Real Estate

  • Will Fannie and Freddie Go Belly Up?
  • ProShares Financial ETFs versus Real Estate ETFs - which should you own?- In looking at the constituent holdings of the ProShares Ultra Financials ETF (UYG) I noticed that there seemed to be a good number of REITS included.

    To investigate further, I took the holdings of the ProShares Ultra Real Estate ETF (URE) and did a direct compare to the holdings of UYG.

    To my surprise, every single one of the holdings in the Ultra Real Estate ETF, comprising a variety of 80 different REITs, was also included in the Ultra Financials.

    Relative performance --

    It is interesting to see how real estate underperformed the combined financials until March of 2008 when the situation turned around and financials became the one that underperformed.

  • Money Minute: Home Sales, Credit Cards, Oil-

  • No End in Sight for Housing Market Decline-

    The National Association of Realtors’ Pending Home Sales Index (PHSI) is one of the broadest gauges of sale activity in the housing sector. Unfortunately, this past week brought more bad news to those hoping the U.S. housing recession may be bottoming out as the PHSI continued its steep decline. The report indicated that signed contracts for purchasing previously owned homes experienced its sharpest drop in nine months, declining 4.7% through the month of May. In comparison to the same period a year ago, activity has fallen 14.6%. The South experienced the biggest contraction (at -7.1%) propelled by the plummeting Miami market, followed by the Midwest (-6.0%), the Northeast (-2.9%), and the West (-1.3).

  • Legend Homes- Legend Homes filed for bankruptcy protection on June 10 in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Oregon. Legend was a small private builder, with only 770 lots owned, and its woes will not have a major effect on the Housing situation.

    However, there was an article a couple of weeks ago in Builder Magazine, that shed some detail on the causes of the filing.

    One interesting fact was that Legend Homes had a positive net worth when it filed. The court papers list $258 million in assets and $198 million in liabilities. Of course the asset value may have been stale at the time of the filing. Also, Jim Chapman, the president of Legend Homes, said in the article that the company was current with all loan payments to banks. So why am I writing about this? Chapman went into detail about how Key bank, one of Legend's lenders, tried to squeeze the company to put up more collateral:

  • Economy Sags on Housing, Consumer Confidence
  • Albania Real Estate and Property - Final Frontier for Investors in Eastern Europe- 2008 will be the year that puts property in the emerging market of Albania on the map. Albania is a colourful and breath-taking country. Any negative press you may have heard about Albania is hard to believe once you have visited. The countryside is amazing from open fields to mountains. The beaches are beautiful. The people are friendly and helpful. The cost of living is very low. The food is all organic and very tasty. And the property prices are very low. Sure, Albania has had a few problems, such as energy shortages and infrastructure in need of improvement. But with a stable democratic government embarking on economic reform, a recent NATO membership and on course for entry into the EU, Albania is now cleaning up its act. After lagging behind its Balkan neighbours, Albania looks set to emerge into a well earned future of prosperity. Where to look - Tirana – Capital City
  • Albania Emerging Property Market-

    Reasons to invest in Property in Albania.

    Albania: Situated in the southwestern region of the Balkan Peninsula, Albania is predominantly mountainous but flat along its coastline with the Adriatic Sea with mild temperate -- cool, wet winters; dry, hot summers. Bordering Greece and Montenegro this little beautiful unspoilt country was long forgotten by its dark past but it is now beginning to emerge. Albania is considered the last emerging property market in Europe.

    Albania is sharing the same coastline as and but with much better weather, more sunny days and more than 200 miles of sandy beaches Albania has it all and is the perfect place to invest. Comparing what Croatia and Montenegro had to offer in late 2000 with Albania in 2007-8, it offers the same capital growth so fare.

    Capital growth has been around 15-20% in recent years and expected to prosper. Property prices in Croatia and Montenegro currently are more than 75% more expensive to those of Albania at the moment but this will not last very long therefore this is the right time to snap a quick bargain.

  • Alternative Investing with Real Estate Trust Deeds-

    Trust Deed Investing

  • Real Estate and Leverage: How much is best?- Reader's Question: I'm 28 years old. My wife and I both work as electrical engineers in jobs that pay well. Using our savings we have been buying income-producing real estate to replace our employment income and now own 11 units. Is real estate the best vehicle for achieving our goal of becoming financially independent to free up time for activities we consider more meaningful?
  • New NAR Data- The much maligned National Association of Realtors (NAR) just came out with its fourth quarter report on home sales and home prices. The title of the release was, well, true NAR style: "Metro Areas Show Greatly Mixed Home Price Performance; Half Show Gains."

    It was the first paragraph, though, that really jumped out at me:
    Roughly half of metropolitan areas continued to show rising home prices in the fourth quarter of 2007, according to the latest quarterly survey by the National Association of Realtors®.
    Now of course I appreciate why they want to emphasize that some housing markets are still going up in price. And I'm sure the news has warmed the hearts of many a homeowner in these areas, but it still seems kind of funny to me that they're emphasizing rising prices. I guess it all goes back to the fact that so many Americans think of their home as an investment good rather than a consumption good, but still...
  • Hot Property - Investment Opportunity Alert - Bad Economy Cure Northeast Brazil Real Estate Sector- This hot property alert – bad economy investment cure definitely cannot be ignored any longer. If you do not like making good investment, fun in the sun, finding your dream getaway or retirement property then please stop reading this right now ! ! !
  • Housing Slowdown: How Long Will It Last?-
    My sense is the housing slowdown may not improve until late 2008 or into early 2009. Many sellers believe lower mortgage rates will stimulate buying activity as spring approaches. Consequently, sellers have not been too aggressive in lowering their selling price. Conversely, buyers believe prices should be substantially lower than where they stand today.
  • Home Builders are Signaling A Market Bottom- Home Builder Bankruptcy ( PLURAL) May Mark The Bottom of the Cycle - But Not the END of Troubles More will go down - and that means a lot more houses and land sold at bargain rates . The large oversupply makes it impossible to sell at a profit - until these builders are closed down AND until the oversupply of new , older and foreclosed homes is down. The Fed rate cuts will help finance purchases and get some of the supply sold - but it will be a long march until the large builders we track are on solid ground.
  • All About Resets In Housing as Numbers Get Worse- When I saw the new numbers from S&P’s S&P/Case-Shiller home price index yesterday I wasn’t all that surprised. I suspect my readers were not surprised either. For those that are not familiar, the Case-Shiller Index is a closely followed metric of U.S. home prices (See a PDF summary of the report). It shows that prices are falling sharply across most of the nation. This obviously is putting more pressure on the consumer.
  • How do Realtors sell their own Homes ?- Believe it or not, sometimes, Realtors have to sell their homes too! So how do they do it ? They obviously know what a buyer is looking for in a home. So how do they attract the right type of buyer and get the most out of selling their their home ? Here are a few tips I found at Art Of Saving that I found very enlightening.

    The Exterior
  • District Court Upholds Validity of Pfizer's Accupril Patent, Rejecting Teva's Nonenablement Argument-

    Warner-Lambert v. Teva Pharms. USA, No. 99-922 (D.N.J. 2007)

  • Hot Stock: Wal-Mart’s Little Known Secret Can Make You Wealthy- If you had invested $5000 in Wal-Mart back in 1971, today that investment would be worth over $10 Million. They say hindsight is 20/20, but knowing what you know today about Wal-Mart would you pass up the opportunity to invest in the world’s largest retailer in the world for less than $4 dollars a share? Let me explain how lightning might be striking twice again for some investors of Wal-Mart.
  • Has the Housing Market hit Bottom?- The epicenter of current market tremors is the depressed housing sector. As contrarians we need to consider whether the psychology is sufficiently pessimistic so as to create a bottom and thus offer a huge buying opportunity.

    Are we there yet? Has the housing market hit bottom or is there still more pain to come?
  • Slovenia: the best-kept secret of Central Europe-

    This article is quite different from my normal stories as it deals with a country rather than with a specific financial market or asset class. But please allow me the freedom to share this information with you as Slovenia is such a delightful country and also presents some unique investment opportunities for the international entrepreneur. Enjoy the read.