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...Tokyo Out of the Woods? Japanese officials reported some unusual news about the nation's economy: it's growing. Japan posted annualized second-quarter GDP growth of 3.7%, marking its first expansion in more than a year and indicating a possible end to its recession. Along with positive news from Europe, the results fueled hope that a global recovery may be near (though the U.S. continues to lag). They may also cushion the thumping expected for Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party in Aug. 30 elections...
Exceedingly smart move. Since the summer of 2005, house prices in Sacramento have plummeted by half. Choe and his family - which now includes a second son - watched from the sidelines until the end of last year. That's when the Choes moved back into a home of their own, a four-bedroom they plucked out of foreclosure at a 35% discount from what it had sold for two years earlier. (See pictures of Americans in their homes...
...homeowner (that mortgage-interest deduction) or it's always better to be a renter (no property taxes, and who wants to fix his own garbage disposal?). The more complicated truth is that at certain times it makes more sense to be one or the other. (See high-end homes that won't sell...
...since the end of 2005, the price-to-rent ratio has been falling, thanks to the home-price implosion. Across major U.S. cities, the ratio is back to 17.4, practically its historical average. (If you wrap in rural areas, the figure is smaller and the trend less pronounced but still there.) "A year ago, it was a better deal to rent," says Andres Carbacho-Burgos, an economist at Economy.com "Now you have a significant number of areas, especially those hit the hardest by the correction, where, when you compare prices to rents, you'd be led to believe...
Then there's the other end of the spectrum: the cities where houses for sale look inexpensive compared with rentals. The top 10 metro areas on that list are Cleveland, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Cincinnati and, in California, Oakland, Riverside, Sacramento, San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Jose. An important caveat: those cities' 15-year price-to-rent ratios include the bubble years. Does Las Vegas appear cheap? Sure. The current ratio there is 14.6, significantly below where it's been over the past 15 years (19.3). But that average has been influenced by the go-go years. Exclude them...