Tag Archives: Housing Bubble

Double-digit price increases in some markets hard-hit by the housing crisis prompt the question, are we experiencing another housing bubble? While several factors are combining to push prices up right now, CoreLogic analysts say we are not headed into anther bubble. During the bubble leading to the recent housing crisis, real home prices increased 62 percent. When the bubble burst, prices fell 47 percent, according to CoreLogic.

Can the drop in homeownership be good news? When President George W. Bush followed his predecessor Bill Clinton in pushing homeownership, one loud dissenter was British economist Andrew Oswald who argued that far from improving the economy, as Bush (and Clinton before him) said it would, homeownership hurts the economy in the long run. Oswald produced data to show that every five percent rise in homeownership results in a one percentage point increase in the unemployment rate.

According to BEA, profits fell for both financial and non-financial corporations in the first quarter. For financial corporations, it was the fourth quarterly decline in profits in the last five quarters. The slip in financial corporation profits comes at a particularly critical time for the financial sector, as housing-so heavily dependent on lending institutions--is in the midst of a nascent recovery, and that recovery is causing concerns that we may be on the cusp of yet a new housing bubble. Recent data shows home prices rising at the fastest pace since the housing bubble burst.

The majority of metros covered in Zillow's Real Estate Market Reports saw home values inch up from March to April, the company reported Tuesday. Zillow's Home Value Index increased 0.5 percent month-over-month and 5.2 percent year-over-year. April marked the sixth consecutive month in which home values appreciated more than 5 percent on a yearly basis. According to Zillow, the last time national home values were at this level was in June 2004.

A majority of real estate experts responding to a recent Zillow survey expressed some concern that the Federal Reserve's current policies could lead to another housing bubble. Only 4 percent of respondents are not at all worried about a bubble resulting from the Fed's monetary policy that is keeping mortgage rates down. However, 48 percent see the Fed's policies as ""a little risky,"" and the remaining 48 percent categorized the risk as ""moderate to high risk."" Experts also expect prices to end this year 5.4 percent higher than their level at the start of the year.