Some have eco-friendly attributes, like wood with low emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), such as formaldehyde, which is classified as a carcinogen by the World Health Organization.
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Historically low interest rates and a volatile stock market have helped draw buyers.
"A more challenging economic environment and cautious employment prospects" could mean prices start to stabilize, although demand should stay supported by low interest rates and as volatile financial markets push investors into property, Ms. Chia said.
One of the reasons the China real estate market is so hot is because wealthy Chinese are buying up property to hold onto real assets, rather than put money in low yielding bank bonds and volatile equities.
"It's especially attractive given low bank interest rates and the volatile stock market, " Mr. Kraft adds.
In these crazy times of volatile stock prices, low interest and changing economics, making financial decisions is not easy.
Individual investors continue to struggle with a volatile stock market, low bond yields and concern that both inflation and interest rates will be higher in the future.
Low natural gas prices, along with volatile commodity prices, helped keep domestic demand muted.
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While stock markets can be volatile, stakeholder pensions are designed to be low risk products.
But in a housing market this volatile, it can be hard to tell when low sales prices on property indicate a market that has bottomed or one with little hope of a turnaround any time soon.
Even in this volatile market, it is not wise to hold all cash or low-earning certificates of deposit.
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True, stocks will remain volatile, but a healthy income stream, especially in a historically low interest rate environment, can lead to more peaceful slumber.
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Their prices also seem to be so volatile, falling some months when dealers are overstocked and demand is low, and rising some months, especially when new models come out.
There was an all day program on their plans to develop open source programming tools and general standards to make use of the high speed, low latency and other special characteristics of current and future generations of non-volatile solid state storage.
Some savvy investors with the discipline of opting for the low-volatility stocks have achieved the unexpected: outperform both the market and their more volatile peers over at least a 10-year period.
The four-week average, a less volatile measure, plummeted 16, 000 to 342, 250, close to a five-year low.
Dundee has had a particularly volatile price, according to Lloyds TSB Scotland, though it said that might be explained by a very low number of transactions.
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The stock market is more volatile in China than it is in the U.S., and interest rates in China are low, around 3.5 percent for deposit rates.
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