The Housing Bubble Blog

It's Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. "Rex and Sarah Fritchey drove from Lehigh Acres to North Naples to take advantage of a free workshop. The Fritcheys, both 71, hope to modify their mortgage and save their home. The couple, who retired in 1986 from their landscaping business of 23...

Post off-topic ideas, links and Craigslist finds here. Please visit the HBB Forum.

Post off-topic ideas, links and Craigslist finds here. Please visit the HBB Forum.

The look at the media and the housing bubble in northern California. The good: Santa Cruz Sentinel, May 2005: "The median price for single-family homes in April was $715,000; March’s median was $723,129. The average price of a single-family home last month was $803,238, the second time it’s been...

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This year I shared Thanksgiving with a far-from-home group of twenty-something actor/filmmakers. All of them recent graduates of some of this country’s most elite universities, they were expected to go into medicine, or business, or cutting edge research. But when the going gets tough, creative...

Post off-topic ideas, links and Craigslist finds here. Please visit the HBB Forum.

Post off-topic ideas, links and Craigslist finds here. Please visit the HBB Forum.

The LA Times reports from California. "Southern Californians facing the loss of their homes are finding refuge in rentals. At larger apartment complexes, monthly rents have declined an average of 4.9% in the last year. Joyce Ann Cato is out of work and about to lose her San Bernardino home to...

Post off-topic ideas, links and Craigslist finds here. Please visit the HBB Forum.

Post off-topic ideas, links and Craigslist finds here. Please visit the HBB Forum.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports from Australia. "Worried that $500,000 is too much to pay for a Melbourne house? The Reserve Bank isn't worried and it expects prices to climb higher still. In a speech that amounted to a defence of Australia's historically high house prices, Reserve Bank deputy...

Okay, for those of you who’ve asked, here’s an excerpt from “A Roadkill Christmas,” my account of how I made do on a meager holiday budget a couple of years back. For those with a lively sense of culinary adventure, nothing beats the fun of “found” protein sources. And for those with perhaps...

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A review of the media and the housing bubble continues with southern California. The good: Voice of San Diego, April 2005: "The developers have learned a new trick after the last local real estate price bubble popped in 1989. It's called controlling the 'absorption rate.' It goes like this: A...

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Last week, the media kept itself busy trumpeting Oprah’s upcoming retirement and Lou Dobbs’s unexpected resignation. Mrs. Palin’s solo comeback tour through the lower 48 had millions glued to their screens. And something extraordinary happened in Washington-- though you'd never know it from The...

Post off-topic ideas, links and Craigslist finds here. Please visit the HBB Forum.

Post off-topic ideas, links and Craigslist finds here. Please visit the HBB Forum.

Another look at the media and the housing bubble, in the southwest. The good: The Denver Post, March 2005: "'Lenders started giving money to people, and it's gotten out of hand,' said Jeannie Reeser, public trustee of Adams County. 'I am talking to people who have jobs, but their income doesn't...