值得留意的是8月份美國房屋銷售，當中有大約35%至40%涉及違約收樓(Distressed Properties)的買賣(過往違約收樓只占總房屋銷售之5%)，這亦暗示不少人正在執平貨。
美國樓市不宜看得太淡。
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US halfway housing
(Financial Times; September 24 2008)
Hank Paulson has been running around the US financial houses, furiously hammering down loose boards and bracing walls. But while banks may be shored up by the treasury secretary's plan, the foundations are still shifting. Data from the National Association of Realtors showed that median house prices fell 9.5 per cent in August compared to a year ago. Assigning value to toxic mortgage backed securities, or confidently estimating the hit to bank loan books, requires assumptions about where house prices will eventually settle. How much further do they have left to fall?
Sales volumes, at least, appear to have stabilised at about the 5m mark in recent months. Transaction numbers in the year to August were 4.9m, down 11 per cent from the previous year. Furthermore, the NAR estimates that 35-40 per cent of these sales were of distressed properties – houses in foreclosure, or ones worth less than the mortgages made against them. Normally, distressed sales make up about 5 per cent of sales. So the changing mix reflects a marked pick-up of demand in some of the worst hit areas, such as Sacramento and Las Vegas. Price drops of more than a fifth in such areas are now starting to attract buyers.
Regions where prices rose less rapidly during the boom are hardly immune. Some are suffering just as much, as loose lending practices were not confined solely to condo hot spots. Long-depressed Detroit, for instance, has seen prices plummet by a quarter in the last year. Meanwhile, there is the bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to consider. This has caused mortgage rates to fall. Yet tighter lending conditions, combined in many states with rising property taxes to cover budget shortfalls, mean conditions for buyers are no better than they were. Unemployment is still rising. Prices sinking another 10 per cent into the sand does not seem unreasonable.
2 則留言:
What is your input on the effectiveness on the bail out or "rescue plan".
In your believe what do you think the government should do with the market?
Thanks
To clear the risky Derivatives associated with the sub-prime bad debts.
When house price stabilizes and even goes little bit up again, everything wil be solved.
Alternatively, May think in this way, the "Conservation of Energy (Loss)"
The loss from the housing bubble burst will be transformed into house-price drop and rising bad debts from the sub-primes. Part of which has been exported to the rest fo the world in form of ABS/CDO, another part is absorbed by the US financials (some have gone bankrupt, or being acquired) in form of rising bad debts and the toxic derivatives.
The US government is likely to clear the "Bombs", which may hinder the recovery of the US economy.
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