The Housing Bubble Blog

It's Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. "‘For Sale’ signs will soon be a thing of the past on homes in New Canaan, Connecticut. A six-month trial ban starts July 1, meaning those signs you see in front of houses will have to be taken down. 'The amount of them is giving buyers an idea that...

A report from The Olympian in Washington. "The law of supply and demand is pretty simple. A product in great supply with weak demand can yield low prices. But couple strong demand with low supply, and the reverse happens. In the case of housing during a time of scarcity, prices can hit...

A report from the Toronto Star in Canada. "The competition among homebuyers is increasing in the Toronto region even though year-over-year prices fell 6.6 per cent on average to $805,320 last month, from $862,149 in May 2017. The number of resale home transactions declined 22.2 per cent in the same...

A report from the San Mateo Journal in California. "Forty-six percent of Bay Area residents are planning to leave the region in the next few years, according to a survey from the Bay Area Council. The survey results show a 6 percent increase from last year in residents who want to relocate. In...

A report from The Real Deal on California. "Homeowners in Southern California are increasingly hanging out For Sale signs amid a continued shortage of residential units statewide. There were 30,215 residences on the market in the four-county SoCal region as of mid-May, an increase of 7,000 since...

A report from the News Gazette in Illinois. "A Rhode Island developer is building a seven-story, 538-bed luxury apartment building near Campustown that it hopes to open in the summer of 2019. Meanwhile, local developers with student housing projects nearby are worried the market is oversaturated,...

A weekend topic starting with Fast Company. "In competitive real estate markets like Seattle, prospective homeowners like Erik and Rafaela find saving for the recommended 20% down payment difficult. There are some established options, like Federal Housing Administration loans that push down payment...

It's Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. "Home values have been rising for six straight years, and the gains have been accelerating for the past two years. Like the last housing boom, some are starting to warn these price gains cannot continue. 'The continuing run-up in home prices above...

A report from the Courier Mail in Australia. "Approvals for foreign investment in Australia’s housing market have collapsed, amid waning investor appetite, higher charges and tighter lending standards. The Foreign Investment Review Board’s annual report reveals a 67 per cent fall in residential...

A report from National Real Estate Investor. "While apartment rents are still growing nationally, in a few cities and submarkets rents are growing more slowly or even beginning to shrink. The number of new apartments scheduled to open in the U.S. totals 274,700 units, up from 235,300 units added in...

A report from Mansion Global on New Mexico. "Santa Fe is now the 'hottest second-home market' in the world, according to 'Luxury Defined,' Christie’s annual analysis of global luxury residential housing dynamics, which was released earlier this month. 'New Mexico’s capital city of Santa Fe posted...

A holiday weekend topic starting with Business Insider. "Central bankers are like 'pyromaniac firefighters' creating crisis after crisis that they then try to solve, a hedge fund manager and economist has told Business Insider. Daniel Lacalle, a chief economist at Tressis SV and a fund manager at...

A weekend topic on various manias starting with Physicians News. "The Maryland Proton Treatment Center chose 'Survivor' as the theme for its grand opening in 2016. But behind the scenes, the $200 million center’s own survival was less than certain. Insurers were hesitating to cover procedures at...

A report from My Northwest in Washington. "Earlier this month, The Seattle Times reported that in 2017, nearly 90 percent of new housing in the city was built in 18 percent of land zoned for residential. The median price of a single-family home is now pushing $820,000. But there are steps being...

It's Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. "In his corner of American finance, where hard selling meets hard luck, Angelo Christian is a star. Each time Christian sells a home loan, the company he works for, American Financial Network Inc., takes as much as 5 percent. Many of Christian’s...

A report from the Toronto Star in Canada. "New construction home sales hit the lowest number for April in over 20 years, says the association that represents home builders. Newly built single-family home prices dropped 5 per cent year over year to $1.15 million, down from about $1.2 million in...

A report from WMUR in New Hampshire. "New Hampshire is in the midst of a record-breaking housing market. Real estate experts said sellers can often get above their asking prices, while buyers must battle in a bidding war. More than 17,000 homes were sold in the state last year, the most ever in one...

A report from the Richmond Times-Dispatch in Virginia. "The Richmond area has been in an apartment building boom in recent years and that continues, with more than two dozen apartment complexes near completion or under construction. In all, more than 3,000 apartment units are on tap to come onto...

A report from Builder Online. "The Realtors, in Washington this week for the annual 2018 REALTORS® Legislative Meetings & Trade Expo, got an earful Friday. The message was for home builders, and it was 'Build more.' The session focused on rapidly rising home prices, tight home inventories and...

A report from Global News in Canada. "If you’re thinking about selling your home in Saskatoon but don’t have to, you might want to hang tight. The number of home sales recorded across the country dropped by 2.9 per cent in the month of April to the lowest level seen in more than five years....