Tight Housing Market Uncoils With Sellers Ready To Cash Out…
Prospective home sellers who sat tight as U.S. prices climbed higher and faster than ever during the pandemic are finally emerging to cash out, a step toward easing a dire shortage in the frenzied housing market.
The number of U.S. homes for sale climbed 6.7% in early June from the same weekly period in May, according to Haus, an investment platform for homebuyers. That was the biggest increase since Covid-19 lockdowns took hold last year. Listings rose in 54 of the 100 metropolitan areas measured, including the regions around Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Detroit, Denver and Seattle.
“Sellers are saying, ‘it’s time, let’s make the money,’” said Julie Welter, an agent with EXP Realty in Pittsburgh, which had the biggest supply increase in Haus’s data. “With the world opening up again and the vast majority of people being vaccinated, it has given a new comfort level to people.”
HSBC offers sub-1% mortgage as interest rate war intensifies…
HSBC has become the latest lender to offer a mortgage deal with an interest rate of less than 1% in the latest sally of an intensifying mortgage rate war.
Banks and building societies are fighting for customers in a frenzied property market, described by the Bank of England’s chief economist as “on fire” as the government’s stamp duty holiday combines with big deposits saved during lockdown to ramp up demand.
On Friday, HSBC cut the rate on its two-year fixed product for those with deposits or equity of at least 40% by 0.05%, bringing it down to 0.99%. Borrowers have to pay a fee of £999 but the last time the bank offered a rate this low was nearly five years ago.
Stocks fell on Friday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average posting its worst weekly loss since October, as traders worried the Federal Reserve could start raising rates sooner than expected.
The blue-chip average dropped 533.37 points, or 1.6%, to 33,290.08. The S&P 500 slid 1.3% to 4,166.45. Both the Dow and S&P 500 hit their session lows in the final minutes of trading and closed around those levels. The Nasdaq Composite closed 0.9% lower at 14,030.38. Economic comeback plays led the market losses.
For the week, the 30-stock Dow lost 3.5%. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq were down by 1.9% and 0.2%, respectively, week to date.
Burry warns ‘mother of all crashes’ near…
- Michael Burry predicted meme stocks and cryptocurrencies will plummet.
- “The Big Short” investor warned the “mother of all crashes” is coming.
- Burry pointed to excessive leverage as a major problem for crypto.
Casual investors buying meme stocks and cryptocurrencies are signing up for devastating losses, Michael Burry warned on Thursday.
“All hype/speculation is doing is drawing in retail before the mother of all crashes,” the investor tweeted. “When crypto falls from trillions, or meme stocks fall from tens of billions, #MainStreet losses will approach the size of countries.”
Burry added that people’s fear of missing out has propelled asset prices to unsustainable levels. “#FOMO Parabolas don’t resolve sideways,” he cautioned.
The Scion Asset Management boss also sounded the alarm on crypto fans borrowing recklessly to buy their favorite coins.
90% of NFTs Will Be Worthless, Declares COINBASE Founder …
Non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, have taken the art market and its many adjacent industries by storm this year. And its extremely volatile trading activities make it still too early to say how it’s going to play out. But according to one of the earliest purveyors of cryptocurrencies, the vast majority of NFTs in the market today will be worthless in just a few years.
In an interview on Bloomberg TV this week, Coinbase cofounder Fred Ehrsam drew parallels between the rise of cryptocurrencies and the dotcom boom of the 1990s. “I go so far as to say that 90% of NFTs produced, they probably will have little to no value in three to five years,” Ehrsam said. “You could say the same thing about early internet companies in the late ’90s.”