...According to Wikipedia a housing bubble is a type of economic bubble that occurs periodically in local or global real estate markets. It is characterized by rapid increases in valuations of real property such as housing until they reach unsustainable levels and then decline. Four years into the housing bubble downturn, much of the country remains hopelessly confused about what happened, why it happened and who is to blame. In my research paper I will try and demonstrate what a housing bubble is, some of the reasons for the bubble, was it preventable, how it kept growing, how it burst and how it has affected our economy. By definition a housing bubble is a temporary condition caused by unjustified speculation in the housing market that leads to a rapid increase in real estate prices. As with most economic bubbles, it eventually bursts, resulting in a quick decline in prices. The end of a housing bubble is hard to predict given the fact that economic conditions can change without warning. If a housing bubble swells to an extremely high level, the aftermath of a burst may set the housing market back years. There is little consensus as to the cause of the housing bubble that precipitated the financial crisis of 2008. Numerous explanations exist: misguided monetary policy; a global savings surplus; government policies encouraging affordable homeownership; irrational consumer expectations of rising housing prices; inelastic housing supply. Some explanations...
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...The Housing Market and Macroeconomics Housing is an important part of macroeconomics. It contributes to our GDP through private investments and consumption spending. This includes purchasing a new or existing home and the costs of maintenance or upkeep on the property, in the form of services. Prior to the collapse of the housing bubble in 2007, the market had seen a steady increase in housing prices, and a decrease in interest rates, due to the increase in the federal funds rate (Arnold pg 379). As interest rates fell the demand for housing increased, thus increasing housing prices. But what caused the housing bubble? There are many different arguments to this question. During this period lending practices became less strict and we saw a move to less traditional lending patterns and unsound lending practices. Banks were lending with less documentation and a smaller required down payment, bringing homeowners perilously close to 100% loan-to-value ratios. Another cause for concern was the complex mortgage-backed securities and subprime mortgages of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The last interesting argument for the cause of the bubble is housing starts and land-use regulations, which I want to discuss further. THE HOUSING BUBBLE In assessing the causes of the housing bubbles, many scholars have focused on the demand-side factors, such as low interest rates, zero down payments, and easy lending terms. However, as Randal O’Toole argues, the demand-side factors were more or less...
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...Or is Australia in the midst of a housing bubble that can jeopardise the stability of the financial system/economy? At a first glance, from all the media speculation and coverage on the Australian Property market, I believed that the Australian housing market was showing increased prices due mainly to foreign investment. But after undertaking The Financial System subject at UTS, as well as researching and gaining a greater insight into the matter I can state that my hypothesis is in fact that Australia's housing market is inconsistent with that of an efficient market, although it cannot be labelled as a ‘bubble' as a bubble only truly exists once it pops (Duke, 2015). In an efficient housing market, an increase in the demand for property will see an increase supply. Although as seen in Australia over the past decade, this increased demand has far exceeded the supply and driven prices up drastically. Analysis done by the ANZ has indicated that although NSW is on track to construct 56,000 new homes next financial year, demand is expected to grow to 63,000 leaving a shortage of supply by 7,000 and a total housing shortage of 99,137 in NSW alone (Irvine, 2016). This housing shortage is causing frustrating for aspiring first home buyers like myself as prices continue to increase. The Federal Governments initial First home buyers grant of $15,000 for those purchasing property under $750,000 has only led to a further increase in median housing prices driven up by that amount. ...
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...Urban Housing Markets in China Yongzhou Hou Stockholm 2009 Report 88 Building and Real Estate Economics Department of Real Estate and Construction Management Royal Institute of Technology Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan © Yongzhou Hou 2009 Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) Building & Real Estate Economics Department of Real Estate and Construction Management SE – 100 44 Stockholm Printed by Tryck & Media, Universitetsservice US-AB, Stockholm ISSN 1104-4101 ISRN KTH/BFE/M-09/88-SE ISBN 978-91-977302-5-9 Abstract This thesis focuses on problems of prices and risks in the housing markets of urban China. What drives the dynamics of housing prices across regions is not only of great interest for academic researchers but also of first importance for policy makers. It is also interesting to pay attention to the issue of housing bubbles at a city level and risk allocations from an institutional view. To address the issues, the thesis applies both qualitative and econometric approaches in analyzing the urban housing markets of China. The first paper reviews articles mainly published in Chinese core journals. The existing studies are mainly concerned with such six topics as institutions, policy, land, finance, price and market. The first three topics involve the public housing allocation system reform, such fiscal and monetary tools as tax and interest rate, and the land reserve system. The housing finance treats such subjects of mortgages, bubbles and financial systems...
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...HOUSING BUBBLE AND ITS IMPACT ON GLOBAL FINANCIAL CRISIS (2007) Housing bubble or real estate bubble is one of the basic problems that lead to global financial crisis in the late 2000s. When people’s wealth substantially increased, they will spend or consume more on everything, including houses. People demand for a better and bigger homes until in the late 90s, consumption boom occurred. The increased in demand has triggered housing bubble and makes the bubble became bigger. When demand on houses increased, of course the prices would be increased too. Until some point, the demand decreases or becomes stagnant, but the supply is still increasing, it will lead to sharp drop in the houses’ prices. At this point the bubble burst. Basically, the main reason that triggered the bubble and made it bigger was the policies of the Federal Reserve back in 2003. Referring to the reason, to avoid recession after the collapse of the tech bubble in 2000 and the 9/11 attacks in U.S during 2001, the Federal Reserve started to lower the interest rate from 6.5% to 1.75%. In 2003, the interest rate has been lowered to 1% and it remained there for a full year. However, the house prices were still growing up, higher than the interest rate. Even the house prices were growing at the rate of inflation, the Federal then encouraged people to buy houses. Federal has made an incentive so that people can go out and borrow at the rate of 1%. In addition, they created Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, a privately...
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...____________________________________________________________________________ REACTION PAPER Asian Economics Comment Presented to: Prof, Jima G.DeLeon, MBA Professor, School of Graduate Studies Central Philippine University In Partial Fulfilment of the Course Requirement in MBA 612 Financial Systems Presented by: Mehrdad Alavi MBA Thesis Option September 13, 2013 I. PRELINMINARY 1- The title of paper is Asian Economics Comment, The anatomy of bubbles, part 1. It is written at August 27 2009 by Dr, Feredric Neumman, whom is senior Asian Economist. The issuer of report is The Hongkong and Shunghai Banking Corporation Limited. Additional information for connecting to the author is +85228224556. FEREDERICINEUMANN@HSBC.COM.HK For more information, the reader can view HSBC Global Research at: www.research.hsbc.com 2- It talks about The Bubble in the financial market specifically in the financial housing market in the Asia and what was happening in the USA at 2008 in the same field. II. ANALYSIS AND REACTION 1- The author tried to anatomy of a bubble in the asset market which was happening at 2008 and before. The first part is discussed about what conditions required for that and the part two and three are belong to what is need to sustain the run. He had paid particularly attention to psychology and what behavioural insights now which could teach us. 2- Analyze the Elements of Style: This is a mix of Shakespearean literature and Economic article. In the first read it is difficult...
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...Canada is effective by inflation of housing price. Inflation of housing price or known as housing bubble is when housing price are fuel by supply and demand. Governor Stephen Poloz, who spoke behalf of Bank of Canada believe that they are not in a bubble. Whether we have housing bubble or not, the value of home have risen up enormously and with ultralow interest rate, more people are looking forward to buy expensive home that they wanted. People are also taking advantage of low mortgage rate to buy better home. However, many Canadians are struggling to pay their mortgage or debts. This event also happen to nations who were more economically advanced than Canada, country like United State and Japan were doomed for many years to recover. They also shared many traits to similar to ours, they both had low interest rate, low mortgage rate, both of their bank denied existence of a housing bubble. Low interest rate, mortgage rate have made more demand and supply in housing industries, which added more bubble and became fuel to housing bubbles....
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...Key words: Housing market, price, increase, decrease, the bubble in housing market Body: In 2010, from January to October, the investment of national real estate is 3.807 trillion Yuan with an increase of 36.5%, which is 105.1% of the annual investment, 3.623 trillion Yuan in 2009. In the first half of 2010, in the context of macroeconomic stabilization and recovery, the Central Government has issued a series of regulatory policies toward the housing price which increases too fast. The severity and enforcement of these control policies of the housing market are both higher than previously. The performance of the housing market 1. Consumers now are likely to wait and observe the housing market, which leads that the housing price in some cities has a small decline. There are many measures being taken by government to protect the public interest, so many people would like to wait and see how the housing market will develop. Most of them are not willing to accept the current expensive housing price, and they do not want to be entangled into the housing market after they finished their purchase with expensive cost. Therefore, the phenomenon has been speared out, and more and more people are waiting for the development of the housing market. The trades of housing market in some cities have decreased obviously. 2. The real estate is very popular as a means of investment. The domestic economy keeps increasing, at the same time the investment of the real estate becomes...
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...real-world economics review, issue no. 46 The housing bubble and the financial crisis Dean Baker [Center for Economic and Policy Research, USA] Copyright: Dean Baker, 2008 The central element in the current financial crisis is the housing bubble. The irrational exuberance surrounding this bubble created an environment that was ripe for the cowboy financing that got Wall Street and the country into so much trouble. Of course the cowboy financing fed into the bubble, allowing it to grow to proportions that would not have been possible with a well-regulated financial system. This essay first describes the circumstances under which the bubble began to grow. It then discusses how financial innovations and the lack of a proper regulator structure allowed the bubble to grow to ever more dangerous levels and eventually to crash in a way that has placed unprecedented strain on the country’s financial system. The third part outlines key principles for reform of the financial system. The origins of the housing bubble The housing bubble in the United States grew up alongside the stock bubble in the mid-90s. The logic of the growth of the bubble is very simple. People who had increased their wealth substantially with the extraordinary run-up of stock prices were spending based on this increased wealth. This led to the consumption boom of the late 90s, with the savings rate out of disposable income falling from close to 5.0 percent in the middle of the decade to just over 2 percent by 2000...
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...The United States housing bubble was an economic bubble affecting many parts of the United States housing market in over half of American states. Housing prices peaked in early 2006, started to decline in 2006 and 2007, and reached new lows in 2012. On December 30, 2008, the Case-Shiller home price index reported its largest price drop in its history. The credit crisis resulting from the bursting of the housing bubble is the primary cause of the 2007–2009 recession in the United States. Increased foreclosure rates in 2006–2007 among U.S. homeowners led to a crisis in August 2008 for the subprime, Alt-A, collateralized debt obligation (CDO), mortgage, credit, hedge fund, and foreign bank markets. In October 2007, the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury called the bursting housing bubble “the most significant risk to our economy.” Any collapse of the U.S. housing bubble has a direct impact not only on home valuations, but the nation’s mortgage markets, home builders, real estate, home supply retail outlets, Wall Street hedge funds held by large institutional investors, and foreign banks, increasing the risk of a nationwide recession. Concerns about the impact of the collapsing housing and credit markets on the larger U.S. economy caused President George W. Bush and the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke to announce a limited bailout of the U.S. housing market for homeowners who were unable to pay their mortgage debts. In 2008 alone, the United States government allocated...
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...biggest bubbles in the real estate market in the decade. However, we do not see any slowdown in these cities. As of today, the property prices seem to keep on growing forever. Will China’s housing bubble pop? Compare the housing bubbles in the United States with that in China * A brief background information about the housing market in US before it crashed down * Elaborate on China’s current housing market and see how close is it to the housing market condition in the US Different views on China’s housing bubble * Optimists think that even if the housing market crashes down in the near future, it will not create another global financial disaster * Some think that the bubble will never crash under the guidance of our communist party * Some debate on the implementation of the new policies Conclusion: China and the world have to learn a lesson, and try to maintain a healthy, long-term economic sustainability. Will China’s housing bubble pop? Is it just merely a matter of time when the housing market comes to a crash, or will it not at all? Should a burst of the bubbles cause another worldwide economic downturn and probably a global recession? These are probably the most heated debates by the economists of the world today. The soaring property prices in China’s coastline and major cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Dalian with a mortgage to average household’s annual income ratio of as high as 35% has formed the biggest bubbles in the real...
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...analysis of the key macro and micro economics factors which impact on the current UK housing market Introduction This paper explores the current situation in the UK housing market. Fundamentally, the paper argues that the current situation in the housing market is a legacy of the way in which the housing market developed over the early 2000s into the 2007 and 2008 financial crisis. As the fall out from this crisis has taken two or three years to properly be felt it can currently be said to be exerting a major influence on the way the housing market in the UK is working today. The paper therefore places a major focus on developing an understanding of how the financial crisis occurred and the impact that this had on the UK housing market, in order to understand the key factors which are shaping the housing market today. The paper begins with a look at the state of the UK economy at the moment. This is only examined in brief but provides a key background to the work. This is then followed by a look at the UK economy and the housing market and how the two link together. The following section is the major section of the work as this focuses on the macroeconomic factors which have shaped the housing market. This section in particular focuses on the legacy of the housing market developments of the early 2000s. The following section briefly explores the microeconomic elements which have shaped the housing market – the major emphasis here is on the role of buy to let mortgages as a means...
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...recession will be weakness in the housing market. The housing market had been the primary fuel for the recovery until th e last year, as there was an unprecedented run-up in house prices since 1997. With prices now he aded downward, construction and home sales have dropped off by almost 20 percent against year ago levels. Even more importantly, borrowing against home equity, which had been the main factor fue ling consumption growth, will plummet as many homeowners lack any further equity to borrow against. The result will be a downturn in consumption spending, which together with plun ging housing investment, will likely push the economy into recession. The economy will see a subst antial net loss of jobs, with nominal wage growth slowing as the labor market weakens over the course of the year. Overview This recovery has been fueled to a very large exten t by a housing bubble, just as the second half of the nineties cycle was fueled by a stock bubble. Sin ce 1997, average house prices have risen by more than 50 percent, after adjusting for inflation. Hist orically, house prices have moved at approximately the same pace as the overall rate of inflation. 1 This unprecedented run-up has not been associated with extraordinary population or income growth, bot h of which have been below their average pace for the post-war years since 2000. It is also not a ssociated with any new restrictions on supply, as housing construction was at near record...
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...answers include a diverse array of immediate and deeper causes in the housing and financial sectors of the U.S. economy. While the recessions initial spark was found in housing, U.S. government policy in addition to careless behavior on the part of both lenders and borrowers, along with poor corporate governance can be linked to the massive subprime loans that ultimately turned into the subprime crisis. Self-interest by subprime lenders and Government Sponsored Entities (Fannie Mae) are also liable for escalating the crisis. Among these factors, here I will mainly discuss three principal causes that have come to my attention; the housing price bubble, poor governmental oversee, and the subprime mortgage-lending boom that it fed. The Housing Bubble: From 1980 to 1997 the real price of housing in the United States had remained relatively stable. After controlling for inflation and differences in house size and quality, we still see that the average price of a home in 1997 was only 2% more than the average price one century earlier. This flat trend had ultimately ended beginning in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s. When the housing prices had peaked in 2006, the average price was close to twice the long-term average price from 1980 to 1997. Only six years later did the price return the long-term trend (Shiller Housing Price Index). The origin of the housing bubble is much similar to prior price bubbles. A real increase in demand caused a gradual rise in price, which soon...
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...What is a “Housing Bubble”? Explain Subprime Lending and Why Many Believe That it is the Single Biggest Contributor to the Current Economic Malaise.7 December 2008 | | | | In this paper I will address the definition of a “housing bubble”, discuss subprime lending and why many believe that it is the single biggest contributor to the current economic state. A housing bubble, references real estate markets specifically. It is a type of economic bubble that occurs periodically in local or global real estate markets which is characterized by rapid increases in valuations of real property such as housing, until they reach unsustainable levels relative to income and other economic elements. These bubbles can occur in local and/or global markets. The recent US housing bubble, which peaked in early 2005, some of the major areas that were affected were California, Florida, the Northeast corridor and the Southwest markets. (Wikipedia) It is thought that the major contributor to this bubble was the subprime lending market. According to the financial dictionary, subprime lending occurs when lenders make loans to borrowers who would not ordinarily qualify for credit if customary underwriting practices were to apply. These loans tend to carry higher interest rates than those offered to creditworthy clients. These loans also sometimes assess additional fees such as pre-payment penalties. (The Financial Dictionary) According to the Housing and Urban Development...
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