US Housing Among Most Attractive Assets: Marc Faber

The housing market in the south of the United States is among the most attractive asset classes in the world, Marc Faber, the editor of the Gloom Boom & Doom Report, told CNBC on Friday, because while homebuilder stocks had rallied, property prices hadn't moved much.

"If you look at the supply of homes, new construction, and you 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.

Faber said plenty of investors were already making money by buying distressed homes, but he said the fragmented nature of the market didn't benefit large investors with billions of dollars of capital. Rather, he said it was more nimble investors who were doing well.
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