House prices at all time highs - what next?

Do you believe in market cycles and that forecasts can be accurate?

Take a look at the following chart from economist Martin Armstrong who has been predicting these things for Governments and Banks for a long time.

(Note: Graph is 'not to scale' just indicative of Dates and direction
Source: Martin Armstrong, see below)

Also note that the average UK house prices overtook the pre-crash record for the first time recently and US home sales also reached eight year peak and prices all time high. (sources below)

Many people may have forgotten what happened when the prices were this high last time and in a bubble just 7-8 years ago.

The inevitable crash was postponed/minimised by Government intervention and keeping dishonest bankers in business. Politicians supported their friends at the Banks with taxpayer money, so they could continue to launder for criminals, charge excessive fees, rig interest rates in their own favour, pay big bonuses and all the other fraud that has been going on and continues.

This money has flowed away from the 'people' and into the stock market, corporations and CEO pockets. The FED didn't raise interest rates as they probably want a good Christmas of spending from people and enough time to fill their boots.

Politicians have been giving themselves pay rises, whilst the public coffers have been emptied.
Banks don't have enough real assets to cover all the money they gamble with and pay their 'top' employees.
Governments all over the world are in debt and many take out new lines of credit, to try and pay the interest on their previous borrowing. Eventually this will stop.
The race is on between America and a European country to finally admit it can't pay it's debts.

On top of that, the wars and instability being caused is creating mass migration of people looking for a better way of life. So when 'immigrants' turn up expecting a little help, everyone forgets how well off they have been in the past and the fact they are also 'children' of migrants themselves.
These poor people have seen the media and 'adverts' stating America and Western Europe are the richest and best places to live in the world, especially as they have accumulated so many of the worlds resources over the decades/centuries.
(See the TV and movies that sell you the ideal lifestyle, as opposed to the News which is designed to keep you in fear and looking for answers/protection from the Govt.)

OK, I think I'm ranting now so let's get back on track.


So what is likely to happen next?

The bankrupt Governments can't continue printing money at these rates to put into the stock market and interest rates only have one direction to move. When that happens and the markets contract, the stock market bubble and property (real estate) bubble will deflate as well.

My guess is that there is about 1 year (maximum) to get your investments in order and get ready to stick it out for the long term.  The first signs will be from America or a defaulting European country in the next few months before it goes mainstream.


What can you do to hedge yourselves against it happening?

- Sell any properties that are highly leveraged right NOW, which are bringing in a low yield.
When interest rates increase and prices drop, these are the ones that will suck your cashflow and reserves dry.

- Don't buy house for the sake of growing your portfolio (or because you want to move to a new house), only invest for yield with bigger deposits than you would normally want to put down.

- Leverage can work in your favour in an up trending market but it is even more dangerous in a down market.

- Speculators and those investing in new build, big blocks and the new bubble of student accommodation will likely be hit worse.

- Pay down as much as you can on your principle residence.

- Property and business is once again going to become about the long term sustainability as opposed to short term and quick returns.

I learned my lessons the hard way from experience 7/8 years ago. Fortunately I don't have to repeat it this time.  Will you learn from past experience or is another rude awakening required?

The good news is property will become more affordable for people to buy their own homes and there will be the opportunity to buy businesses based on income and yield, instead of simply speculating with borrowed money.


More information here:
http://www.economicconfidencemodels.com/
http://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/jul/28/house-prices-in-england-and-wales-hit-record-high
http://www.propertywire.com/news/europe/us-existing-home-index-2015072310783.html

White collar crime - Banks steal houses!

Coming to a home near you soon? Or actually ask your friends and family because the white-collar criminals are likely already operating in your street lurking in the shadows!

If you've got such stories about UK Banks, then write in and let us know - the last thing they want is people discussing their crimes in public even though they're spending the public's money and harassing those very same people!

"Robo-signed documents, false affidavits and failure to notify defendants are just a few of the ways banks and their lawyers are accused of mishandling foreclosures."

When these things are happening there would naturally be investigations into these crimes and corporate frauds - but the Police and justice departments are not interested in pursuing them.

Why would that be when the crimes are so public?

Why do criminal Bankers have no limits on what they will do and then seem to be exempt from investigation?  Maybe it is because they think they are 'above the law' and have 'unlimited' government funding that they do what they want.

So what is white collar crime?

"Within the field of criminology, white-collar crime has been defined by Edwin Sutherland as "a crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation" (1939). Sutherland was a proponent of Symbolic Interactionism, and believed that criminal behavior was learned from interpersonal interaction with others. White-collar crime, therefore, overlaps with corporate crime because the opportunity for fraud, bribery, insider trading, embezzlement, computer crime, copyright infringement, money laundering, identity theft, and forgery are more available to white-collar employees."

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White-collar_crime

It looks like Bankers are in the perfect place to be taking 'money' home with them.
They even have systems in place and what looks like 'agreements' with lawyers, courts and judges to allow their paperwork pass through the system whilst the little guy gets stomped on!

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Here's just some of the things they are up to:-

Wall St Banks have been caught stealing homes through fraudulent foreclosures.
They are moving people out of their homes before foreclosure completes, even emptying homes of possessions.
Telling people they have to be in arrears before they will help under new anti-foreclosure laws, then foreclosing because they are in arrears.
When people call for help the people are given fake phone numbers to get help.

Using illegal document to get foreclosures.

Faking foreclosure documents.
Foreclosing on homes that have been paid off.
Even setting up boiler room courts to rush them through.

Get more info and read about the crimes at: 

http://warintel.blogspot.com/2010/12/wall-st-banks-steal-homes-with-impunity.html
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/matt-taibbi-courts-helping-banks-screw-over-homeowners-20101110

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In this story Bank of America 'steals ashes of dead husband and ransacks house' after foreclosure.

"A bank has been accused of unlawfully seizing the ashes of a dead husband from his grieving widow’s home.  Bailiffs working for the Bank of America are said to have broken into the Mimi Ash’s house during a foreclosure before ransacking the place.  And, according to a U.S. lawsuit, they helped themselves to family and childhood photographs along with her son’s ski medals while cleaning out the entire house.

Ira Rheingold, executive director of the National Association of Consumer Advocates, said that bank errors were happening all the time.  She said: ‘Every day, smaller wrongs happen to people trying to save their homes: being charged the wrong amount of money, being wrongly denied a loan modification, being asked to hand over documents four or five times."

Read more at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1340863/Bank-America-steals-ashes-dead-husband-ransacks-house.html

These small wrongs compound to great injustices!

Yes, this what is really happening. It's not a perfect world out there and it is time for people to support each other, share the truth and fight back against the white collar crime that is increasing around you all the time.

Bobby

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Watch this video below to see the deals that American banks are getting and would you be surprised if the same was happening in the UK and worldwide?
It may be a year old but it's still relevant today. Stay informed and share the information.  Homes are for living in, humans for being treated respectfully and Bankers, well I'll let you figure out what they are good for...
See how they play the numbers game to show that profits are more important than people!

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Those Indymac boys were given deal by the FDIC, and borrowers were strong-armed




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssl5yb7FewA

Transcript: "Does the Government REALLY want to fix this financial mess we're in?

Like many banks during the world financial meltdown in 2008, IndyMac closed it doors. Months later, its assets were seized by the FDIC and sold to OneWest Bank by the US Government.

Well, guess who owns OneWest Bank: That would be Goldman Sachs; with bigtime VP Stephen Munchen and bigtime investors, George Soros and John Paulson - of no blood relation to ex-CEO of Goldman Sachs, Hank Paulson - who would be the ex-Secretary of the Treasury.

All IndyMac's residential property mortgages were purchased by OneWest at 70% of their value; all HELOCs were purchased at 58% percent of the value.

But just in case the OneWest guys would feel cozy and warm, the FDIC stepped in and decided to cover 80% to 90% of the losses, due to short sale or foreclosures that they might incur from those naughty IndyMac-mortgaged homeowners...

The reason why we think you should know about this case is because the Loss Calculations are based on the ORIGINAL home mortgage and NOT the 70% of the ORIGINAL value at which it was purchased by OneWest.

This is an actual sample case fro one of our TBWS viewers…now, this is going to get your blood boiling!

Take an actual loan $478,000 + 6 months of missed payments for a grand total of $485,200. OneWest Bank paid 70% or $334,600 for that loan. ($485,200 X 70% = $334,600).

Then, that underwater homeowner got an all-cash short sale offer for his home that netted $241,000 to OneWest Bank.

Now, according to the FDIC formula, you take the actual amount that OneWest paid for the mortgage: $334,600 but instead they get to use the ORIGINAL amount of the mortgage of $485,200 MINUS the short sale offer of $241,000 and you have an "Adjusted Loss" of $244,200.

Next, according to the sweetheart deal, the FDIC writes a check to OneWest bank for 80% of the net loss ($244,200 X 80%), so the Taxpayer, courtesy of the FDIC pays OneWest $195,360.

Now, ADD the $195,360 paid by the Government to the short sale offer of $241,000 and One West Bank just made: $436,360 on a loan that they only bought for $334,600! And all they had to do was sell it for what they wanted to!

Guys! They can't lose money on this deal! OneWest Bank just profited on this short sale to the tune of $101,760 -- all because of the sweetheart deal they made with the FDIC.

So, if you ever ask yourself, "Why is it so hard to get a mortgage loan?" The answer is that *there's too much money to be made on short sales and foreclosures.*

Ready for an encore? The house still was sold for less than the original loan amount and the *borrower was forced to sign a promissory note for $75,000* to OneWest Bank!

So who really wins in the end? Well, just let you decide...

By the way, the FDIC just announced that they would start needing to borrow money from the Treasury -- the Treasury being the place where all those Goldman Sachs guys used to call home before they called OneWest Bank home.

If you're as mad about this as we are, share this with as many people as you can, so we can all understand more about this business that we care so deeply about..."

New York - 'Thinnest house' sells for £1.3million

If you thought houses and rents were expensive in the UK, take a look at this 2-bed house built in an alleyway that just sold for $2.1 million (£1.3 million)

Listed in August 2009 for $2.7m, the Real estate broker said that "despite the awkward dimensions, the property will fetch its listed price due to its uniqueness, history and location in one of the city's most famous preserved neighborhoods."

Well there can't be too much confidence in the US / New York Market if it took 4 months to sell and at 22% below the value they expected! It's still good money for an approx. 1071 sq ft property. That's nearly $2000 per square foot (£1200 sq.ft.) they got from the $2500 sq.ft. it was valued at!

Then again, with a rental of $10,000 per month, the new owner is not exactly looking for cashflow either! So that's at least one person with cash who is confident that the real estate / property prices will go up giving them capital growth.

Bobby

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"A home less than ten feet wide, which has been dubbed New York City's skinniest house, has sold for $2.1 million (£1.3million).

Number 75½ Bedford Street: one of New York's narrowest, and most photographed, houses

The red, 9.5 foot wide, 42 foot long brick building in Manhattan's fashionable Greenwich Village neighbourhood was built in 1873. Located at number 75½ Bedford Street, it was built on land which previously had been an alleyway between numbers 75 and 77.

The interior, unsurprisingly as the house isn't a TARDIS, is even smaller, measuring just 8.5 feet wide.

The two bedroom, two bathroom home, which went on the market priced at $2.7 million in August last year, was last sold in 2000 for $1.6 million.

At the time it was listed last August, real estate agent Alex Nicholas admitted: 'Due to the narrowness of the house, I think you have to be very clever in how you decorate.'

The narrow home has had some famous residents in the past - a plaque on it notes that poet Edna St. Vincent Millay once lived there; so did anthropologist Margaret Mead.

However, it looks like the new owners might not be living there themselves - the newly-sold building was listed on real estate websites on Wednesday as a rental available for $10,000 a month." - Source: Tom Phillips - www.metro.co.uk