Free Republic

Get in, get out, get the next deal. That's the code of the ''flipper." Flipping -- buying and quickly reselling houses -- has helped some investors make a killing in booming markets like Boston's western suburbs. But with concerns rising about a slowing housing market, has the world flipped on flippers? Some analysts and brokers think so. * * * Real estate investing by buyers who don't plan on living in their properties is arguably at historically unprecedented levels, Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan said last month in a speech to the American Bankers Association. This suggests that speculative activity...

The difference between America and Australia: In America everybody’s talking the possibility of a real estate bubble. In Australia, they’re living it. Real estate prices in Sydney, which rose by about 175 percent from 1994 to 2004, have fallen 10 percent since then and some expect the market to fall farther. "Sydney is undoubtedly the basket case of the national property market," says the Sydney Morning Herald. Investors are fleeing, says the Australian.  "Thousands of home owners are trapped with mortgages higher than the value of their properties as house prices fall,” the national daily reported earlier this month. The...