Count Gloom, Boom & Doomer Marc Faber as one more in a rapidly expanding group of housing bulls, the long-time market analyst commenting in this CNBC story today that there is value in the southern states where property prices continue to fall.
“If you look at the supply of homes, new construction, and compare it to immigration into the United States, to the growth of the population, then these (southern) markets are very attractive from a longer term perspective,” Faber told Bernie Lo on CNBC’s Straight Talk.
Among the markets he pointed to were Atlanta, Phoenix and Miami. Faber said investors could earn a rental yield of 8 percent per year and buy homes in the south of the U.S. at a 40 to 50 percent discount to construction costs.
Faber said he went to see homes in Phoenix and Atlanta, and in some cases, U.S. homes were cheaper than those in Thailand, where he lives.
At the same time, the fact that people couldn’t get credit to buy homes in the U.S. was helping to boost the rental market, he added.
It is rather remarkable what is happening in a place like Atlanta. According to the latest Case-Shiller home price data, they’ve recently overtaken Cleveland and Phoenix while rapidly closing in on Las Vegas in what is, for some cities, an ongoing race to the bottom. Detroit remains the unquestioned leader in the group, however, extrapolating recent trends would see Atlanta claim that title by the end of the year.



Among the markets he pointed to were Atlanta, Phoenix and Miami. Faber said investors could earn a rental yield of 8 percent per year and buy homes in the south of the U.S. at a 40 to 50 percent discount to construction costs.
Bill notes there are two housing markets – new home construction and existing home sales – and, while the former has clearly made a bottom, the latter is likely to do so next month, though he qualifies that prediction with words like “I think that house prices are close to a bottom” and there being “a reasonable chance that the bottom is here”.


![[Most Recent USD from www.kitco.com]](http://www.weblinks247.com/indexes/idx24_usd_en_2.gif)

Recent Comments