Cities with cheap houses

5 cities where houses are still cheap – MarketWatch, AnnaMaria Andriotis

Despite rising home prices in many markets, buyers can still find plenty of deals in foreclosures and other distressed properties.

Foreclosures and short sales, where homes sell for less than owners owe on their mortgage, accounted for 43% of residential sales last year, according to data released this week by RealtyTrac, a real-estate data firm. Short-sale purchases increased 4% from a year prior, while sales of homes in pre-foreclosure — that is, in some stage of foreclosure before a home is repossessed — increased 6%.

Fueling these increases are big discounts for the taking. In many markets — including Chicago; Daytona Beach, Fla.; and Santa Barbara, Calif. — buyers were able to purchase distressed properties during the fourth quarter of 2012 at an average discount of 30% to 50% off what they’d pay for a regular, nondistressed home, according to RealtyTrac. In many cases, these discounts are available in markets where real-estate prices as a whole appear to have bottomed out, experts say.

Cheap finds come at a time when many buyers are facing a tightening housing market. Real-estate listings have been dropping, pushing up prices of regular homes in many markets. As a result, listing prices of regular homes have been picking up.

In contrast, with distressed properties, buyers still can save hundreds of thousands of dollars. Working in their favor, in part, is that banks are more willing to unload homes as short sales than in previous years. Some banks are offering homeowners who are behind on mortgage payments cash in exchange for selling the home in a short sale. (Bank of America, for instance, has been offering as much as $30,000 to qualifying homeowners since last year.) That’s led to more short sales selling at a discount. And after years of a growing backlog of foreclosures, more of these listings are hitting the market, says Daren Blomquist, vice president with RealtyTrac, as courts process more of these cases. (Many states require court approval before a home can be repossessed by a bank.)

Experts warn that purchasing a distressed property is not typically an easy process. Buyers could end up waiting four months or longer to find out from a bank whether their offer on a short sale has been approved. And real-estate agents say bidding wars have intensified, with purchase prices of distressed homes often surpassing asking prices. In Charlotte, N.C., for instance, purchases of bank-owned properties (those that the banks have repossessed) increased 109% in the fourth quarter of 2012 from a year prior, according to RealtyTrac. Mike Hege, a real-estate agent with Pridemore Properties in Charlotte, says these homes often receive offers from 20 different buyers. Buyers should also consider the condition these properties are in and how much cash they’ll have to spend for repairs.

Even with such price pressures, buyers can find big discounts on distressed homes in several markets.

Here are five cities where homes are still cheap :

1. Santa Barbara

2. Phoenix

3. Las Vegas

4. Cleveland

5. Charlotte

China: Waiting for a Crisis

China waiting for a crisis : Andy Xie

Government must cut spending or wake up to a messy reckoning

BEIJING (Caixin Online) — Bank loans and money supply rose sharply in January. The timing of the Spring Festival may have distorted the data. Still, there are signs that many local governments with new leaders want to try an old trick, pushing fixed-asset investment (FAI) to create gross domestic product and fiscal revenue. This would turn bank loans into GDP and fiscal revenue.

Local governments are already heavily in debt. Pushing FAI would keep them liquid through new loans. It is essentially a pyramid scheme and can go on as long as the banks are willing and able to lend. But constraints have appeared.

Fiscal Deal doesn’t solve problem

Budget watchdogs extend campaign, say recent fiscal deal doesn't cut it – FoxNews

Budget watchdogs are warning that the hard-fought, highly touted fiscal deal doesn’t cut it – literally.

Sure, President Obama signed a last-minute deal crafted by the Senate and finally passed by the Republican-controlled House that avoided tax increases for most middle-class earners. But the agreement failed to cut the country’s estimated $16.4 trillion debt or resolve other major fiscal concerns, the watchdog groups argue.