Iraq and China started building 15 new cities in Iraq

Iraq and China started building 15 new cities in Iraq

On Friday Iraq broke ground on 30,000 housing units near Baghdad, as part of a $2 billion project in partnership with Chinese firms to build five new cities across Iraq, Bloomberg has reported. The government of Prime Minister Mohammad Shia al-Sudani is seeking to build 250,000 to...
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Phoenix Home Prices Up Over 32% YoY

Phoenix Home Prices Up Over 32% YoY

  Supporting the vicious cycle of soaring home prices pushing homebuyer confidence to record lows, July Case-Shiller Housing data (the latest available) showed yet another record pace of increase in home prices. The broad HPI rose 19.70% YoY (a record) a...
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What would real house prices look like in a world without bubbles?

What would real house prices look like in a world without bubbles?

The Great Recession was not caused by a the bursting of a housing bubble, because there was no bubble.  It was caused by tight money supply. Unaffordable housing is the macroeconomic story of our time. It is interesting that housing...
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Discrepancy in growth between incomes, rents, and house prices

Discrepancy in growth between incomes, rents, and house prices

How out-of-whack is the discrepancy in growth between incomes, rents, and house prices? The “San Francisco Housing Crisis,” as it’s called on a daily basis, is an extreme. But housing costs in major urban areas in the US have been...
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US markets: New-home sales fell 6.9% in January

US markets: New-home sales fell 6.9% in January

Sales of new homes in the U.S. tanked 6.9 % in January, a probable sign that buyers paused during the government shutdown. The Commerce Department said that new homes sold at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 607,000 in January,...
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U.K.: Housing market outlook worst ‘for 20 years’

U.K.: Housing market outlook worst ‘for 20 years’

The housing market outlook over the next 3 months is the worst for 20 years, surveyors say. A net balance of 28% of Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) members expect sales to fall in the next 3 months. It’s...
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