...Applied Economic Theory United States Mortgage Crisis After rising at an annual rate of nearly 9 percent from 2000 through 2005, house prices have decelerated, even falling in some markets. At the same time, interest rates on both fixed- and adjustable-rate mortgage loans moved upward, reaching multi-year highs in mid-2006. Some subprime borrowers with ARMs, who may have counted on refinancing before their payments rose, may not have had enough home equity to qualify for a new loan given the sluggishness in house prices. In addition, some owners with little equity may have walked away from their properties, especially owner-investors who do not occupy the home and thus have little attachment to it beyond purely financial considerations. Regional economic problems have played a role as well; for example, some of the states with the highest delinquency and foreclosure rates are among those most hard-hit by job cuts in the auto industry. The rate of serious delinquencies--corresponding to mortgages in foreclosure or with payments ninety days or more overdue--rose sharply during 2006 and recently stood at about 11 percent, about double the recent low seen in mid-2005.3 The rate of serious delinquencies has also risen somewhat among some types of near-prime mortgages, although the rate in that category remains much lower than the rate in the subprime market. The rise in delinquencies has begun to show through to foreclosures. In the fourth quarter of 2006, about 310,000...
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...Price elasticity of demand From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Price elasticity of demand (PED or Ed) is a measure used in economics to show the responsiveness, or elasticity, of the quantity demanded of a good or service to a change in its price. More precisely, it gives the percentage change in quantity demanded in response to a one percent change in price (holding constant all the other determinants of demand, such as income). It was devised by Alfred Marshall. Price elasticities are almost always negative, although analysts tend to ignore the sign even though this can lead to ambiguity. Only goods which do not conform to the law of demand, such as Veblen and Giffen goods, have a positive PED. In general, the demand for a good is said to be inelastic (or relatively inelastic) when the PED is less than one (in absolute value): that is, changes in price have a relatively small effect on the quantity of the good demanded. The demand for a good is said to be elastic (or relatively elastic) when its PED is greater than one (in absolute value): that is, changes in price have a relatively large effect on the quantity of a good demanded. Revenue is maximised when price is set so that the PED is exactly one. The PED of a good can also be used to predict the incidence (or "burden") of a tax on that good. Various research methods are used to determine price elasticity, including test markets, analysis of historical sales data and conjoint analysis. Contents [hide] * 1 Definition...
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...IB economics - internal assessment Name - Title of the article - MCHI-Credai moves court against VAT Source of the article- http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-10-28/india-business/34779915_1_flat-buyers-mchi-credai-vat Date article was published- 28/10/2012 Date article was written on - 08/01/2013 Word count - 662 Section of the syllabus the article relates to - Section 1:Microeconomics MCHI-Credai moves court against VAT Rajshri Mehta, TNN Oct 28, 2012, 12.37AM IST MUMBAI: Two days before the deadline for developers to pay value-added tax (VAT) on October 31, the Bombay high court will take up a couple of petitions challenging the levy. Leading the charge is the Maharashtra Chamber of Housing Industry-Confederation of Real Estate Developers Association of India (MCHI-Credai), the representative body of builders in the state, and the Pune-based Marathi Bandkam. Their petition backs up a PIL moved by Grahak Hitawardhini, a consumer organization in Pune. MCHI-Credai and Marathi Bandkam have argued that the government has ignored the fact that they constructed and sold flats under the Maharashtra Owners of Flats Act. "The building is constructed at our cost and without buyers having control over any activities of purchasing land to getting development permissions. The sale, thus, does not constitute a works contract and, hence, VAT cannot...
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...Subprime Special The term "subprime" refers to the credit status of the borrower, which is being less than ideal. Subprime lending is a general term that refers to the practice of making loans to borrowers who do not qualify for the best market interest rates because of their deficient credit history. According to the U.S. Department of Treasury guidelines issued in 2001, "Subprime borrowers typically have weakened credit histories that include payment delinquencies, and possibly more severe problems such as charge-offs, judgments, and bankruptcies. They may also display reduced repayment capacity as measured by credit scores, debt-to-income ratios, or other criteria that may encompass borrowers with incomplete credit histories." Subprime lending is also called B-Paper, near-prime, or second chance lending. Subprime lending encompasses a variety of credit instruments, including subprime mortgages, subprime car loans, and subprime credit cards, among others. A subprime loan is offered at a rate higher than A-paper loans due to the increased risk. Subprime lending crisis, which began in the United States has become a financial contagion and has led to a restriction on the availability of credit in world financial markets. Hundreds of thousands of borrowers have been forced to default and several major subprime lenders have filed for bankruptcy. Types of subprime lending Subprime mortgages Subprime mortgage loans are riskier loans in that they are made to...
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...through early 2004, the housing market was busting record rates in sales and the fast growth made housing prices soar to record highs. For example, the value of a home bought in late 2001, for a price of $290K, could well have the retail value of $340K by the middle of 2002, and by the following year could near double in value to an astonishing $460K or more. These out of the norm home values were driving people to suddenly sell their homes they had owned for years at double the original value, and make a nice profit to reinvest that money into a “dream home”. This also caused a swell of first time buyers to feel the need to quickly get in on the boom before it was impossible to own a home due to the price. The Fed Reserve set the stage for this boom and made this time frame an “anything goes” for the banking and investment community. In the late 1990’s through the early 2000’s, the U.S. economy was facing a mini recession and the tech industry’s dot com bubble popped; leaving Wall Street and it’s investors in a short fall. The Federal Reserve lowered interest rates to an all-time low, that hadn’t been seen in over forty years. Investment companies and banks were looking to get a higher return on their money and capital investments. Over the course of time, the Fed Reserve kept interest rates low. People started buying homes and the interest rates staying low caused a housing boom. The housing boom started the rise in housing prices. The rise in housing prices started people buying...
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...analysis of the key macro and micro economics factors which impact on the current UK housing market Introduction This paper explores the current situation in the UK housing market. Fundamentally, the paper argues that the current situation in the housing market is a legacy of the way in which the housing market developed over the early 2000s into the 2007 and 2008 financial crisis. As the fall out from this crisis has taken two or three years to properly be felt it can currently be said to be exerting a major influence on the way the housing market in the UK is working today. The paper therefore places a major focus on developing an understanding of how the financial crisis occurred and the impact that this had on the UK housing market, in order to understand the key factors which are shaping the housing market today. The paper begins with a look at the state of the UK economy at the moment. This is only examined in brief but provides a key background to the work. This is then followed by a look at the UK economy and the housing market and how the two link together. The following section is the major section of the work as this focuses on the macroeconomic factors which have shaped the housing market. This section in particular focuses on the legacy of the housing market developments of the early 2000s. The following section briefly explores the microeconomic elements which have shaped the housing market – the major emphasis here is on the role of buy to let mortgages as a means...
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...Hong Kong is a financial center with low taxation and enjoys free trade from all around the world. However, there are a plenty of people who cannot own or even rent an apartment because of the high housing prices. According to the Hong Kong Audit Commission(2014), there are 22.8 million peoples who are in a waiting list of public rental housing and most of them are from lowincome families, singletons, elderly and unemployed people. Most of them are living in urban slums known as "cage home" because they cannot afford the payment of rent or buy house. Therefore, It is demonstrated that the housing boom of Hong Kong not only had the positive impact, but negative. This essay will describe two of the factors influence the demand for housing in Hong Kong, including lowinterest rate and intensive population, as well as analyze the benefits and disadvantages impact of the housing boom. "A runup in housing prices fueled by demand, speculation and the belief that recent history is an infallible forecast of the future"(Investopedia, 2014). The meaning of the housing boom is that housing prices continue to increase, because of the consumer would like to make a profits through sale of real estate. Hong Kong has a very lowinterest rate compared to other neighboring countries such as China, India and Korea. According to the Trading Economics(2014), the benchmark interest rate in Hong Kong was last recorded at 0.50 percent compared with other countries 6 percent, 8 percent...
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...INTRODUCTION In the recent years the demand of home loans has increased dramatically. Part of the reason for this increase is because of accessibility of loans has gotten bigger. Today home loans are available in the market at very low and good rates that meet the demands of many home buyers. A home represents the largest asset that typically people have and this is why home loans have such a huge impact in the loan market today. When a person purchases a home he or she will be investing a huge amount of cash. Many people can’t come up with the whole money to pay out to the house, while some others can’t even afford to invest money for the house they will like to purchase in part this is how home loans have turned out to be a benefit for people who want to buy the home of their choice but cannot afford it at the time. Now day’s home buyers don’t have to worry much about the source of money for their homes. Home loans have made the life of many house buyers much easier. But house buyers should be very careful when choosing a home loan. Before doing anything else. Borrows should make a through research of the current interest rates in the market and then opt or go for any home loan. Buyers could even go for home loans by mortgage. This way the borrowers can get a loan after pledging or securing any asset or securities of their own against amount of money barrowed by them. When getting a home loan the individuals should consider taking care of different aspects related...
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...Inflation 7 6. Economic cycle considerations 9 7. Part 2: Housing issues in Hong Kong 9 8. Introduction 9 9. Housing situation in Hong Kong 9 10. Housing Demand in Hong Kong 11 11. Housing supply in Hong Kong 14 12. The Current Government Policies 15 12.1. Policy 1: 15 12.2. Policy 2 16 12.3. Policy 3 16 13. Conclusion 17 14. Bibliography 18 Part 1: Minimum Wage law in Hong Kong Introduction The Hong Kong Government introduced of a Minimum Wage in Hong Kong in May 2011, in response to increased incomes disparity in the territory. It uses economic theory to predict certain impacts such as level of employment, profits of firms, inflation effect and potential positive effects on the economy in general. Minimum Wage – Economic Theory Economic theory tells us that when artificial price floors are introduced in the market, they force prices to remain above the level that balances supply and demand. The same is true with minimum wage; it raises the quantity of labor supplied and reduces the quantity of labor demanded, it creates a surplus of labor that translates into unemployment (see figure 1). [pic] Figure 1: Price floor created by minimum wage In summary the minimum wage causes the following: ← Minimum wage act as a price floor ← Unemployment is proportional to the difference between minimum wage price and the natural employment price equilibrium ← Reduces the demand for...
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...analyzing the past, when it happened and how it built up and resulted in the financial crisis. The significance of this literature review seeks to give a simplified explanation of the financial crisis of 2008 and will be useful for the people unversed in economics or finance but wish to have a basic understanding of its causes and history. The Tech Bubble During the early 2000, numerous companies and individuals bought new operating systems that were Y2K-ready in fear that the “Y2K” problem would cause computer systems to malfunction. This had allowed technology companies to generate obscene amounts of revenue. At one point, the telecommunications giant, Nortel, owned one third of the stock markets in Canada (Wahl 2009). As a result, stock prices of these companies started to increase rapidly and this led to...
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...Investment Analysis case study, Subprime Meltdown: American Housing & Global Financial Turmoil Dr. Farooq Malik Noor Main Problems: 1. Financial crisis 2. Before 1990’s many households went into default. 3. In early 2008, the most immediate problem was a wave of foreclosures 4. In 1996 accelerated in average house prices across the United States had risen fairly to reach about 12 percent per annum in late 2005. After this, there was anxiety about inflation and interest rates were increased steadily, with the Federal Funds rate reaching 5.25% in September 2006. 5. Failure of about half of the 32,234 Savings and Loan Associations “S&L’s” that existed in 1986. 6. In 2006, credit risk. 7. Losses of billions 8. subprime crisis Main Cause of the problems: 1. Failure of the financial system in planning and managing the system 2. During the Great Depression, refinancing became difficult. Lenders mostly offered short-term mortgages that needed to be refinanced because they had “balloon” payments at the end. 3. US system for financing home purchases had gone wrong, what had appeared to be a glorious housing boom. 4. Rise in prices was due in part to the Federal Reserve’s policy of maintaining low interest rates after the 2001 recession. Fearing a recession that did not materialize made the Fed keeps interest rates low to be set to only 1 percent from July 2003 to July 2004. In spite of signs of growth in output and prices. 5. S&Ls is about...
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...| Has Market Economy approach led the world to the current economic situation? | | | | By:Divya Padmanabhan IES Management College and Research Centre Mumbai, India | Executive summary: “If war is God’s way of teaching geography to the world, recession is His way of teaching everyone a little economics”. The global financial crisis has questioned the efficacy of the existing institutional framework and forced us to rethink on how our financial systems are regulated. It has also posed an important question whether the root cause of this global crisis has been the highly praised ‘Open Market Approach’. The inter linkages in the global economy has ensured that no country remains isolated and unhindered by the crisis. With the economic crisis looming over the people at large, unemployment seems to be at all time high and the whole world having a pessimistic view of the future, capitalism seems to be at loss of reason for this crisis, let alone a find solution for it. There was a time when being a capitalist economy was a matter of pride and people were excited to be part of the “free” economy but somewhere down the line the excitement seemed to have vanished. What was thought to be an epitome of equality, turned out to be the cause of inequality. In an article by Joseph E. Stiglitz “Of the 1%, By the 1%, For the 1%”, 1 percent of the people in USA take nearly a quarter of the nation’s...
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...http://dx.doi.org/10.5018/economics-ejournal.ja.2010-22 Housing Wealth Isn’t Wealth Willem H. Buiter Citigroup, London Abstract A fall in house prices due to a change in fundamental value redistributes wealth from those long housing (for whom the fundamental value of the house they own exceeds the present discounted value of their planned future consumption of housing services) to those short housing. In a closed economy representative agent model (the special case when the birth rate is zero, of the Yaari-Blanchard OLG model used in the paper), there is no pure wealth effect on consumption from a change in house prices if this represents a change in their fundamental value. When the birth rate is positive, higher fundamental house prices driven by the housing demand of future generations will boost current consumption. There is a pure wealth effect on consumption from a change in house prices even in the representative agent model, if this reflects a change in the speculative bubble component of house prices. Two other channels through which a fall in house prices can affect aggregate consumption are (1) redistribution effects if the marginal propensity to spend out of wealth differs between those long housing (the old, say) and those short housing (the young, say) and (2) collateral or credit effects due to the collateralisability of housing wealth and the non-collateralisability of human wealth. A decline in house prices reduces the scope for mortgage equity withdrawal. For...
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...for many is literally just dream with soaring house prices, Sydney is continually mentioned in the top 20 most expensive cites in the world to buy property in. Over the past decade we have seen a substantial increase in housing prices and a reduction in housing affordability in Australia. Home ownership in Sydney has been a hot topic of discussion for many years and housing affordability has been a key policy goal for government. Both state and commonwealth governments have funded numerous housing assistance programs over the years. With the one goal in mind to help first home buyers achieve the great Aussie dream by buying their first home. In September 2008 the Global Financial Crisis came to a head with the US government allowing the investment bank Lehman Brothers go bankrupt. Up to that point it was always assumed that the US government would bail out any bank that got into trouble, this was not the case and banks were now deemed ‘risky’ (Elliott, The Guardian, 2011).Governments all over the world scrambled to prop up their economy to ‘ride out the storm’. The Rudd governments First Home Buyers Boost was just one part of the economic stimulus package rolled out to hopefully reduce the chances of Australia facing the same fate that the United States of America did when the Global Financial Crisis hit. I will discuss the First Home Buyers Boost scheme that was implemented to encourage first home buyers into the housing market whilst we dealt with the Global Financial Crisis...
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...mortgage payment, taxes, homeowner’s insurance, electric, gas, sewage and water. These are all bills on top of personal finances that are necessary and must be created into the budget. When setting out to buy a home there will come into question about what is affordable and where should the price range be. There is an old school rule of thumb to give an idea of what is in the buyer’s price range, and that is to multiply the yearly gross salary of the buyer by two and a half times. That will provide a general guideline in terms of what can be afforded. The method used today by real estate agents is complied from credit scores and debt-to- income ratios. A debt-to-income ratio is a comparison between the amounts of money earned each month, and the amount spent on various debts. These ratios use gross monthly income, which is the amount earned before taxes are taken out. As Cornett (2011) explains, “personal debts can only consume a certain amount of gross monthly income. There are actually two types of debt-to-income ratios used by lenders; for example, a lender might allow debt ratios of "28/36." The front ratio is 28, which means that the monthly mortgage payment cannot account for more than 28 percent of the gross monthly...
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