The worldwide appetite for buying property, whether in Paris, Los Angeles, or Bangkok, is feeding a price bubble that could burst, causing havoc in national economies and a financial meltdown for heavily indebted homeowners.
Real-estate purchases have flourished with the ample flow of money from lenders, due to historic low interest rates and a shying-away from investing in the stock markets.
The level of interest rates on mortgage loans has been a veritable windfall for both individual homebuyers and property investors. Not only can they borrow more since mortgage payments are lighter, banks have also extended the time period for paying back the loan.
Burned in the stock market downturn a few years ago, investors started to put their cash into properties, sometimes buying and re-selling housing that had not yet been built and pushing up property prices.
Also, for the past several months, rising oil prices have left the oil-producing countries flush with cash, a good part of which they are pouring into real estate.
Some countries know what it is like when a housing bubble pops. Japan's economy still shows scars from a housing crash in the early 1990s.
Other are trying to curb the enthusiasm for property investment. Britain has slowed down the home-buying frenzy of recent years with small rises in interest rates.
British house prices rose by just 5.7 percent last month from April, the lowest level in four years, according to a survey from British lender Halifax, well down from a peak of 22.1 percent in July last year.
Australia too has seen house prices become more stable.
Elsewhere, such as the US, the housing boom shows worrisome signs. In many European and Asian countries the bubble is threatening to explode.
Fallout from a crash in the property sector would be felt throughout the economy.
It would choke off economic growth fueled by household spending in the US and other countries that have relied on the housing boom.
If the value of houses and apartments takes a tumble while at the same time interest rates rise, homeowners would have a harder time paying back their loans.
In the red-hot US housing market, with home prices up 15.1 percent year-over-year in April, there is growing concern about new "creative financing," such as adjustable loans with a low initial interest rate and interest-only loans.
These riskier loans have caught the attention of the US Federal Reserve, which is worried about the implications of a sudden rise in interest rates or drop in prices that could put housing into a downward spiral.
Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies found that nearly one in three American households spends more than 30 percent of income on housing, and more than one in eight spend upwards of 50 percent.
Given the importance of the US to growth in global demand, a downturn in the American housing market would have ripple effects around the globe.
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