Real Estate
Residential REITs Are Profiting From Falling Home Values
Lookout… US home values are double dipping. According to data just released by property value estimator Zillow.com, home values are falling at their fastest pace since 2008. And prices may not hit rock bottom until 2012… at the earliest. Zillow’s Home Value Index fell 3% in the first quarter. And it’s even worse when you […]
Farmland Prices Surged 22%… Should You Buy?
I’ve never seen anything quite like this… The price for an acre of farmland has gone ballistic. The ultra safe asset shot up 22% last year! When I first read the news I thought, “This is great!” You see, my family has owned irrigated cropland in central Nebraska for more than a century. (And I’ve […]
Contrarian Investors Should Buy Real Estate
Investing is full of clichés and truisms… One of my favorites comes from an 18th century British nobleman, Barron Rothschild. I guess it speaks to the contrarian investor in me… “Buy when there’s blood in the streets, even if the blood is your own.” In other words, the most profitable investments are often made when […]
Investing In Farmland: Is Farmland In An Asset Bubble?
Since 2000, U.S. farmland values are up 58% on an inflation adjusted basis… The surging farmland values caught the attention of FDIC chair Sheila Bair. She said farmland could be the next asset bubble at risk of bursting. Her revelation isn’t surprising given the impressive gains and the recent history in the residential and commercial […]
Apartment REITs – Making Money With REITs
Every day the news carries sad stories of homeowners and their foreclosure woes. More and more hardworking homeowners are either being thrown out by greedy bankers… or walking away from their biggest investment all together. Any way you look at it, the housing market’s a mess. And it’s creating a massive shift in homeownership demographics. […]
Retail REITs Are In For More Tough Times Ahead
“I just want to pay for my daughter’s dental insurance…” Scott, a commercial real estate agent, said this to me just the other night. I had met Scott no more than a half hour earlier as I was mingling at a friend’s birthday party. The gathering of 20 or so people was in a suite […]
Don’t Settle For Gold When You Can Buy Dirt
Now, more than ever, you need Agriculture. Ag will always be near and dear to my heart. The cornfields of Nebraska are a part of me. It’s where I spent the first eighteen years of my life. It was during those years on the farm I developed my love of financial markets. And I’ve been […]
A Follow-up On Housing…
In early February, I reported on two big movers in the homebuilding industry… DR Horton (DHI) and Beazer (BZH). Both companies were announcing huge blockbuster earnings. The earnings were all fake. They were created by accounting and tax gimmicks. Anyone looking closely at the numbers could see it clearly. Regardless, both companies reported huge earnings […]
Buffett Turns Bullish On Homebuilders
The saying goes… Great minds think alike. So I’m feeling pretty “great” after reading Warren Buffett’s latest letter to Berkshire shareholders. You see, Mr. Buffett made the same comment about the housing market that I said to Sector ETF Trader subscribers back in October. I don’t think anyone would disagree his mind is great, so […]
Should You Strategically Default?
Yesterday, RealtyTrac released their January 2010 Foreclosure Market Report. The report provides a look at foreclosure activity for the month. I’m shocked by what I read. A whopping 315,716 US properties had some sort of foreclosure filing in January. That’s one in every 409 US households. And it’s the 11th consecutive month 300,000 or more […]
