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Haydn W

Rightmove triples its estimate for housing price rises | Money | The Guardian - 0 views

  • A leading estate agent has tripled its forecast for house price rises in 2013
  • Online estate agent Rightmove has raised its 2013 house price forecast for the third time this year to more than double the rate of inflation
  • The chain expects the average property price to increase by 6% this year
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  • On Wednesday the Bank of England's financial policy committee
  • and what remedial measures
  • The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics)
  • can be taken
  • discuss the possibility of a property bubble
  • The Rightmove report said the average asking price reached £245,495 in September, a 4.5% increase on the same month a year earlier.
  • Vince Cable, the business secretary, has warned of the risks of "returning to the problems of the last decade when housing got out of control,"
  • and said the chancellor should consider halting the second phase of his Help to Buy scheme.
  • The controversial mechanism, which
  • will allow people to buy homes worth up to £600,000 with a 5% deposit.
  • The Liberal Democrat president, Tim Farron, also attacked George Osborne's flagship scheme
  • has called on the committee to cap annual house price growth at 5% a year.
  • Prices are rising fastest in greater London, up 8.2% over the past year to £493,748, and the West Midlands, up 6.8% to £195,429.
  • In London, prices are up in all boroughs except Barking & Dagenham (down 0.8% to £218,242). Prices in Croydon and Tower Hamlets rose by more than 2% in September alone.The most expensive homes are in Kensington and Chelsea, where the average home is priced at £2.16m – a 6.5% increase on last year.
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    This article explains how many organisations are forecasting a rise in house prices in my home country, the UK. It also details opposition by UK politicians to the Chancellor's 'Help to Buy' scheme which is supposed to help more people get on the property ladder. I believe this is related to what we are studying in Economics as it relates to houses being a scarce resource and how people have to choose between the increasing difficulties of getting on the property ladder and other living essentials in todays economy. (Opportunity Cost)
Marenne M

Demand soars: Sydney houses start going for more than $1m over reserve price | theteleg... - 1 views

  • Demand soars: Sydney houses start going for more than $1m over reserve price
  • ORDINARY suburban homes in Sydney are selling for more than $1 million over reserve owing to intense ­demand and sparse supply.
  • Two properties broke this mark in the first eight weeks of this year’s selling season.But industry experts ­refuse to speculate that Sydney is in the grip of a property bubble, saying the extraordinary prices were a sign of intense buyer fever.
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  • “People are now happier than ever to pay the premium price for the property they want. But now even the ordinary homes, if you want to call them that, are ­inviting extraordinary prices.”
  • “Sydney’s average appreciation for property has gone up by 14 per cent in the last 15 months. That’s enormous and if it continues, there’s room for worry,” he said. “But at the moment the market just appears excited.”Yellow Brick Road founder Mark Bouris was cautious not to hype the property price hikes.“You’d have to be careful in the investor market ­because when aggregate ­demand is so high you have to start considering that their pricing is potentially above where it should be,” he said.
  • Last month, a three-bedroom apartment in Kirribilli sold for $4.325 million, shattering the $3 million reserve.
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    This article explains how rising AD has lead to house prices rising exponentially in Sydney, Australia. Houses are selling for around $1 million AUD over reserve and a three bedroom apartment recently sold for $4.3 million breaking the $3 million reserve. The rising demand for houses is typical of economies at the moment as most workers want to move to large cities to secure jobs. 
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    This article describes the great aggregate demand in the housing industry in Sydney, leading to massive consumer spending. People are buying houses way over their selling price, because the aggregate demand is so high. 
Haydn W

IMF warns UK of lingering housing and mortgage market risks - Business News - Business ... - 3 views

  • IMF warns UK of lingering housing and mortgage market risks
  • The UK faces lingering risks from housing and mortgage markets despite remaining on track for the fastest growth among the world’s leading economies this year, the International Monetary Fund said today.
  • has pencilled in growth of 3.2% this year — unchanged from its last July update despite a slew of downgrades for several members of the stagnating eurozone.
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  • This is the highest rate forecast among advanced economies, although the IMF has trimmed global forecasts amid fears over a “weak and uneven” recovery in Europe and parts of Asia.
  • The body, led by Christine Lagarde, said the “US and the UK in particular are leaving the financial crisis behind”
  • The Bank of England has identified the housing market as a “blinking warning light” on the economy’s dashboard following the introduction of the Help to Buy scheme last year
  • In June it introduced limits on high loan-to-income home loans to prevent borrowers over-extending themselves, while tighter mortgage lending criteria are slowing runaway prices.
  • The Bank’s latest credit conditions survey found a “significant” fall in the availability of home loans in the past three months after eight successive quarters of expansion.
  • The IMF also warned that more measures such as tax incentives and freeing up land were necessary to improve the rate of housebuilding and keep a lid on runaway house prices.
  • “Supply-side measures are crucial to safeguard housing affordability and mitigate financial stability risks,” it added.
  • Household debt levels remain high at 140% of GDP and, if the Bank’s limits on the lending market fail to gain traction, it may be forced to raise interest rates instead
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    This article from the London Evening Standard details how the IMF have warned the UK government over remaining household debt and the dangers it poses to the economy. The IMF have also called for 'supply side measures... to safeguard housing affordability' - a growing problem in both London and the UK as a whole.
John B

What trade offs come with Austin housing? City investigates - Austin Business Journal - 0 views

  • housing prices are going up in the area — through they're still considered very reasonable compared to many coastal markets
  • The city's housing survey, conducted by the Austin office of Neighborhood Housing and Community Development, has so far found that more than half those who moved to Austin made some sort of trade off in order to live where they do.
  • more than half those who moved to Austin made some sort of trade off in order to live where they do.
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    Micheal Theis writes that according to a survey conducted by the Austin office of Neighborhood Housing and Community Development, more than half of the ones who moved to Austin had made some kind of a trade off to be able to live where they do. This is because the housing prices are going up and are considered very high.
Amanda Anna G

Help-to-Buy: George Osborne makes major concession | Heather Stewart | Business | thegu... - 0 views

  • Subsidising high LTV mortgages in boom-bust UK housing market was political masterstroke – but economic madness
  • The centrepiece of this year's budget, Help to Buy was a political masterstroke, pumping up public confidence just as many potential buyers were thinking about returning to the estate agent's, and helping the government to claim credit for an upswing in the property market that had already been kicked off by the Funding for Lending Scheme.Economically, however, Help to Buy is madness, as the Treasury select committee, the International Monetary Fund and the outgoing governor of the Bank of England all lined up to say.
  • Offering taxpayer subsidies for high loan-to-value mortgages worth up to £600,000, just as the incorrigibly boom-bust British housing market is moving from stop-to-go mode, is at best risky, at worst, downright reckless.
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  • Initially, the Treasury's argument was that the scheme would help to spark a building boom, as the surge in demand for homes prompted developers to re-start long-stalled projects.Housebuilding has picked up modestly – but by common consent it remains well below the levels that would be required to keep prices stable.
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    The "Help to Buy" was a political masterstroke since, among other things, the government got help with the claim for a credit for an upswing in the property market, helping to spark a building boom. I think, the offering taxpayer subsidies, will help allocate resources in the free market since more will get willingly to pay for houses. But this is risky for the British housing market, since the levels that would be required to keep prices stable will remain below what is needed.
Amanda Anna G

GBP/EUR, GBP/USD, GBP/AUD, GBP/NZD Exchange Rates All Weaker on House Price Falls - Exc... - 1 views

  • The Pound (GBP) exchange rate remained weaker against the majority of its most traded peers on Thursday as house price data added to concerns that the UK economy is slowing down and reduced pressure on the Bank of England (BoE) to raise interest rates.
  • Against the US Dollar, the Pound weakened to a fresh 14-month low and against the Euro, it declined to its weakest level in three weeks. Against the Australian and New Zealand Dollars, the Pound fell to its lowest level in 2-weeks.
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    This article is about the exchange rate in the UK for the Pund (GBP), which has become weaker during the past weeks. This implies that the UK economy is slowing down. 
Haydn W

Taxing Carbon Is Like Taxing Diamonds | Mary Manning Cleveland - 0 views

  • Taxing Carbon Is Like Taxing Diamonds
  • To reduce carbon emissions, we must tax fossil fuels -- but, say the pundits, we can't do so because the tax would be regressive, clobbering the poor.
  • Imagine that we impose a sales tax on diamonds. Would we worry about the burden on middle-class purchasers of one-fourth-caret engagement rings? What about the part of the tax "passed back" onto the DeBeers Group? Not much sympathy for global monopolists either.
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  • Surprisingly, a carbon tax would operate much like a diamond tax, for reasons both of demand and supply.
  • Demand: The wealthy actually consume a disproportionate amount of carbon. Discussions of a carbon tax usually focus on the price of gasoline. One gallon of gas produces about 17 pounds of CO2. One metric ton is 2,204 pounds. So a $100 tax on a ton of CO2 comes to $0.77 per gallon -- a significant cost to low-income commuters and small truckers.
  • A May 2013 federal study of the Social Cost of Carbon estimated costs of additional CO2 emissions for 2010 to 2050 ranging from $27 to $221 per metric ton in 2050, depending on assumptions.
  • Demand elasticity for oil is low, about 0.5; so a 1 percent increase in oil price would cause a 0.5 percent decrease in consumption. That makes sense, since in the short run, it's hard for people to cut energy consumption, especially if they must drive to work. But, though numbers are hard to come by, elasticity of supply is much, much lower, for two reasons. First, oil production takes decades and billions in capital investment; producers cannot quickly increase or decrease supply. Second, oil producers form an international cartel, an organized mega-monopoly, which holds down production to drive up prices. Since they're already charging what the traffic will bear, they can't much raise prices to cover a tax.
  • As economists long ago figured out, buyers and sellers share a tax in inverse proportion to elasticity. Therefore, if supply elasticity of carbon is, say, 0.1, while demand elasticity is 0.5, the suppliers will pay five times as much of the tax as consumers. That reduces that $0.77 per gallon gas tax to only $0.13. Moreover, precisely because most of the tax falls on suppliers, it will generate plenty of revenue to help those unfortunate long-distance commuters and small truckers, to build more public transportation, to invest in renewable energy, and even to cut super-regressive taxes like the payroll tax.
  • According to Edward Wolff, in 2007, the top 1 percent in the U.S. owned 43 percent of non-home wealth, mostly securities, including of course energy company stocks and bonds. The top 10 percent of wealth holders owned 83 percent.
  • But the very poor don't drive or travel or occupy much space; the rich fly planes, including private jets; drive to low-density suburbs; occupy and heat multiple houses and hotels; and buy lots of stuff. Clearly the rich consume much more carbon per capita than the poor.
  • So we have good news and bad news. Good news: The cost of reducing carbon emissions will fall hardest on the 1 percent, who consume the most energy and own the energy companies. Bad news: Ditto. Expect a fight!
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    This article talks about the economic implications of imposing a tax on carbon emissions and how this would affect the different social classes of society in different ways. The article makes specific reference to economic theory and the elements on elasticity.
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    Taxation almost always decrease the economic surplus and therefore it makes a decline in effectiveness. In this case, the energy companies will be the most affected group.
Clemente F

Mixed messages - 0 views

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    This article talks about the market which was probably more affected by this crisis. The house markets. The article presents data through which it is clear that the demand for house's has fallen and therefore the prices went down a lot. The only country where the house market is still growing is London in which the demand is very high.
Clemence Lafeuille

China to invest $20bn in struggling Venezuela - 0 views

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    This article is about China's FDI into Venezuela. Because of the recent drop in oil prices, Venezuela is suffering so China is placing FDIs in deals that include technology, housing and urban planning. The hope here is to develop a relationship between the two nations, but as we have seen in class it might not be truly beneficial to the LEDC.
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