Real Estate Speculation
The World’s Best Places to Live 2008
Mercer Consulting’s annual roundup of the global cities with the best quality of life is here, and Zurich once again comes out on top. The best place in the U.S.? Honolulu at No. 28
By Carl Winfield
New York, London, and Paris are internationally renowned cities but consultants at Mercer Consulting have picked Zurich, Switzerland, as the best place to live in the company’s annual survey.
Consultants rated each city on a variety of factors including the level of traffic congestion, air quality, and personal safety reported by expatriates living in more than 600 cities worldwide. In the top 25, U.S. cities such as San Francisco, Boston, and Chicago were all edged out by Geneva, Switzerland, Vancouver, B.C., and Auckland, New Zealand. The highest-scoring U.S. city is Honolulu, which came in at No. 28. (more…)
Looks like Seattle’s already achieved 50% the number of housing units they were targeting for 2024 here in 2008. Approximately 47,000 housing units are built or being created right now which would represent the city’s 2024 housing targets. Specifically, Ballard and Eastlake take the cake as far as being the most overbuilt for now. Other areas in the Seattle region include Bellevue, downtown Renton, Covington and Maple Valley as far as areas that qualify as growing very fast in terms of housing.
My thoughts are possible good buying opportunities given the downturn in the housing market on top of a surplus of housing units.
More about how Seattle’s overbuilt in terms of housing here.
Sitting in a taxi cab driving home earlier tonight, I thought to myself “The Taxi rates are pretty low here in Korea. How long will this last given the increase in oil prices?” Very specifically, it costs a little less than $2 (U.S.) for a 5-10 minute cab ride and it only cost me $6 to drive across town from the express train station tonight. (more…)
A lot of us who are both interested in buying and helping sell real estate appreciate the section of the newspaper on the weekends which lists latest properties for sale and other interesting tidbits of local housing info. However, the first section consumers and supposed “experts” in the industry should actually read the business section from the front page to the back. Why? The business section tells you what companies are coming and going, what companies are booming and which ones are busting and most importantly, it is the true pulse of what drives every real estate market. (more…)
An article I read recently from the International Herald Tribune. It was titled “Soft landing unlikely for the housing slump” by David Leonhardt of the New York Times. It made so much sense that I’m wondering when the next “opportunity” to buy. Despite all the efforts of the Federal Reserve in the United States, there’s one unescapable fact and it’s something I’ve been preaching to my students: prices of real estate have outpaced incomes. Let’s be frank, but if you don’t have the money to pay for the housing you buy, you simply will have to give it up to foreclosure or sell it to some Joe or Joanna quick enough that they don’t realize they’re going to have the same problem soon. It just took a matter of time before the current Ratio of Median House Price to Median Household Income got too high. It’s at… (more…)
…well, actually not really a loss, but the CEO Tom Kunz had a $1.3 million dollar cash offer for his home in Tuscan Ranch, California in 2004, but turned it down. A home in the same subdivision sold for $1.1 million dollars and is supposedly identical to his home. He says “I could sit here and say, ‘Oh I lost $200,000.’ But I’ve still made about a $700,000 profit,” he said in the interview late last week about the problems facing the housing market.”
(more…)
I had a very hard time deciding to get back into real estate after a slimy one week of watching a broker tell me that people who bought $15,000 properties weren’t worth my time right out of college. However, one thing I trusted was that Seattle and the area surrounding it was some of the best real estate in the world. I’m biased since I grew up there.
Most of my life people I ran into from around the world in New York, California or Korea asked “You’re from where?” “I heard it rains a lot over there” and a bunch of other questions or comments showing how ignorant they were about Seattle. They didn’t know that Seattle was the home to the biggest software company in the world (Microsoft), the home to where they found the biggest commercial manufacturer of planes (Boeing), the biggest franchise of coffee shops (Starbucks), and (more…)
Business 2.0 writes more about the real estate markets in the u.s. They tell us the top cities to buy, the places not to buy and places where foreclosures are happening right and left.
I thought I would summarize them a little for your sake.
WHERE TO BUY NOW [Projected 5 year gain in home prices are in brackets ().]
1. Panama City, FL (72%), 2. Vero Beach, FL (64%), 3. Bridgeport, CT (63%), 4. Lakeland, FL (59%), 5. McAllen, TX (57%), 6. San Luis Obispo, CA (40%), 7. Wilmington, NC (37%), 8. Manchester, NH (35%), 9. Fort Collins, CO (28%), 10. Atlanta, GA (24%).
For more details on why, visit their slide show clicking on here.
WHERE NOT TO BUY (according to Business 2.0, they say ‘at least for the next year or so’)
1. California’s Central Valley, 2) Southwest Florida, 3) The Jersey Shore, 4) Phoenix, 5) California’s Inland Empire, 6) and a bunch of other cities they list: Stockton - CA (-9.7%), Merced - CA (-8.9%), Reno/Sparks - NV (-8.9%), Fresno - NV (-7.9%), Vallejo/Fairfield - CA (-7.8%), Las Vegas - NV (-7.1%), Bakersfield - CA (-6.6%), Sacremento - CA (-6.4%), Washington, D.C. (-6.3%), Tucson - AZ (-6.2%) [projected drop in median home prices are placed in brackets()].
For more details from this article/slide show, click on here.
TOP 10 FORECLOSURE MARKETS according to Business 2.0 & Realty Trac:
1. Greely, CO, 2. Detroit, MI, 3. Miami, FL, 4. Indianapolis, IN, 5. Ft. Lauderdale, FL, 6. Denver, CO, 7. Dayton, OH, 8. Dallas, TX, 9. Fort Worth, TX, 10. Atlanta, GA
For more details on this slide show, feel free to click here.
Investing in Real Estate is a tricky endeavor. However, some research reports that are provided by popular magazines are a good place to show you what may be good to buy for the long run.
For example, an article recently published by Forbes identified the “Best States for Business.” Well, if the state is good for business, it probably means the state is also good for jobs and is a boost to the local economy. The higher demand of people moving into the areas makes it an easy decision to buy in those locales. Virginia topped the list (no wonder why D.C. is so expensive — even though I realize it’s not a part of Virginia, it basically serves as a county of it, LOL), but the article focused a lot on my home town: Seattle.
I’ve always new that it was the best place in the country despite the gloomy jokes about the rain. It has literally the best weather in the summer & has almost no humidity during the summer despite being next to the Puget Sound with 2 other major lakes lodged off to the immediate east. It has the best of everything including one of the largest, if not largest software companies in the world, the largest plane manufacturer (even though they’re headquartered in Chicago), one of the largest paper companies (in Federal Way, just south of the city), one of the largest online travel and books/CDs stores, one of the largest logistics companies for package deliveries, one of the largest cell phone providers…shall I continue?
There was another report/article that identified some recession/bubble proof markets for real estate. Seattle was on the list of the short list of 5 including San Francisco (4.2% appreciation since 1946 - to 2006), Los Angeles (3.7%), Seattle was 3rd in appreciation since 1946 (to 2006) at 3.2%, Boston (3.0%) and New York City at 3.0% as well. Las Vegas, Floridian cities and Phoenix were missing from the list.