There has been a deluge of articles recently about the upticks in the housing data...[yet, while] I do not dispute the improvement in the data regarding home starts, permits, pending sales, etc.,... [see graph below] these data points are still mired at very depressed levels so the assumption is that if home building is stabilizing then it is only a function of time until home prices began to rise as well. Right? Not so fast.. [Let me explain.] Words: 1100

The following charts indicate relative performance of US home prices in Phoenix, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Las Vegas, New York and Miami to Canadian home prices in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, and Montreal. US home prices are reflected in Canadian dollars for comparison purposes. Words: 240

The explosion of Australia’s mortgage debt is viewed by many economists and commentators as the key factor behind Australia’s unaffordable housing [and the primary] reason why Australia’s housing bubble is larger than that experienced in the United States in the mid-2000s. [Another factor is] the strangulation of fringe urban land supply via increasingly restrictive planning processes. [Let me substantiate that contention by comparing the two countries housing situation via a number of descriptive graphs. Words: 817

Canada, France and Switzerland stood alone among nine markets measured in recording annual price gains, based on second-quarter data, with inflation-adjusted price increases of 5%, 5% and 4%, respectively, compared to declines of 6% in the U.S., the U.K. and Australia, 10% in Spain and 14% in Ireland. In fact, Canada's home prices have escalated 44% since 2005 - with a high of 68% in Vancouver - and they are up 7.7% in the past 12 months! Words: 1244

According to both the Case Shiller and RadarLogic indices housing prices have been essentially flat for the past 2 years after having fallen by a third from their 2006/7 highs. [That being said, surely we can now rule out another collapse, can't we? Words: 764

As bad as the housing crisis has been over the past three years, it has only been a warm up to what we have headed our way... [In fact,] the forecast is horrific, to say the least!28% of US homeowners already owe more on their mortgage than their home is worth [and]... 27% of American homeowners are considering walking away from their mortgage...This is going to significantly drive home prices further down. [Let's look at the details.] Words: 657

3%! Simply amazing. 3% isn’t even close to serious. If you are only able or willing to put down 3% you simply aren’t serious about homeownership. It’s laughable...yet by 2007 40% of all mortgages had less than 3% downpayments...Evidence is now pouring in...that the financial crisis of 2008 was nearly exclusively created by government’s misguided interventions and manipulations of the housing market. [Let me explain further.] Words: 671