The Housing Bubble Blog

Please visit and participate on the new Housing Bubble Blog Forum. As I mentioned yesterday, I am taking one more days absence from posting here in order to monitor that site and work on technical issues related to this blog.

Allow me to introduce the Housing Bubble Blog Forum! I'll be posting a little less as I work on a new business venture, so this is a way the HBB community can continue and expand interaction and communication. I'm not going to lay down a bunch of rules for the forum right now, other than I don't...

What do you see in your housing market this weekend? Lower prices? "Sales of single family homes in May were off 21% when compared to last year as the market is still trying to find its legs. The Florida Association of Realtors reports that 992 homes were sold during May with the median priced home...

ABC 7 News reports from California. "More than 1,600 foreclosure notices went out in the Bay Area in the first quarter of this year and a quarter of them came from Contra Costa County. That's a 140 percent increase in foreclosure activity in just one year. Misery had a lot of company on a Friday...

Readers suggested a topic on the possible future of the housing market. "Instead of just timing the bottom, let's map it out. Will there be more or less regulation? Heads rolling at the Fed? RTC 2.0? Unrest in the suburbs threatening the gentrified city core and art district riverside lofts...

Please post off-topic ideas, links and Craigslist finds here.

It's Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. "Marin's condominium market matched Bay Area trends. The median price dropped 26 percent to $410,000 in June from $470,000 in May. 'What you see in Marin is an adjustment, not a depreciation,' said Margaret Deedy, a broker in Greenbrae. 'It's a...

The Miami Herald reports from Florida. "The top job-loss state in the nation. Shrinking wages. Collapsing population growth. Record home foreclosures. Florida's economy is not just firmly and bleakly in the red, it will likely stay that way until next June, according to the state government's top...

Please post off-topic ideas, links and Craigslist finds here.

The Marin Independent Journal reports from California. "Marin home sales continued to slide as prices dropped dramatically across the Bay Area last month. Though Marin remained the only Bay Area county with a $1 million median price for single-family homes, the median was down from $1,125,000 a...

The Longmont Times Call reports from Colorado. "Home sales in Longmont are expected to surpass last year's numbers, and experts say that's one sign that the local market is healthier than many other parts of the country. 'All real estate is local,' said Marty Quigley, current president of the...

The Lawrence Journal World reports from Kansas. "It would have been a good month - 47 new single-family homes springing from the Lawrence ground. But neither local builders, nor the economy, had that type of month. Instead, 47 was the total number of Lawrence single-family housing starts for the...

Please post off-topic ideas, links and Craigslist finds here.

The Ventura County Star reports from California. "Last month's Southern California homes sales, while the highest in 10 months, continued at their slowest pace in more than two decades, DataQuick reported today. It was the slowest June in the agency's records, which date back to 1988. In Ventura...

Some housing bubble news from Wall Street and Washington. Bloomberg. "Confidence among U.S. homebuilders dropped to a record low in July. The National Association of Homebuilders/Wells Fargo sentiment index decreased to 16 from 18 in June, the Washington- based group said today. Readings under 50...

The Missoulian reports from Montana. "More and more condominiums are emerging in the commercially zoned areas of Missoula, ranging from new construction to apartment conversions. There are 210 condominiums currently on the market in the Missoula area, with list prices ranging from about $85,000 to...

Please post off-topic ideas, links and Craigslist finds here.

The Pasadena Star News reports from California. "Thousands of worried customers swarmed IndyMac Federal Bank FSB branches across the San Gabriel Valley on Monday. They came in response to a federal takeover of IndyMac Bancorp Inc. on Friday after regulators decided the bank did not have enough cash...

Some housing bubble news from Wall Street and Washington. Miami Herald, "When historians look back on the great economic scare of 2008, they will note that it was not until July 14 -- at least one year after the housing bubble burst -- that the Federal Reserve Board finally remembered that part of...