Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Housing market heats up -- and it's just getting started

Economy

2 hours ago

A sold sign is posted in front of a home for sale on July 2, 2013 in San Anselmo, California.

Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

A sold sign is posted in front of a home for sale on July 2, 2013 in San Anselmo, Calif. California's housing market is heating up, as are markets in Las Vegas and Phoenix, a survey showed Tuesday.

If you tried to buy a home in Phoenix a year ago, you probably would have been able to land it for well under the asking price.

Those days are gone. In a city that was hit hard after the housing bubble burst in 2007, you?re more likely to encounter a bidding war for that split-level ranch on the cul-de-sac you had your eye on.

Prices have leapt 20 percent in the last year in Phoenix. Real estate agent Tucker Blaylock says they will keep rising as long as interest rates remain near historic lows, thanks to the Federal Reserve.

?You can borrow money so cheap it?s really pushing prices up,? he said. ?A year or two ago, a buyer could bid 20- or 30-thousand under the list price and have a shot at getting it. Now sellers want list, or in some cases they get multiple offers and it?ll go above list price.?

It's not just Phoenix. The list of the hottest markets reads like the housing boom of the mid-2000s. In the past 12 months home prices are up 19 percent in Las Vegas. California hot spots include San Francisco (up 25 percent), San Diego (up 17 percent) and Los Angeles (up 19 percent.)

Nationwide, that momentum is dragging potential buyers off the fence, which is in turn feeding the higher prices, the experts say. Despite rising mortgage rates, demand for homes is surging with little sign of the bubble bursting anytime soon.

The latest monthly data from the widely followed Case-Shiller index showed home prices in May jumped 12.2 percent in the past year -- the biggest yearly jump since March 2006 -- supporting economists' views that the housing sector is one of the brightest spots for the economy.

In a handful of metro areas, housing is looking downright ?bubbly,? according to Robert Shiller, co-founder of the index. ?The cities that bubbled in the past are bubbling again,? he told CNBC. ?To me, it?s seems partly psychological. They?ve seen it before and they?re ready for it again.?

But unlike the historic mid-2000s bubble, there are signs the latest price surge is more sustainable. One is that the mix of buyers is shifting from bottom-feeding investors to homeowners who plan to stay awhile. In Phoenix, ?hot money? investors are cooling to new purchases even as prices keep rising, said Blaylock.

?It scares the guys who have been flipping stuff in the 100-to 200-thousand-dollar range that now they?ll have to pay 350,? he said.

(Read more: Home prices make biggest yearly jump since 2006)

And unlike the last bubble, mortgage lenders are much choosier when reviewing loan applications than the days when just about anyone with a pulse was approved.

Prices are also rising because the supply of homes for sale is getting tighter. Banks have shed much of their backlog of foreclosed properties. A four-year drought in home building, which is now beginning to ease, cut deeply into the supply of new homes.

One negative is that increasing mortgage rates could throw cold water on some of the hot markets. The average fixed rate on a 30-year mortgage hit 4.31 percent last week, up nearly a full percentage point since January, according to Freddie Mac.

?Once you put a five in front of it, it?s a different ballgame,? said Blaylock. ?People have been so trained to this 3-5 (percent) range that five seems high.?

But so far, the home sales data indicate that home buyers are taking the relatively higher rates in stride, especially investors with a short-term horizon. New home sales rose 8.3 percent in July, as builders reported continued strong increases in foot traffic. That put the pace of June sales nearly 40 percent above the same month last year.

?Higher mortgage rates don?t appear to be denting new home sales,? said Paul Diggle, a housing economist with Capital Economics.

That may be in part because, despite the recent jump in prices and mortgage rates, homes are still more affordable than they?ve been in decades, based on an index calculated by the National Association of Realtors. The index, which combines the impact of changes in home prices, mortgage rates and household incomes, has fallen sharply this year but still stands well above levels that typically have dampened home sales in the past.

While housing remain affordable by historical standards, the current recovery has left a large segment of U.S. households behind, including the more than 7 million whose homes were seized in the wave of foreclosures that followed the frenzy of reckless mortgage lending in the middle of the last decade.

The home ownership rate, which surged to 69.2 percent in 2004, has fallen back to 65 percent as of the second quarter, according to the latest Census data released Tuesday. The rate, now back to levels last seen in 1995, is expected to continue falling as more families move through a large backlog of pending foreclosures.

Many of those families are expected to remain renters, which has driven strong demand for new multi-family housing and strong rent increases in many markets.

To be sure, a continued rise in mortgage rates will eventually slow the climb in home sales and prices. But in the short term, the strong home price momentum is feeding on itself as buyers sitting on the sidelines fear paying higher prices by waiting.

?At least for the short term (prices) will probably continue to go up,? said Shiller. ?For a flipper now who can get out in a year, it seems to me like a fairly safe bet.?

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Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Does Buzz Not Matter In The Summer Of 2013?

Channing Tatum and Jamie Foxx watched their dreams of a summer box office hit burn slowly to the ground, much like the Capitol Building the trailer for the movie they hoped would get them there, "White House Down." The $150 million buddy action movie came from blockbuster maker, director Roland Emmerich, and a script that [...]

Source: http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2013/07/01/white-house-down-the-heat-buzz/

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Jury convicts former doctor in Vegas hep C case

LAS VEGAS (AP) ? A prominent former Las Vegas doctor and endoscopy clinic owner was convicted Monday of all 27 criminal charges against him ? including second-degree murder ? in a 2007 hepatitis C outbreak that officials called one of the largest ever in the U.S.

A former employee at Dipak Desai's Endoscopy Clinic of Southern Nevada, nurse-anesthetist Ronald Lakeman, was found guilty of 16 of 27 charges against him but was spared a murder conviction stemming from the death of 77-year-old Rodolfo Meana in April 2012.

Defense attorneys for both men said they'll appeal.

Desai, a former Nevada state medical board member, surrendered his medical license, declared bankruptcy and turned over his business affairs to family members and lawyers in recent years. He stared straight ahead as the jury's verdicts were read.

His lawyers maintained that he was unfit for trial because of the effects of several strokes in recent years.

Desai's wife, Kusam, sobbed quietly and one of their adult daughters cried out as Desai and Lakeman were handcuffed and led from the courtroom to jail to await sentencing Sept. 5.

"We love you, Daddy," she said to Desai. "God is with you. Always with you."

Desai didn't appear to respond.

Desai, 63, and Lakeman, 66, face the possibility of life in prison for their multiple felony convictions.

Jurors heard more than 70 witnesses during seven weeks of testimony about a case that shocked the community when the outbreak became public in February 2008. Health officials issued advisories that led 63,000 clinic patients to get tested for potentially fatal blood-borne diseases, including hepatitis and HIV.

Investigators blamed unsafe injection practices and traced the infections of nine people to Desai clinics, although local and federal health investigators said they thought the hepatitis C infections of another 105 patients might have been related to similar practices. In those cases, however, they said they couldn't rule out other sources of infection.

The charges in Clark County District Court resulted from the infection of seven patients and bills paid by their insurers.

Prosecutors alleged that Desai and Lakeman recklessly and negligently put patients at risk with the reuse of syringes and vials of the general anesthetic propofol during procedures at a clinic where speed was emphasized over patient safety.

Health investigators testified that they believed vials became contaminated with hepatitis C virus from two different "source" patients on two dates in 2007, and that tainted anesthetic was injected into subsequent patients on those dates.

In addition to the murder charge, Desai was found guilty of seven counts of criminal neglect of patients resulting in substantial bodily harm, seven counts of reckless disregard of persons resulting in substantial bodily harm, nine counts of insurance fraud, two counts of obtaining money under false pretenses and one felony theft charge.

Lakeman was found guilty of 16 charges including insurance fraud, criminal neglect, reckless disregard, obtaining money under false pretenses and theft. He was acquitted of 11 counts.

"I'm elated that he didn't get convicted on the murder charge," Lakeman's lawyer, Frederick Santacroce, said outside court. "I'm disappointed that he was convicted of the other charges."

Desai attorneys Richard Wright and Margaret Stanish, and prosecutors Michael Staudaher and Pamela Weckerly, declined immediate comment.

The jury of seven women and five men deliberated Friday and most of the day Monday before reaching their verdict.

Another former Desai clinic nurse anesthetist, Keith Mathahs, 77, pleaded guilty in December to five felonies, including criminal neglect of patients resulting in death, insurance fraud and racketeering. He testified against Desai and Lakeman and could get probation or up to six years in state prison when he is sentenced.

The state criminal case is separate from a case pending against Desai and a former clinic business manager, Tonya Rushing, in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas.

Desai and Rushing have pleaded not guilty to conspiracy and health care fraud charges alleging they schemed to inflate anesthesia times and overbill health insurance companies. Trial is scheduled to begin Aug. 20.

The hepatitis outbreak also spawned dozens of civil lawsuits, including several that yielded jury findings holding drug manufacturers and the state's largest health management organization liable for hundreds of millions of dollars in damages to plaintiffs.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/jury-convicts-former-doctor-vegas-hep-c-case-012844322.html

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