choices, a commentary by Patrick Simmons, director with the Economic and Strategic Research Group of Fannie Mae, said.

The common perception is that the generation born between 1946 and 1964 is starting to downsize from suburban single-family homes to urban multifamily residences as they become empty nesters.

But this assumption is not true, and in fact, the truth is quite the opposite.

Simmons explained, “Despite these life transitions, one key metric of boomer housing consumption – the proportion of the population residing in a single-family detached home – has yet to decline.”

And instead of the downsizing perception, the percent of Baby Boomers residing in single-family detached homes was at least as high in 2012 as at any time since the onset of the housing crisis.

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Where are Baby Boomers moving? Absolutely nowhere