Housing Bubble

If only they had known ... Oh, wait ...

As promised, here is the complete article, "China's Fragile Economy, Its Housing Bubble, and What It Means To Us," in a downloadable PDF. You can download it, print it out, and read the entire piece at your leisure. The conclusions aren't encouraging, for them or us.

This paper explores the subject of a possible housing bubble in Canada. It examines a diverse array of factors that may have contributed to the rise in house prices in Canada. The paper evaluates each factor individually and determines the health of the Canadian housing market using common valuation techniques. Results suggest that economic fundamentals in Canada provide little explanation for the Canadian house price dynamics. Market fundamentals have become insignificant in affecting house prices, and the price-momentum conditions characteristic of a bubble now exist. The extreme decoupling of the market prices from the underlying fundamentals suggests an upcoming correction in housing prices in Canada.

We think that China is an indestructible economic juggernaut but its economy is very fragile and it is sitting on a property bubble which will burst. What China does in response has major implications for their economy and the rest of the world. This is the third part of a three-part series on this topic: The Consequences.

We think that China is an indestructible economic juggernaut but its economy is very fragile and it is sitting on a property bubble which will burst. What China does in response has major implications for their economy and the rest of the world. This is the second part of a three-part series on this topic.

We think that China is an indestructible economic juggernaut but its economy is very fragile and it is sitting on a property bubble which will burst. What China does in response has major implications for their economy and the rest of the world. This is the first part of a three-part series on this topic.

China has created a new housing bubble. Here are some excellent reports on what the bubble looks like and some ominous glimpses on how it may end. Like all bubbles it will burst and the economic fallout will impact China's economy and the U.S.'s. The frenzy indicates that the blow-up will occur soon.

In 2005 Barney Frank saw no housing bubble. Today, this "authority on housing" mumbles something about abolishing the GSEs entirely. Does anyone in D.C. even think before they speak any more? And no, Barney, this is far too little, far too late. We hope you are enjoying your last ever term in Congress.

Developing story - just a headline for now: FHA Weighs Raising Borrower Premiums, Minimum Downpayment. What a novel idea: to not feed another round of the same housing bubble that nearly destroyed the financial world. Someone in D.C. is really earning their salary.

Because sniping out the B&T crowd in Meatpacking at 3am is only so much fun.

Nick Gogerty of Designing Better Futures has come up with another of his highly entertaining and educational videos, this time focusing on a longitudinal comparison of housing prices by geographic area compared to household income.