Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – Home prices in November continued their fall from the bubble-high prices of 2006, dropping by 1.3 percent compared to October, according to the latest S&P/Case-Shiller 20-city report.

Sales prices fell for the second consecutive month in 19 of the 20 cities the index covers.

Analysts had not expected such a steep decline because mortgage interest rates remain low and the nation’s gross domestic product grew during the fourth quarter of the year.

Prices are down 3.7 percent from a year ago, and off 32.8 percent since their bubble-high peak in the summer of 2006.

“The trend is down and there are few, if any, signs in the numbers that a turning point is close at hand,” says David M. Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at S&P Indices.

Despite the low mortgage rates and growth in the GDP, other conditions are contributing to tumbling home prices.

When house prices rose to bubble highs, 89 percent or more of all working-age Americans had a job. Now, only 64 percent of Americans of working age are employed, including about 8 million who are working part-time because they can’t find a full-time job, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Moreover, half of all Americans earn $33,000 or less per year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

That means there are fewer qualified buyers in the market. In part, that is because the average price of homes in many areas still exceeds three times the annual income of most Americans. Those conditions further reduce the number of buyers, which continues to exert downward pressure on home prices.

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United Arab Emirates David Rosenberg (The Medi – Calling the United Arab Emirates (UAE) the world’s “least friendly” place for expatriates-well, those are fighting words. Certainly, they are in a place where non-citizens make up close to 90 percent of the population and are responsible for everything from running the national airline to cleaning up at construction sites.

But a fight is what Forbes magazine and one of its contributing writers, Beth Greenfield, got when they ran a piece putting the Gulf confederation of seven mini-states at the bottom of a list using criteria that hone in on social factors – the ability to befriend natives, fitting into local culture, learning the language and integrating into the community.

The article sparked a furious reaction, a dedicated Twitter hashtag #UAEFriendly and finally, according to local media spin, Forbes “took back” its words and conceded that Greenfield’s list was “non-scientific.” The American magazine also helped smooth ruffled feathers in a posting by Dan Bigman, its managing editor for business news, who called the UAE an “expat paradise.”

Giving advice to the businesspeople, diplomats and others living abroad is a big and important business. What with varying costs of living, standards of schools and housing, and the risk that today’s sleepy posting erupts into revolutionary cauldron, employees and employers alike need a way to compare and decide how much hardship pay one location deserves over another.

One of those measures is published by the expatriate financial-services unit of the British-based bank HSBC, and that was the starting-off point for the controversy.

The Expat Explorer Survey for 2011 survey ranks 31 countries for expat conditions based on a survey of 3,385 people in 100 countries taken last May-July (only 31 countries had enough respondents to make the sampling valid, HSBC says).

Weighing all the criteria HSBC uses – a long list of factors ranging from “nicer/bigger property” to children “spending less time playing video games” – the UAE ranked a respectable third. Last November, Mercer, a British firm that advises companies on compensation for their employees living abroad, ranked Dubai 74 and Abu Dhabi 78.

But Greenfield, citing the views of expat “coach” Heather Markel, isolated four factors from the HSBC survey she said make a place “friendly” for foreigners living and working there.

Suddenly, the UAE plummeted to the bottom of the list, along with much of the rest of the Gulf and India. Greenfield did not dwell much on the UAE’s misfortune: She made only two references to it and one of them refers to its attractions for expats as a place where people enjoy high incomes and good career prospects. Nevertheless, it didn’t take long to elicit a spirited defense of the UAE.

“Dear Forbes, Did you ever visited UAE?” asked AhmadTheFrozen. “We don’t realize how realize how friendly UAE is until we visit Europe,” commented Talib Al Hashimi. “I’ve developed a fantastic social circle and career in UAE. Who did Forbes survey? Not me!” said Brendan Ryan.

Tamim Al Kuttab asked: “If the UAE is unfriendly to expats — as Forbes says — then why are they staging their Global CEO Conference in Dubai in October?” (Good question: The Forbes Foundation, which publishes the magazine, is holding its 12th annual Global CEO Conference in the UAE’s Dubai next October.)

Annabel Kantaria. a journalist based in Dubai, wrote in a blog post for Britain’s Telegraph newspaper that if foreigners find the Emirates an unfriendly place, they have only themselves to blame.

“Is it the fault of the host country if the expats don’t have success learning the local language? Is it the fault of the host country if the expats fail to integrate themselves into the community, don’t manage to befriend locals or don’t find it easy to fit in?” she wrote. “Does that make the host country ‘unfriendly’? Or does it make the expat ‘inadaptable’? On whom does the onus lie?”

Greenfield herself did not respond at length to the complaints on the Forbes website, but a spokesman for the magazine speaking to The National downplayed the affair. “Given the UAE’s reputation as a crossroads for world commerce and culture, we were surprised by the results of HSBC’s survey,” an unnamed spokesman said in the local English-language daily. “The data is [sic], of course, non-scientific and intended only to spur discussion.”

Bigman, without making any apology, called the UAE – as well as Singapore and Hong Kong, two other tiny expat-heavy places – an “expat paradise,” friendlier to resident foreigners than his home country of America.

In fact, Khalid Al-Ameri, an Emirati, pointed out in an op-ed in The National the natives may not seem friendly because it is so hard to find one among the masses of foreigners.

Of the 8.26 million people living in the UAE in 2012, 7.31 million of them are expats, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. When the economy was booming before 2008, the expat population was even bigger, but even today, just one in 12 people are Emiratis and in expat-rich places like Dubai the ratio is even bigger.

“Because of the skewed demographics (about 10 percent of the population is Emirati), getting to know the ‘locals’ can be a tough task for any new expatriate. And in any country within a matter of days, an expatriate will find his or her countrymen, the familiar cuisine and hangout spot,” he wrote. “It is very easy for an expatriate to quickly fall into a comfort zone and go quite a while without actually interacting with an Emirati on a personal level.”

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New York, NY, United States (AHN) – If it sounds like you have heard this before you are right. Mortgage rates have fallen once again to a record low.

On Thursday, mortgage giant Freddie Mac reported the average rate on 30-year fixed mortgages fell to 3.89 percent in the current week. That is below the previous record low set three weeks ago of 3.91 percent.

The average on 15-year fixed mortgages inched down to an average 3.16 percent from a record low of 3.21 percent, also set three weeks ago.

Average fixed mortgage rates remained around 4 percent for most of 2011, but the record low rates did little to help the ailing housing market. Banks have been extremely tight with credit, few qualify for the record low rates and other don’t have the money to refinance.

And while foreclosure filings fell in 2011, the declines were attributed to procedural delays.

On a bright note, most experts agree that the worst of the housing market crisis is over.

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New York, NY, United States (AHN) – Last year was turbulent, trying and tumultuous for global stocks and commodities, And for many investors and traders, 2011 couldn’t end soon enough.

In the final trading day of 2011, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 69 points, but managed to eck out a 5.5 percent gain for the year.

The closely tracked Standard & Poor’s 500 Index closed virtually flat, ending 2011 down 0.43 percent, while the tech heavy NASDAQ said good-bye to 2011 off 1.80 percent.

Commodities fared much better. Oil gained 8.15 percent in 2011, and gold was the sole double digit finisher bidding the year adieu with a stellar 10.23 percent gain.

The top three performers in the Dow were McDonalds, IBM and Pfizer. Laggards included Bank of American, Alcoa and Hewlett-Packard.

Leading gainers in the S&P were Cabot Oil & Gas, El Paso and Intuitive Surgical. Drags on the index were First Solar, Monster Worldwide, and Alpha Natural Resources.

Intuitive Surgical led the NASDAQ-100, followed by Alexion Pharmaceutics and Hansen Natural. The biggest loser in the index was Blackberry maker Research in Motion with First Solar and Netflix close behind.

Natural gas finished out the year at 2.989 per mil BTUs, its lowest level since 2009.

Gold, which closed 2011 up 10.23 percent, took a beating in December, falling as much as 10.5 percent in the final month of the year. The yellow metal peaked in August with a 33 percent rise.

While high unemployment, a nationwide ailing housing market and government gridlocks all weighed heavily on U.S. stocks, the European sovereign debt crisis was the biggest factor in equities gains and losses during 2011.

Markets were closed Jan. 2 in observance of New Year’s. Exchanges will start 2012 on Jan. 3 with normal trading hours, but volume and volatility is expected to be anything but normal.

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New York, NY, United States (AHN) – New home sales jumped in November from October. But, 2011 is still on track to end the year as the worst year for home sales in history.

On Friday, the Commerce Department said new home sales rose 1.6 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 315,000. The scant rise is less than half the 700,000 new homes that economists say should be sold to sustain a healthy housing market.

The number is also below the 323,000 homes sold in 2010, the worst year for sales on records dating back to 1963.

While new home sales account for just a fraction of the housing market, they do have a big impact on the economy. According to the National Association of Home Builders, each new home built creates about three jobs for a year, and generates roughly $90,000 in taxes.

Despite historic low mortgage rates, the housing markets remains depressed and is a long way from fully recovering.

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Jerusalem, Israel David Rosenberg (The Medi – Home prices – an anxious subject for both Israeli consumers and policy makers as they first raced higher and then suddenly started to sink – remain a threat to the economy, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) warned on Monday.

Although the price rises have eased as the government has clamped down on mortgage lending, Israel is by no means out of the hole yet, the Paris-based organization said in a report. Israel faces a twin risk of prices spiraling upward to bubble levels, if current measures don’t bring about long-term stability, or conversely dropping sharply.

“There is still a risk that a soft landing may not be achieved and house prices (and loan repayments) in relation to rents and incomes may reach ‘bubble’ proportions, heightening the risk of a sharp and damaging correction,” the OECD said. “On the other hand, the early stages of weakness may presage an imminent sharper-than-desired decline in prices.”

The warning has special meaning for Israel, which unlike the U.S. and much of Europe, succeeded in avoiding the catastrophic collapse of its housing market and the financial crisis that followed. But ironically the country’s record of almost uninterrupted economic growth, combined with low borrowing rates, caused home prices to start climbing in Israel just as much of the developed world was seeing prices fall at double-digit rates.

The increase caused the Bank of Israel to undertake a series of measures to reduce demand for mortgages at the same time it was raising interest rates through much of 2010 and 2011.

“There’s a lot of concern that there will be crash. Prices are heading down – the only question is how fast and how far,” Pinchas Landau, an independent financial consultant, told The Media Line.

“For first time in 15 years, there’s more supply than demand. There isn’t massive building. You have a multi-year backlog, but it’s not American situation,” he said. “There could be widespread pain, but if prices come down 20 percent I don’t think that’s a crash. You have to look at how much they went up before.”

Home prices in the 12 months through September climbed 10.5 percent and the central bank has reversed course and lowered its base lending rate in the past two months, a move that could encourage more home loans. Nevertheless, there are signs that they may have reached a plateau.

The rise over the past 12 months is far less steep than the 20 percent recorded in 2010 and August-September prices dropped for the first time since 2008, according to Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS).

Meanwhile, residential construction is increasing while sales of new homes are falling. The number of building starts in the 12 months through August reached 43,672 units, compared with annual rates of less than 35,000 up through 2009. But only 1,057 new homes were sold in October 2011, down by more than 50 percent from a year ago, the CBS reported at the end of November.

A survey of senior real estate executives in Israel conducted by the accounting firm Deloitte Brightman Almagor Zohar in November found that 46 percent expected home prices to decline as much as 10 percent in the coming 12 months and another 9 percent saw drops of 10-20 percent. Fifteen percent, however, foresee rises of up to 10 percent.

The OECD said that warning indicators, such as the ratio of home prices to rents had not reached “critical levels” and lauded the measures taken by Israel to restrain the rises. But it did recommend that the government, which controls the lion’s share of land in the country through its Israel Lands Authority, speed up the sale of leaseholds, reduce delays in planning approvals and work to develop a market in mortgage-backed securities “with a good deal of caution.”

It said tax exemptions for homeowners and property investors should be pared back and housing policy geared more toward encouraging more rental housing and helping low-income families.

In spite of growing signs of recession in Europe, which is Israel’s biggest trade partner, Israeli gross domestic product will likely post another year of growth in 2012, the OECD said. Real GDP growth will shift down to 2.9 percent in 2012 from 4.7 percent this year, but accelerate to 3.9 percent in 2013.

“This is substantially better than in many OECD countries, but Israel benefits from relatively rapid population growth,” OECD economist Peter Jarrett said Sunday while visiting Israel for the Globes Business Conference in Tel Aviv. “Europe is leading the world into another period of very slow growth, if not outright recession.”

The report addressed two other issues that have dominated economic policy in the past year amid a gathering storm of social protests over the high cost of living and growing income inequality. The protests began quietly against hikes in gasoline prices, morphed into a nationwide boycott of cottage cheese and erupted over the summer into tent cities and mass rallies that drew hundreds of thousands demanding a wide range of economic reforms.

The government responded by appointing a committee to examine socio-economic policy and has since adopted some of the recommendations of the so-called Trajtenberg panel.

The OECD said that Israel’s “deep socio-economic cleavages,” expressed in high rates of poverty and income inequality, is weighing down on the economy by lowering growth rates for productivity and per capita income. Although the problem is concentrated in Israel’s ultra-Orthodox and Arab populations – which account for 60 percent of poor households, double their proportion of the population – they are not the only Israelis trapped in poverty.

The report noted some progress in overhauling education, where Israeli students have performed poorly in international comparisons of achievement in science, math and reading. But the OECD faulted efforts to encourage people to join the workforce, pointing to the abandonment of the Wisconsin program, which had put the responsibility job placement in the hands of private sector firms.

The OECD was also supportive of efforts to increase business competition and restrict the size and power of holding companies. It backed plans to separate financial institutions, such as banks and insurers, from other businesses, while faulting the government for the slow progress toward creating competition in electricity generation.

The OECD said the scope for increasing competition in other industries is limited due to the small size of the Israeli economy.

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Washington, DC, United States (AHN) – Some struggling homeowners who are in foreclosure proceedings are getting a gift from an unlikely source: no eviction over the holidays.

Fannie Mae (FNMA, Fortune 500), Freddie Mac (FMCC, Fortune 500) say they will not evict anyone from Dec. 19 through Jan. 2. Joining in the moratorium are Chase (JPM, Fortune 500) Mortgage and Wells Fargo (WFC, Fortune 500), which will suspend evictions from Dec. 22 to Jan. 2.

Wells Fargo says that while it will suspend evictions on properties for which it wrote mortgages, it might not do so on mortgages from other banks that it services.

Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500) did not give specific dates but said that it would avoid foreclosure sales, as well as evictions of homeowners or tenants, around the holidays of Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Terry Edwards, executive vice president of credit portfolio management for Fannie Mae, explained the rational for the moratorium in a statement.

“The holidays are meant for families to spend time together, especially if they’ve gone through the stress of financial challenges and foreclosure,” said Edwards. “No family should have to give up their home during this holiday season. Fannie Mae is committed to helping borrowers avoid foreclosure whenever possible and we encourage any homeowner who is having difficulty making their payment to reach out for help.”

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Port Harcourt, Nigeria (IRIN) – Over 200,000 people living in shantytowns on the waterfront in Port Harcourt, capital of Rivers State, southern Nigeria, could be forcibly evicted if local authorities carry out their threat to demolish the settlements, say human rights group Amnesty International and local activists.

“I will demolish [the] waterfronts. All of them,” Rivers State Governor Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi told reporters on 27 October. Residents are considered “temporary occupants” and government is only legally required to give seven days’ notice to vacate, he said, adding demolitions are needed to reduce crime in the area and make way for new developments.

In a report in October 2011 Amnesty said if people are forcibly evicted without adequate consultation, sufficient notice, compensation or alternative accommodation, many will be left homeless and risk losing their livelihoods.

Despite Amaechi’s statements, Rivers State’s Commissioner for Urban Development, Tammy Danagogo, said notice will be given and consultations will take place before people are asked to move.

Residents are unconvinced. “There is no proper information – we don’t have any idea of when they will demolish,” said Fubara Samuel, a waterfront resident and housing rights activist.

Njemanze, a waterfront community of 17,000 near Abonnema Wharf, was demolished in August 2009, but only some residents received few days’ notice. “Njemanze showed they can [demolish] without warning. You know it will happen, but you don’t know when, and it’s the same for people at Abonnema Wharf. How do you prepare for that if you don’t know where to go?” said Aster Van Kregten, a researcher at Amnesty International.

Danagogo told IRIN that low-cost housing will be made available to those who need it. But Amnesty International reported that when Njemanze was demolished no alternative accommodation was offered and many children were left homeless, some of whom still live under a flyover.

In many cases, families broke up as parents returned to villages while the youths stayed in Port Harcourt, Kregten said. “Young girls who used to live with their families in Njemanze are now earning a living in prostitution.”

Activists also doubt promises that the area will be developed – after two years the land where Njemanze used to be is still vacant. “People used to live there, now it is a rubbish dump,” Samuel said.

“Nobody is against development, but we need to know what they will use [the land] for,” said Marcos Irinmaka, waterfront resident and president of Concerned Citizens, a local NGO formed to fight forced evictions.

Planning for eviction

Danagogo said the Abonnema Wharf settlement will be demolished in early 2012. On 11 November, a Nigerian NGO, Social and Economic Rights Action Centre, obtained an interim injunction against the Rivers State government, halting the proposed demolition. Five days later, Danagogo told IRIN he was “not aware” of any injunction.

Regardless of whether the demolition of Abonnema Wharf goes ahead, waterfront communities live with the uncertainty of not knowing when their turn will come. “Old men and women say they live in fear. They ask me, ‘How can we sleep?’” said Samuel.

Mistrust of the government has been exacerbated by security forces shooting at people protesting demolition of the Bundu waterfront on 12 October 2009. Amnesty International reported that 12 people were shot and at least two were killed, but so far no official investigation has taken place. Further demolitions were then halted, but if they go ahead, “people will protest again – it is certain,” Samuel said.

Remuneration not the solution

Home owners will be compensated for their houses, Danagogo said, but Samuel said tenants will be left struggling as the waterfronts offer the cheapest housing in Port Harcourt. Kregten noted that some home owners in Njemanze had been paid compensation, but others are yet to receive anything.

Even with the promise of compensation, many owners are still reluctant to leave, partly because they are Ijaws – indigenous people who traditionally rely on the water for their livelihoods, such as fishing, ferrying and collecting mangrove timber. “We all say we are not selling – our houses are not for sale,” said Gift Jim-George, who built her house herself on reclaimed land in Abonnema Wharf.

“Moving houses, even if the government provides alternative accommodation, will not solve the problem, because in a new place we will find it hard to sustain our lives – we are not farmers. Residents of this waterfront will still come back, because our livelihoods depend on it,” said Jim Tom-George of the Abonnema Wharf Home Owners Association.

“We are like fish in a river,” said waterfront resident David Mark. “[But] they want to send us to the forest where we cannot survive.”

wb/aj/he

– Provided by Integrated Regional Information Networks.

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New York, NY, United States (AHN) – For just the second time in history, the average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage fell below 4 percent in the latest week.

After falling to an average 3.94 percent on a 30-year fixed mortgage in the week ending Oct. 6, rates had picked up over the past months.

However, amid signs that the economy is still in a slow recovery mode, the average rate fell to an average 3.99 percent in the week ending Nov. 10., down from 4 percent in the previous week, and 4.17 percent a year ago, according to mortgage giant Freddie Mac.

Rates on 15-year fixed mortgages also dropped slightly, averaging 3.3 percent, down from last week’s 3.31 percent average and 3.57 percent a year ago.

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Washington, DC, United States (ProPublica) – by Braden Goyette

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office recently released a much-discussed study showing that over the past three decades the income of the highest-paid Americans has soared while the income of others has grown much more modestly. Here’s a rundown of some statistics illustrating the growing income gap.

But first, some context. These numbers reflect income, not wealth. So a retiree who owns two houses and three cars may be far better off than someone with a higher annual income, two kids in college and a mortgage. It’s worth noting that income includes investment income and capital gains.

Also, although a 2010 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development study suggests that there is less income mobility in the United States than in many other developed countries, someone in the richest 1 percent this year may have been in an entirely different category 30 years ago. Take Bill Gates. In’79, Gates was 24, and Microsoft hadn’t even incorporated. He was likely in the bottom tier of earners. More recently, of course, he has easily been in the top 1 percent. According to a 2007 Treasury Department study , “roughly half of taxpayers who began in the bottom income quintile in’96 moved up to a higher income group by 2005.”

Third, though income growth has been unequally distributed, real income for all groups has grown over the past three decades.

In spite of those caveats, the gap between richest and poorest is far greater than it used to be. All income numbers have been adjusted for inflation, and all household income data are adjusted for differences in household size . Please note that different subsections take different years as a baseline.

Overall income growth for the country as a whole

– Provided by ProPublica.org

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